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International audience; This study seeks to investigate whether users activate cognitive representations of their partner’s action when they are involved in tactile collaborative tasks. The social Simon effect is a spatial stimulus–response interference induced by the mere presence of a partner in a go/nogo task. It has been extensively studied in the visual and auditory sensory modalities, but never before in the tactile modality. We compared the performances of 28 participants in three tasks: (1) a standard Simon task where participants responded to two different tactile stimuli applied to their fingertips with either their left or right foot, (2) an individual go/nogo task where participants responded to only one stimulus and (3) a social go/nogo task where they again responded to only one stimulus, but were partnered with another person who responded to the complementary stimulus. The interference effect due to spatial incongruence between the side where participants received the stimulus and the foot used to answer increased significantly in the standard Simon task compared to the social go/nogo task. Such a difference was not observed between the social and individual go/nogo tasks. Performances were nevertheless enhanced in the social go/nogo task, but irrespectively of the stimulus–response congruency. This study is the first to report a negative result for the social Simon effect in the tactile modality. Results suggest that cognitive representation of the co-actor is weaker in this modality.

Dans ce papier, nous presentons une plateforme de suivi d'activite continu et de guidage des patients post-AVC a domicile durant leurs activites de la vie quotidienne. La plateforme consiste en un verre intelligent qui embarque des capteurs afin de suivre l'activite du bras et de la main lors de la journee. Le verre detecte son orientation, le niveau d'eau, sa position par rapport a une cible specifique ainsi que les tremblements. De plus, un affichage permet de guider le patient dans ses mouvements. Nous presentons egalement deux etudes cliniques prevues avec les therapeutes et les patients.

This paper presents a new ecosystem of smart objects designed to monitor motor functions of stroke patients during rehabilitation sessions at the hospital. The ecosystem has been designed starting from an observational study as well as the Action Research Arm Test. It includes a jack and a cube for hand grasping monitoring and a smart watch for the arm dynamic monitoring. The objects embed various sensors able to monitor the pressure of the fingers, the position of the fingers, their orientation, their movements and the tremors of the patient during the manipulation tasks. The developed objects can connect, via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi technology, to an Android mobile application in order to send collected data during the execution of the manipulation task. Performances achieved during the sessions will be displayed on the tablet. Using the collected data, the therapists could assess the upper arm motor abilities of the patient by accessing qualitative information that is usually evaluated by visual estimations or not reported and adapt the rehabilitation program if necessary. The objects, as well as the visualization interfaces, have been evaluated with health care professionals in terms of design and functionalities. The results from this evaluation show that the objects׳ design is adapted to bring useful information on the patient׳s motor activities, while the visualization interfaces are useful, but require new functionalities. Finally, a preliminary study has been carried out with stroke patients in order to assess the usability and acceptability of such an ecosystem during rehabilitation sessions. This study indicated that the patients are willing to use the ecosystem during the sessions thanks to its easy usage.

The paper presents an ergonomic analysis carried out in the early phases of an RD project. The purpose was to investigate the functioning of today's Automotive Service Technicians (ASTs) training in order to inform the design of an Augmented Reality (AR) teaching aid. The first part of the paper presents a literature review of some major problems encountered by ASTs today. The benefits of AR as technological aid are also introduced. Then, the methodology and the results of two case studies are presented. The first study is based on interviews with trainers and trainees; the second one on observations in real training settings. The results support the assumption that today's ASTs' training could be regarded as a community-of-practice (CoP). Therefore, AR could be useful as a collaboration tool, offering a shared virtual representation of real vehicle's parts, which are normally invisible unless dismantled (e.g. the parts of a hydraulic automatic transmission). We conclude on the methods and the technologies to support the automotive CoP.

