Emerging Communication

Series and list of volumes

    Communication in VR

    Towards CyberPsychology

    Say not to say

    Being there

    Ambient Intelligence

    The hidden structure
    of interaction

    From Communication to
    Presence

IOS Press

Editorial Board

Series and list of volumes - Summary

Studies on new technologies and practices in communication
publishes state-of-the-art monographic volumes that examine a broad range of issues in communication technology, theories, research, practices and applications.
It presents the latest development in the field of traditional and computer- mediated communication with emphasis on novel technologies and theoretical work in this multidisciplinary area of pure and applied research.



1. Communication in VR

Communications Through Virtual Technologies: Identity, Community and Technology in the Communication Age

For many researchers virtual reality (VR) is first of all a technology. This vision is also well reflected in the growing research work concerned with virtual environments: most of it has addressed more the development of new rendering technologies rather than the highly interactive and dynamic nature of user-system interaction that VR supports. However, this focus on technology is disappointing for developers and researchers. To overcome this limitation, the book describes VR as an advanced communication tool: a communication interface in single-user VR, and a communication medium in the case of multi-user VR. This book is part of a general inquiry into the implications of new technologies like VR. The shifting structures of communication systems present historic opportunities and challenges for communication researchers and that these require multidisciplinary approaches to communication research. Virtual reality may become the ship that helps us sail the vast oceans of cyberspace. This book is our attempt to construct a paper telescope to scan the horizon for signs of communication (and life) in the age of virtual reality.

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2. Towards CyberPsychology

Mind, Cognition and Society in the Internet Age

Apart from studying online environments, psychology is also discovering the great opportunities inherent in this medium. Psychological applications using the Net, especially the World Wide Web, have recently appeared. Specifically, it is possible to identify ten types of psychological Internet applications: information resources on psychological concepts and issues; self-help guides; psychological testing and assessment; help in deciding to undergo therapy; information about specific psychological services; single-session psychological advice through e-mail or e-bulletin boards; ongoing personal counseling and therapy through e-mail; real-time counseling through chat, web telephony, and videoconferencing; synchronous and asynchronous support groups, discussion groups, and group counseling; and psychological and social research. Drawing on research in the social sciences, communications, and other fields, this book wants to analyze how online environments - the Internet, Virtual Reality and Telemedicine - influencing the experience of psychology. By defining a new research area, the “CyberPsychology”, the Editors tries to provide some guidelines for understanding the processes by which we manage our experience - construct identities, create communities and make meanings - through the most advanced communication media. The topics discussed directly involve critical issues for designers and users, and are presented with scientific competence and suggestions for actual use.

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3. Say not to Say

New perspectives on miscommunication

Many of us, when asked about communication, usually think of it as a mere information transmission from a source to a receiver by means of coding-encoding processes. However, different studies during the last fifty years clearly underlined that one thing is what is said, another is what is meant. In fact, many meanings are characterized by fuzzy boundaries that are defined by the context in which they are expressed. Within this perspective, meaning is not a fixed system of univocal correspondences between expression and content, but a set of possible inferences that have different probability degrees of realization.
Starting from these premises, the Editors try to provide some guidelines to understand the processes by which we manage our experience - make meanings, construct identities and search for friends and partners - through the analysis of miscommunication processes. According to the approach proposed by the Editors, miscommunication is considered not only as a defect or a mismatch, but also as a plus and as a powerful device in the hands of the communicators. In this sense, miscommunication can be considered as a chance, because it enhances the degrees of freedom available to communicators in their interaction.
This vision has a strong effect on the possibility of improving the communication process: communicators have the opportunity to manage their communicative strategy in the best possible way, given the contextual constraints and their respective encyclopaedia of knowledge. Through the choice of specific linguistic and extra-linguistic hints and clues - intonation, the word order in an utterance, an extra stress and so on - the speaker can convey different meanings and adapt them to a specific context.
The topics discussed directly involve critical issues for many application areas such as marketing, advertising, group management, media and new media development, and are presented with scientific competence and suggestions for actual use.

