Benjamin Cowan | University of Birmingham (original) (raw)
My academic interests can be summarised (crudely) as focusing on how technology psychologically affects the user when in interaction and how technology can influence behaviour.
I am currently working on the TEDDI project "Taking on the Teenagers" looking at ways to influence teenagers energy behaviour through mobile interactions. This is a project in collaboration with researchers at the ChiCI group at UCLAN, the FIT Lab at Swansea University, PaCT Lab at Northumbria University and the Knowledge Lab at the University of London.
Leading on from my undergraduate interest in alignment in dialogue I also have a keen interest in how such a linguistic phenomenon may present itself in human computer interactions with natural dialogue systems. My research on this focuses on how this linguistic concept differs in human-human and computer human dyads as well as its potential use as a quality barometer for natural interaction with computers. I ma currently conducting work with Holly Branigan at the University of Edinburgh on this topic.
From my PhD research I am also interested in the way that system characteristics and usability affect anxiety towards technology, especially in a wiki context. This research lies very much in the growing field of User eXperience (UX) and applies experimental psychology and usability engineering principles to gather understanding in how system features may lead to (or indeed reduce) anxious reactions towards technology.
I am also interested in the effects of social identity and group categorisation on emotional, behavioural and psycholinguistic phenomema. My undergraduate research focused on the effect of group norms in syntactic alignment in dialogue. I have recently been interested in how social identity influences editing and contributing behaviour in online knowledge communities.
I also hold a keen interest in the application of statistics and experimental research methodology in the observation of HCI issues. I previously tutored the 2nd year Psychology Methodology and Statistics course at the University of Edinburgh's Psychology Department for 3 years.
Supervisors: Mervyn A. Jack
less
Uploads
Papers by Benjamin Cowan
Interacting with Computers, 2014
Proceedings of BCS HCI 2013, 2013
Interacting with Computers, 2013
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2013
Proceedings of CHI EA 2013, 2013
Proceedings of BCS HCI 2012, 2012
Proceedings of BCS HCI 2012, 2012
Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 2014
Proceedings of CHI EA 2013, 2013
Technology is pervasive in higher education and the development of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis ha... more Technology is pervasive in higher education and the development
of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis have recently added to higher
educations IT mix. Even though wikis are increasingly being used
in higher education little is known about the wiki user experience
and specifically user emotions when using such systems. Research
has suggested that user’s feel individual ownership over the
content they include and feel negatively when their edits are
amended or deleted. Such research highlights potential issues in
terms of content flexibility in the wiki user experience. This
research aims to experimentally investigate the effect of
experiencing wiki flexibility on anxiety when editing wikis
subsequently. The research also measured psychological
constructs of anxiety (state and trait anxiety) to determine the
concurrent validity of the wiki anxiety measure and infer the
psychometric properties of anxiety felt during editing.
Undergraduate Psychology students who had previously edited
wikis (N=74) experienced their contributions being left
unchanged, added to and deleted and replaced by other content by
a confederate during the experiment. We found users anxiety
during editing was significantly related to state anxiety (p<0.001)
and not trait anxiety (p>0.05) suggesting the anxiety experienced
is situational rather than a reflection of a trait to be anxious. Users
felt more anxious when editing the wiki in their first edit than
after experiencing any of the conditions (p<0.001). Users did not
significantly differ in anxiety when editing the wiki after their
edits were left unchanged, added to or replaced by other users
(p>0.05). Such findings are discussed in terms of sample
characteristics and the closed group nature of wikis in higher
education and further research is needed to extend such findings
to open wiki sites more common outside of course use.
This paper describes planned experiment-based research observing the existence of syntactic align... more This paper describes planned experiment-based
research observing the existence of syntactic alignment
in natural language computer interactions. This
research will achieve this through using a computer human
version of the confederate communication task
commonly used in psycholinguistic research observing
syntactic alignment in human-human dialogue. The
motivations of the work lie in observing the existence of
syntactic alignment in human-computer dyads and how
the naturalness of interaction affects the appearance of
such a linguistic phenomenon. The work will also aim to
identify how such a linguistic effect links to users’
satisfaction and quality judgments of interaction.
