Aesthetic forms of expression as information delivery units

Abstract

This thesis presents the hypothesis that aesthetic forms of expression - such as music, painting, video - can be used for direct information delivery. In contrast to text or verbal narrative techniques, which require a conscious act of transcoding, these aesthetic forms stimulate more direct, emotional response. Such a hypothesis could open a new channel for the delivery of various types of information, providing us, in situations of information overload, with a background information channel, leaving our foreground concentrated on the more thought-demanding tasks. To develop a viable system based on the notion of using aesthetic forms of expression for direct information delivery, we need to develop the elements from which the system would consist. This research defines the "emon", a small discrete unit of aesthetic expression, which generates an expected emotional response that can affect human behavior. The study is currently restricted to the domain of music, with candidate emons being 1-15 seconds long loops of audio that are currently assumed to be the only audio source perceived by the user. The emons are characterized as units of an independently describable value, without the necessity of connection / abstraction to / from other pattern units - i.e. if a specific emon is played we'll be able to relate to its qualities without accessing our knowledge about other emons. In this thesis I discuss the guidelines for emons' creation, describe the categorizations process, and report the results of emons' testing performed by a group of 14 users. Given the hypothesis that the musical emons (small musical patterns) can be used to provide cues that affect behavior, a need arises in a system that can provide a further validity to the usefulness of that approach. In the "Implementation" chapter I report the ongoing development of the GuideShoes wearable system, that assists user in navigating an open space, such as streets, by sequencing emons (musical patterns) as navigational cues. I also discuss the navigation tools written for this project.