Il est couramment affirme que la Realite Augmentee (RA) ouvre de nouvelles perspectives pour la formation. Aujourd’hui, on constate que peu de donnees objectives viennent etayer les hypotheses concernant l’efficacite et l’utilisabilite de cette technologie. Cet article presente une revue de certains resultats empiriques actuels sur l’ergonomie de la RA pour l’apprentissage. Les conclusions sur l’efficacite de la technologie pour la formation ne sont pas tranchees. Actuellement, la RA se revele efficace pour la presentation d’un feed-back sur l’avancement d’une tâche, realisee en parallele avec d’autres tâches, ou pour l’assistance au rappel. Nous avancons l’idee que le nombre limite de resultats empiriques concluants est en partie du a l’absence d’une approche centree sur l’utilisateur et l’apprentissage tout au long du processus de conception et d’evaluation des systemes de RA. En conclusion, nous soulignons l’importance d’une telle orientation.

14th European Congress of Psychology. Linking technology and psychology: feeding the mind, energy for life, Milan, Italie, 07-/07/2015 - 10/07/2015; Old pedestrians are overrepresented in fatal accidents. Many studies have consistently shown slower decision making, wrong time estimation, slower walking speed and navigation difficulties that lead to dangerous pedestrian behaviors and/or travel reduction with aging. In this context, the present study aims at developing and assessing the efficiency of a vibrotactile navigation assistance to support old pedestrians to cross the street and get around safely. To this end, 40 old participants aged between 70 and 80 and 20 young adults take part in two simulated pedestrian tasks. The first one is a street crossing task where participants actually cross a two-way experimental road in a virtual environment. The second one is a navigation task where participants have to go from point A to point B in a virtual city. Each task is performed with and without a vibrotactile wristband delivering alert messages (street crossing) and directional messages (navigation). Data are currently being collected. We hypothesize that both young and old pedestrians will benefit from the vibrotactile aid system, with fewer dangerous street crossing decisions and more efficient navigation patterns. We expect a stronger effect in the old participants' group. If such a vibrotactile device offsets difficulties related to cognitive and perceptual decline in old pedestrians, it can contribute to maintaining their travel autonomy and reduce the risk of fatal accidents.

This exploratory study was carried out in the early phases of an R & D project for the implementation of an augmented reality-based (AR-based) job aid for automotive service technicians (ASTs). Prior to the study, key stakeholder groups had little clarity on the actual goal of the future system. Strong emphasis was placed on providing technicians with step-by-step guidance during repairs to new models of vehicles. AR was also assumed to be useful as a visualization aid for inaccessible vehicle parts. An ergonomic study was proposed to help clarify the high-level end users’ requirements. The study, on 11 mechanics, was done using the critical incident technique. The incidents were collected through interviews. The results showed that the major difficulty in ASTs’ activity was diagnosing electronic components on new models of vehicles. Other critical factors appeared in technicians’ verbal reports, e.g., physical and organisational difficulties. The visualization of inaccessible vehicle parts, which was stakeholders’ primary concern, only seemed problematic in one case. On the basis of these results, we discuss the applicability of AR to ASTs’ work as well as a few perspectives of the study. Relevance to industry There exist a number of job aids for ASTs, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. This paper focuses on the advantages of AR to assist ASTs’ activity. We also report an empirical study on ASTs’ major difficulties with new models of vehicles.

This paper presents an ongoing work on a multisensory Augmented Reality system for engineering education. The system, composed of both software and hardware elements, will be used in embedded electronics courses. We first present similar systems and their potential advantages for education. Then, we discuss the originality of our system. Finally, we present the general approach as well as a number of methods that we will use for the future learnercentered evaluation of the proposed AR system in realistic settings.

Part 5: Gesture and Tactile User Interfaces; International audience; We present the design and evaluation of a tactile editor, TactiPEd for the rapid and easy prototyping of vibrotactile patterns. It is based on the graphical metaphor of the shape of the device, which is used for the tuning of the main tactile characteristics, including amplitude, frequency and duration of tactile sequences. The editor includes file systems functionalities using the XML format along with playing and recording functionalities. The editor was thoroughly evaluated: a usability evaluation was conducted with 9 participants, the designed metaphor-based patterns were analyzed for insights on cross-device design and finally the editor was tested with several devices. TactiPEd was successfully and easily used with little training and enabled users to design patterns in little time. The resulting patterns shared common characteristics across the devices for a given metaphor.

