Professor Harry Wechsler 
Department of Computer Science 
George Mason University 
Fairfax, VA 22030

e-mail : wechsler@cs.gmu.edu
www: http:/cs.gmu.edu/~wechsler 
(703)993-1533 (office) 
(703)993-1530 (sec) 
(703)993-1710 (fax)


 

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
 

SPRING   2002

CS777 - Human-Computer Intelligent Interaction
 

Class Information

001  35097  Thursday  4:30 p.m. – 7:10 p.m.  R A243

Office Hours

Thursday 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. or by appointment (SITE II – Rm. 461)

Textbook

John M. Carroll (Ed.), Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium,
Addison-Wesley, 2002.

References

R. Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg (Eds.), (2nd Ed.), Readings in Human
Computer Interaction, Morgan Kaufmann, 1995.

R. Cipolla and A. Pentland (Eds.), Computer-Vision for Human-Machine Interaction,
Cambridge University Press, 1998.

G. Langton (Ed.), Artificial Life - An Overview, MIT Press, 1997.

P. Maes (Ed.), Designing Autonomous Agents, MIT Press, 1994.

M. Maybury and W. Wahlster, Readings in Intelligent User Interfaces, Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.

B. Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer
Interaction, (3rd Ed.), Addison-Wesley, 1998.

Contents

The course covers current interdisciplinary research and technological advances in Human - Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Centered Systems (HCS). In every day use of computers to solve human problems, a central and crucial factor is the flow of information and control between human and machine. Towards that end smart (HCI) interfaces continuously adapt the interface medium to meet specific users needs and demands.  The emergence of human-centered interaction buttresses the utilization of both verbal and nonverbal communication to create a richer, more versatile and effective environment for human activity. Human-centered design is problem-driven, activity-centered, and context-bound, and employs computing technology as a tool for the user, not as a substitute. Thus, the emphasis is on supporting human activity using adaptive and smart interfaces rather than on building (fully) autonomous systems that mimic humans. One approach to a human-centered use of intelligent system technology seeks to make such systems "team players" in the context of  human activity, where people and computer technology interact to achieve a common purpose. Another possible approach focuses on building effective computational tools for modeling, interpreting, fusing and analyzing cognitive and social interactions such as speech, vision, gesture, haptic inputs, and/or affective state expressed using body language. The goal for smart interfaces is to expand on the human perceptual, intellectual, and motor activities.  The technology and tools proposed to determine should have the added benefit of developing a framework by which one can improve our predictions of the consequences of various interface decisions on behavior. In particular the course emphasizes that human behavior encompasses both apparent performance and the hidden mental state behind performance Towards that end we discuss an integrated system approach that can measure the corresponding perceptual and cognitive states of the user, and then adapt the HCI and reconfigure the computing environment for enhanced human performance and satisfaction.  The methodology followed is one of design using engineering principles, cognitive modeling, and comparative performance evaluation. Students are expected to complete a term project and to make an in depth presentation on a topic related to Human Computer Intelligent Interaction (HCII) / HCS. 

 

Grade Policy

- Semester project of your HCI choice – team projects are encouraged  60%
- in depth presentation / survey report on HCI topics related to your project 20%

- class presentation on reading assignment 20%

 

Important Dates

 

Spring Break – March 14

Project & Survey Presentation – April 25 and May 2

Last day of Classes – May 2

 

Topics, Schedule and Assignments { (textbook / presenter)  (topics & papers / prsenter)}

 

January 24 : (Ch. 1 – Effective Use and Reuse of HCI : Wechsler) (Direct Manipulation,

Delegation, and Human-Computer Intelligent Interaction – Smart Interfaces : Wechsler)

 

January 31 : (Ch. 3 - Design in MoRAS (Mosaic of Responsive Adaptive Systems)

& Ch. 4 - Distributed Cognition :  Allen) (Perceptual User Interfaces I :  Wechsler)

 

February 7 : (Ch. 5 – Complex Computer Systems & Ch. 6 – User Interface Evaluation : Wechsler) 

(Perceptual User Interfaces II &  Computer Vision for Human-Machine Interaction : Wechsler)

 

February 14: (cognitive modeling - GOMS, SOAR, and EPIC : Charmichael)

(cognitive modeling - ACT-R/PM : Schoelles)

 

February 21 : (Ch. 12 – Interaction Spaces : Doswell) (Affective Computing and

Attentive Environments: Wechsler & Pupillometry : Heismann)

 

February 28 : (Ch. 19 – Multimodal HCI : Wechsler) (Speech Processing and Lip Reading : Harmony)

 

March 7 : (Ch. 21 – Interfaces That Give and Take Advice & Ch. 22 – Recommender Systems : Marcu)

(Smart Interfaces for VCR Remote Control : Yven) (Multimodal Interaction: Oviatt et al., Sharma et al. : Li)

 

March 14 : SPRING  BREAK

 

March 21 : (Ch. 23 – Natural Interfaces & Ch.  24 – Situated Computing &

Ch. 25 – Mixed Reality : Cui) (Natural Language Processing – NLP : Wechsler)

 

March 28 : (Ch. 26 – Tangible User Interfaces : Krishnaswamy) (Visual Thinking,

Interface Metaphors : Shabanah)

 

April 4 : (Ch. 27 – Learner Center Design & Ch. 28 – Designing Technologies for

Civic Sector Use : Wechsler) (Direct Manipulation, Virtual Environments : Marcu)

(Artificial Life : Wechsler)

 

April 11 : (Embodied Conversational Pedagogical Agents in Network Virtual Reality : Doswell)

(Interpretation of Human Behaviors, W5+, Smart Rooms and Avatars : Zheng) (Biometrics and Face Recognition: Wechsler)

 

April 18 : (Human Factors : Charmichael) (Ubiquitous Computing: Wechsler)

 

April 25 & May 2 – PROJECT & SURVEY  PRESENTATION

 

 

CLASS  PROJECTS:

 

1. Cognitive Modeling for Computer Games : Zhang (wzhang2@gmu.edu),

Li (fli1@gmu.edu), Cui (jcui@gmu.edu), Charmichael (dcarmichg@att.net),

and Krishnasawamy (nkrishna@gmu.edu)

 

2. Adaptive User Interface : Marcu (dmarcu@cs.gmu.edu)

 

3. Metaphors : Shabanah (sshabana@gmu.edu)

 

4. GUI for Bioinformatics: Allen (david.allen@celera.com)

 

5. Hierarchical gesture interpretation: Harmony (dharmony@gmu.edu)

 

6. Decision Making : Charmichael (dcarmich@att.net)

 

7. Embodied Conversational Agent:  Doswell (jayfus@juxtopia.com)