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The appropriation of digital artefacts involves their use, which has changed, evolved or developed beyond their original design. Thus, to understand appropriation, we must understand use. We define use as the active, purposive exploitation of the affordances offered by the technology and from this perspective; appropriation emerges as a natural consequence of this enactive use. Enaction tells us that perception is an active process. It is something we do, and not something that happens to us. From this reading, use then becomes the active exploitation of the affordances offered us by the artefact, system or service. In turn, we define appropriation as the engagement with these actively disclosed affordances-disclosed as a consequence of, not just, seeing but of seeing as. We present a small case study that highlights instances of perception as an actively engaged skill. We conclude that appropriation is a simple consequence of enactive perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a pair of repertory grid studies that explore the attachment people have for digital and non-digital artefacts. In the first study we found no clear distinctions between emotional attachment to digital and non-digital artefacts: people are attached to their mobile phones in much the same way as to a childhood teddy bear. There was also evidence that attachment and the physical availability or proximity of the artefact were associated. In the second study we examined the aesthetics of attachment to digital and non-digital artefacts. Again the proximity or availability of the artefacts appeared to be important. Items that were carried about or worn, such as wristwatches and laptops, were closely associated, while TVs and games consoles were not. In all, there does not appear to be any qualitative difference between the attachment people have for digital and non-digital artefacts. Nor do aesthetics appear to play a part in this attachment. However, the physical proximity of these artefacts is strongly associated with our (inward) feelings of attachment to them, while we can also recognise the importance of this relationship to how we (outwardly) present ourselves to the world and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broadly, there are two mutually exclusive accounts of how people (nonspecialist users) reason about and conceptualize interactive technology. The first is based on classical cognitive psychology and is characterized by the term mental model. The second, drawing on concepts from social cognition, observes that people often anthropomorphize technology. We argue that people are able to exhibit both of these quite different styles of cognition, which Baron-Cohen has described as systemizing and empathizing. The former is associated with the drive to analyze, explore, and construct a system, whereas the latter is the ability to spontaneously tune into another's thoughts and feelings. The propensity to systemize might give rise to a mental model, while the empathizing tendency might tend to anthropomorphize technology. We present an empirical study that lends support for the above position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Jörn Hurtienne on image schemata, one by Jelle van Dijk on embodied embedded cognition (EEC), and one by Lynne Hall and colleagues on theory of mind methods.