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4. Being There

Concepts, Effects and Measurement of User Presence in Synthetic Environments

"Presence", the sense of "being there" in a mediated environment, has been applied to describe the user experience when interacting with advanced media interfaces such as virtual environments. Why examine the concept of presence? There are compelling practical and theoretical reasons. The definition of the construct of presence is of particular interest today because it has the potential relevance for the design and evaluation of a broad range of interactive and non-interactive media and applications in several areas such as medicine, entertainment, education and training. An enhanced sense of presence plays an important role in technologies such as the video telephone, high definition television (HDTV), 3G portable phones, home and arcade video games, the World Wide Web, and more. The book examines the different facets of the concept of presence. It begins by noting practical and theoretical reasons for studying this concept. Different theories of presence are identified and a detailed description of the concepts included in these conceptualizations is presented. Existing research and about the factors that encourage or discourage a sense of presence in media users as well as the physiological and psychological effects of presence are then outlined. Finally, suggestions concerning possible evolutions of this concept allowed by the diffusion of ambient intelligence and 3G portable communication are presented.

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5. Ambient Intelligence

The evolution of technology, communication and cognition towards the future of human-computer interaction

The metaphor of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) tries to picture a vision of the future where all of us will be surrounded by “intelligent” electronic environments, and this ambient has claims to being sensitive and responsive to our needs. A multitude of sensors and actuators are already embedded in very-small or very large information and communication technologies, and it is only a question of time when better use can be gained from these complex (yet still extraordinarily primitive) technology systems.
The emphasis of AmI is on greater user-friendliness, more efficient services support, user-empowerment, and support for human interactions. Focusing on these features, Europe can exploit its technology advantage in areas such as mobile communications, portable devices, systems integration, embedded computing and intelligent systems design. However, the success of this vision will be based on the social dimension of innovation, the ability as well as the willingness of society to use, absorb or adapt to technological opportunities.
The goal of this volume is to assess the technologies and processes that are behind the AmI vision to help the development of state-of-the-art applications. More in detail, this volume aims at supporting researchers and scientists, interested in the understanding and exploiting the potential of AmI, seeing that strong multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach is a key requirement for large scale technology innovation and the development of effective applications.

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6. The Hidden Structure of Interaction

From Neurons to Culture Patterns

The idea of complexity states that most things tend to organize themselves into recurring patterns, even when these patterns are not immediately visible to an external observer. The general name for the scientific field concerned with the behavior over time of a dynamic system is “complexity theory”. The dynamic systems – systems capable of changing over time – are the focus of this approach, and its concern is with the predictability of their behavior. The systems of interest to the complexity theory, under certain conditions, perform in regular, predictable ways; under other conditions they exhibit behavior in which regularity and predictability is lost. The concepts of stable and unstable behavior are part of the traditional repertoire of physical science. What is novel is the concept of something in between – chaotic behavior. For chaos here we refer to systems which display behavior that, though it has certain regularities, defies prediction. How does the order emerge from the chaos? How can we predict the behavior of a chaotic system? Over the last 30 years and more, trying to identify the hidden patterns behind chaotic behavior became the focus of attention in a number of scientific disciplines. These range as widely as astronomy, chemistry, evolutionary biology, geology and psychology.

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7. From Communication to Presence

Cognition, Emotions and Culture towards the Ultimate Communicative Experience
Festschrift in honor of Luigi Anolli

The convergence between telecommunication, virtual reality and artificial intelligence technologies resulted in a dramatic increase and modification of the opportunities to experience the physical and social world. In the latest media - high definition TV, computer games and, especially, Virtual Reality – the user is no more a passive receiver but fully experiences the media content: he is present in it.
What is presence and how can we manipulate it within a communicative experience? The book tries to outline a unitary theory of interpersonal relationship where communication and presence are simply the two faces of the same coin: intersubjective experience. In particular, the main message of the book is the following: the cooperative activities are created and governed by a reciprocal intentional game between the communicators regulated by the level of presence experienced by the interactants.
Miscommunication has a central role in these processes. This is why this book tries to provide the reader with worthwhile options for a vast array of specific communicative contexts – leisure, learning and therapy - and discusses the theories and methods needed to understand them. After completing this text, the reader should thus be better equipped to make more reasoned and more effective communication decisions.