Member of Skövde Situated Cognition and Artificial Intelligence Research Lab
Contact information
E-mail: tarja.susi@his.se
Phone: +46 500 44 83 71
Address: University of Skövde, School of Humanities and Informatics, P.O. Box 408, SE-541 28 Skövde, Sweden
Research interests
The interaction between agents and their social and material environment - situated/distributed cognition - tools and tool use in social interaction - implications for interactive technology - computer game play
Publications
Rambusch, J & Susi, T. (2008) The challenge of managing affordances in computer game play. Human IT 9.3 (2008), 83-109. Human IT
Rambusch, J. & Susi, T. (2008) Situated play. In: Hardy-Vallée, B. and Payette, N. (Eds.) Beyond the brain: Embodied, situated and distributed cognition. Newcastle, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Susi, T. & Rambusch, J. (2007) Situated play - just a temporary blip? DiGRA 2007 Situated Play, September 24-28, Tokyo, Japan.
van Laere, J., Lindblom, J. & Susi, T. (2007) Requirements for emergency management training from a 'passion for failures' perspective. ISCRAM 2007 - Intelligent Human Computer Systems for Crisis Response and Management. The 4th International Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Conference, Delft, The Netherlands, May 13-16, 2007.
Susi, T. (2006) Tools and artefacts - the effect of knowing 'where-from' on their present use. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2210-2215. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.pdf
Susi, T. (2005) In search of the Holy Grail: Understanding artefact mediation in social interactions. In B.G. Bara, L. Barsalou and M. Bucciarelli (Eds.) Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2110-2115. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. pdf
Susi, T. & Ziemke, T. (2005) On the subject of objects: Four views on object perception and tool use. TripleC: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, 3(2), 6-19. TripleC
Rambusch, J., Susi, T. & Ziemke, T. (2004) Artefacts as mediators of distributed social cognition: A case study. In: K. Forbus, D. Gentner & T. Regier (Eds.) Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 1113-1118. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. pdf
Ziemke, T., Bergfeldt, N., Buason, G., Susi, T. & Svensson, H. (2004) Evolving cognitive scaffolding and environment adaptation: A new research direction for evolutionary robotics.
Connection Science, 16(4), 339-351.
Susi, T., Lindblom, J. & Ziemke, T. (2003) Beyond the bounds of cognition. In: R. Alterman & D. Kirsh (Eds.) Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 1134-1139. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. pdf
Susi, T. & Ziemke, T. (2001) Social cognition, artefacts, and stigmergy: A comparative analysis of theoretical frameworks for the understanding of artefact-mediated collaborative activity. Cognitive Systems Research, 2(4), 273-290.
Report
Susi, T., Johannesson, M. & Backlund, P. (2007) Serious Games - An overview. Technical report, HS-IKI-TR-07-001, University of Skövde. Available at InGaMeLab
Conferences and workshops
Rambusch, J. & Susi, T. (2007) The challenge of managing real and virtual affordances in computer game play. Game in' Action, June 13-15, Gothenburg University, Sweden.
Rambusch, J. & Susi, T. (2007) Serious learning while having fun. Learntech2007, February13-15, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Susi, T. & Lindblom, J. (2005) Building bridges between the islands of Artefact, Embodiment, and Social Interaction. In: D.A. Rubio et al. (Eds.) Book of Abstracts of the First ISCAR Congress, International Society for Cultural and Activity Research, 841-842. Sevilla, Spain. ISBN: 84-689-3744-4. ISCAR
Susi, T. (2005) Social interaction and artefact mediation. Proceedings of ESPP'05, The European Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Lund University Cognitive Studies, 123. ESPP
Susi, T. (2005) Tool use in distributed cognition. Workshop on Collective Intelligence. September 2005, Danube University, Krems, Austria.
Susi, T. (2005) Artefacts, cognition, and collective behaviour: Towards a framework for finding the Holy Grail. The European Conference on Computing and Philosophy, E-CAP2005. June 2005, Västerås, Sweden.
Susi, T. (2004) Towards a theory of artefacts as mediators of social interaction. International Workshop on Interaction, Artefacts and Situated Cognition, November 2004, Bielefeld, Germany. pdf
PhD thesis
Susi, T. (2006) The puzzle of social activity - The significance of tools in cognition and cooperation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Linköping. ISBN: 91-85523-71-2. pdf, thesis cover pdf)
Abstract
This dissertation addresses the role of tools in social interactions, or more precisely the significance of tools in cognition and cooperation, from a situated cognition perspective. While mainstream cognitive science focuses on the internal symbolic representations and computational thought processes inside the heads of individuals, situated cognition approaches instead emphasise the central role of the interaction between agents and their material and social environment. This thesis presents a framework regarding tools and (some) of their roles in social interactions, drawing upon work in cognitive science, cultural-historical theories, animal tool use, and different perspectives on the subject-object relationship. The framework integrates interactions between agents and their environment, or agent-agent-object interaction, conceptualisations regarding the function of tools, and different ways in which agents adapt their environments to scaffold individual and social processes. It also invokes stigmergy (tool mediated indirect interactions) as a mechanism that relates individual actions and social activity. The framework is illustrated by two empirical studies that consider tool use from a social interaction perspective, carried out in settings where tools assume a central role in the ongoing collaborative work processes; a children’s admission unit in a hospital and the control room of a grain silo. The empirical studies illustrate theoretical issues discussed in the background chapters, but also reveal some unforeseen aspects of tool use. Lastly, the theoretical implications for the study of individual and social tool use in cognitive science are summarised and the practical relevance for applications in human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence is outlined.
Other things
These are our dogs Moltas (Jack Russell) and Tess (mixed breed, Alsatian-Labrador).
And here's our lovely cat Tottis (yep, he really is a mean one...).
And this is little me.