Proceedings of IADIS International …, Jan 1, 2008
Proceedings of the 2009 British …, 2009
Interacting with Computers, 2011
With the advent of Web 2.0, the number of IT systems used in university courses is growing. Yet r... more With the advent of Web 2.0, the number of IT systems used in university courses is growing. Yet research consistently shows that a significant proportion of students are anxious about computer use. The quality of first experience with computers has been consistently mentioned as a significant contributor to anxiety onset. However the effect of users&amp;amp;amp;#x27; first experience on system related anxiety has not to the authors&amp;amp;amp;#x27; knowledge been researched using controlled experiments. Indeed little experiment based research has been ...
Interacting with Computers, 2014
Proceedings of BCS HCI 2013, 2013
Interacting with Computers, 2013
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2013
Proceedings of CHI EA 2013, 2013
Proceedings of BCS HCI 2012, 2012
Proceedings of BCS HCI 2012, 2012
Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 2014
Proceedings of CHI EA 2013, 2013
Technology is pervasive in higher education and the development of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis ha... more Technology is pervasive in higher education and the development
of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis have recently added to higher
educations IT mix. Even though wikis are increasingly being used
in higher education little is known about the wiki user experience
and specifically user emotions when using such systems. Research
has suggested that user’s feel individual ownership over the
content they include and feel negatively when their edits are
amended or deleted. Such research highlights potential issues in
terms of content flexibility in the wiki user experience. This
research aims to experimentally investigate the effect of
experiencing wiki flexibility on anxiety when editing wikis
subsequently. The research also measured psychological
constructs of anxiety (state and trait anxiety) to determine the
concurrent validity of the wiki anxiety measure and infer the
psychometric properties of anxiety felt during editing.
Undergraduate Psychology students who had previously edited
wikis (N=74) experienced their contributions being left
unchanged, added to and deleted and replaced by other content by
a confederate during the experiment. We found users anxiety
during editing was significantly related to state anxiety (p<0.001)
and not trait anxiety (p>0.05) suggesting the anxiety experienced
is situational rather than a reflection of a trait to be anxious. Users
felt more anxious when editing the wiki in their first edit than
after experiencing any of the conditions (p<0.001). Users did not
significantly differ in anxiety when editing the wiki after their
edits were left unchanged, added to or replaced by other users
(p>0.05). Such findings are discussed in terms of sample
characteristics and the closed group nature of wikis in higher
education and further research is needed to extend such findings
to open wiki sites more common outside of course use.
This paper describes planned experiment-based research observing the existence of syntactic align... more This paper describes planned experiment-based
research observing the existence of syntactic alignment
in natural language computer interactions. This
research will achieve this through using a computer human
version of the confederate communication task
commonly used in psycholinguistic research observing
syntactic alignment in human-human dialogue. The
motivations of the work lie in observing the existence of
syntactic alignment in human-computer dyads and how
the naturalness of interaction affects the appearance of
such a linguistic phenomenon. The work will also aim to
identify how such a linguistic effect links to users’
satisfaction and quality judgments of interaction.
Proceedings of IADIS International …, Jan 1, 2008
Proceedings of the 2009 British …, 2009
Interacting with Computers, 2011
With the advent of Web 2.0, the number of IT systems used in university courses is growing. Yet r... more With the advent of Web 2.0, the number of IT systems used in university courses is growing. Yet research consistently shows that a significant proportion of students are anxious about computer use. The quality of first experience with computers has been consistently mentioned as a significant contributor to anxiety onset. However the effect of users&amp;amp;amp;#x27; first experience on system related anxiety has not to the authors&amp;amp;amp;#x27; knowledge been researched using controlled experiments. Indeed little experiment based research has been ...