International audience; This article presents an exploratory study on older adults' mobility. The study was based on both observations in a complex built environment (a university hospital), and on an online questionnaire distributed to people aged 50 and more. The main objective of the two studies presented in this paper was to determine the difficulties encountered by older adults when moving outdoors and indoors. A secondary objective was to investigate the resources used in order to cope with the difficulties. The results shows that the main mobility obstacles for older adults are related, firstly, to the salience of landmarks and the spatial organization of the environment and, secondly, to the age-related decline in physical, sensory and physiological abilities. Our studies show that the main resources to overcome these obstacles are landmarks and personnel support in the hospital and Internet, GPS, plans and maps outdoors.

This paper describes a novel tool for eliciting user requirements early in the design process of mobile applications. The "Mobile Oracle", as we have called it, is intended to help developers and designers obtain a better understanding of what the user wants at different points in space and time. It is an extension of a lo-fi version of the well-established Wizard of Oz technique, but it adds an "on demand" component to force users to explicitly request the information they need. The technique has been tested in an investigation involving 15 users (sighted, visually impaired, and elderly). Our preliminary results show it to generate valuable information concerning the ways people ask about directions and distances, as well as the services they would like to have in future mobile applications.

This chapter explains a vision based platform developed within a European project on decision support and self-management for stroke survivors. The objective is to provide a low cost home rehabilitation system. Our main concern is to maintain the patients' physical activity while carrying a continuous monitoring of his physical and emotional state. This is essential for recovering some autonomy in daily life activities and preventing a second damaging stroke. Post-stroke patients are initially subject to physical therapy under the supervision of a health professional to follow up on their daily physical activity and monitor their emotional state. However, due to social and economical constraints, home based rehabilitation is eventually suggested. Our vision platform paves the way towards having low cost home rehabilitation.

It is widely accepted that emotion processing difficulties are involved in Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). An increasing number of studies have focused on the development of training programs and have shown promising results. However, most of these programs are appropriate for individuals with high-functioning ASC (HFA) but exclude individuals with low-functioning ASC (LFA). We have developed a computer-based game called JeStiMulE based on logical skills to teach emotions to individuals with ASC, independently of their age, intellectual, verbal and academic level. The aim of the present study was to verify the usability of JeStiMulE (which is its adaptability, effectiveness and efficiency) on a heterogeneous ASC group. We hypothesized that after JeStiMulE training, a performance improvement would be found in emotion recognition tasks. A heterogeneous group of thirty-three children and adolescents with ASC received two one-hour JeStiMulE sessions per week over four weeks. In order to verify the usability of JeStiMulE, game data were collected for each participant. Furthermore, all participants were presented before and after training with five emotion recognition tasks, two including pictures of game avatars (faces and gestures) and three including pictures of real-life characters (faces, gestures and social scenes). Descriptive data showed suitable adaptability, effectiveness and efficiency of JeStiMulE. Results revealed a significant main effect of Session on avatars (ANOVA: F (1,32) = 98.48, P < .001) and on pictures of real-life characters (ANOVA: F (1,32) = 49.09, P < .001). A significant Session × Task × Emotion interaction was also found for avatars (ANOVA: F (6,192) = 2.84, P = .01). This triple interaction was close to significance for pictures of real-life characters (ANOVA: F (12,384) = 1.73, P = .057). Post-hoc analyses revealed that 30 out of 35 conditions found a significant increase after training. JeStiMulE appears to be a promising tool to teach emotion recognition not only to individuals with HFA but also those with LFA. JeStiMulE is thus based on ASC-specific skills, offering a model of logical processing of social information to compensate for difficulties with intuitive social processing. Comite de Protection des Personnes Sud Mediterranee V (CPP): reference number 11.046 ( https://cpp-sud-mediterranee-v.fr/ ).