HCC: Small: Getting a Grip on the Numerical World: Kinestheic Interaction with Simulations to Support Collaborative Discovery in Systems Biology

计算技术极大地扩展了可以通过数值分析解决的问题的范围。然而，很少有工具支持计算科学中协作学习和发现的组合实践。这个项目借鉴了最近在具身认知方面的工作，该工作表明，构建模型的过程--特别是具有动态可视化的模型--可以帮助在复杂问题领域中进行概念理解。研究人员将开发一个系统，通过以具体化的方式重新表示抽象的科学问题，来支持和加强协作发现。拟议的系统将允许研究人员将视觉空间技能与计算技术结合起来，以在复杂生物系统的建模中发展理解和合作。同时，该项目将开发支持科学和工程中的协作建模的技术。因此，该项目将测试具身认知理论如何为交互设计提供信息，并创建关于协作发现如何在科学中发生的显性知识。通过改变抽象科学问题和技术的表示方式，所提出的系统将使研究人员更容易通过体验来理解和操纵这些科学问题。这种对复杂问题的重新呈现可能有几个好处：1)帮助研究人员找到解决那些否则会花费太长时间或看起来太难解决的问题的方法；2)增强科学和工程学科中以问题为导向的学习方法；3)使跨学科的学习者或研究人员小组能够聚集在一起，以动手的方式研究复杂问题(并以共享的方式表示)；以及4)使复杂的科学和工程问题更容易为日常公民所接受。该项目还可能通过建立体现认知作为交互设计的框架，对新兴的交互技术产生重大影响。

Computational techniques have greatly extended the range of problems that can be solved by numerical analysis. However, few tools support the combined practice of collaborative learning and discovery in the computational sciences. This project draws on recent work in embodied cognition, which suggests that the process of building models--particularly models with dynamic visualizations--can aid conceptual understanding in complex problem domains. The researchers will develop a system to support and enhance collaborative discovery by re-representing abstract scientific problems in an embodied way. The proposed system will allow researchers to couple visuo-spatial skills with computational techniques to develop understanding and collaborate in the modeling of complex biological systems. Simultaneously, the project will develop techniques to support collaborative modeling in science and engineering. The project will thus test how theories from embodied cognition can inform interaction design and create explicit knowledge about how collaborative discovery happens in the sciences. By changing the way abstract scientific problems and techniques are represented, the proposed system will make these scientific problem easier for researchers to understand and manipulate through embodied experience. This re-representation of complex problems may have several benefits: 1) help researchers find solutions to problems that would otherwise take too long or seem too difficult to solve; 2) enhance problem-driven learning approaches in science and engineering disciplines; 3) enable interdisciplinary groups of learners or researchers to come together and work on (and develop a shared representation of) complex problems in a hands-on manner; and 4) make complex science and engineering problems more accessible to everyday citizens. The project may also have significant impacts on emerging interactive technologies by establishing embodied cognition as a framework for interaction design.