PASION is an EU-funded project aimed at enhancing technology-mediated group communication by addressing the challenge of conveying social, emotional, and contextual cues often lacking in digital interactions. The project focuses on large networks of individuals engaged in long-term communication, such as professionals, gamers, and virtual communities.

HTLab plays a pivotal role in in four crucial aspects of the project: i) Ethical Oversight and Constraints,identifying ethical risks and establishing constraints to guide project development. ii) Indexing Mediated Communication: HTLab leads efforts to define social communication indexes that capture significant interaction patterns during mediated communication. These indexes are designed for automated recording, tracking, and subsequent analysis, employing a blend of quantitative and qualitative techniques. iii) Envisioning Augmented Social Interaction: HTLab serves as the general coordinator for this work package, tasked with creating a unified framework that integrates basic research efforts and informs application development, design, and scientific refinement. iv) Theoretical Framework for User Behavior Tracking: building on insights from previous work packages,

HTLab aims to develop a theoretical framework enabling the automated tracking of user behavior, particularly communication events. This involves identifying computational procedures for extracting meaningful information and proposing formats for presenting this information to end-users, ensuring both comprehensibility and effectiveness. During trials, PASION aids a large mobile user community, offering strategic support in collaborative work and social gaming. Specific feedback strategies, based on interpreting social communication dynamics, are implemented. Over four years, PASION tackles fundamental scientific and technological challenges.

The project conducts foundational research into socio-psychological aspects of mediated social interaction, using Wizard-of-Oz prototypes for user input and designing techniques to capture pertinent social communication information.

References:

Gamberini, L., Martino, F., Scarpetta, F., Spoto, A., & Spagnolli, A. (2007). Unveiling the structure: Effects of social feedback on communication activity in online multiplayer videogames. In Online Communities and Social Computing: Second International Conference, OCSC 2007, Held as Part of HCI International 2007, Beijing, China, July 22-27, 2007. Proceedings 2 (pp. 334-341). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Juan, M. C., Gamberini, L., Alcañiz, M., Zaragozá, I., & Martino, F. (2007). Augmented group presence in PASION project: Presentation of a first applications developer prototype. Annual Review of CyberTherapy and Telemedicine, 71.

Juan, M.C., Gamberini, L., Alcaniz, M., Zaragoza I., Martino, F., Davide, F. (2007). Developing pervasive games in PASION project. In Pergames 2007: 4th Internation Symposion on Pervasive Gaming Applications. June 11th, 12th, Salzburg, Austria

Martino, F., Miotto, A., Davide, F., & Gamberini, L. (2007, September). Exploring social network indices as cues to augment communication and to improve social practices. In 1st International Workshop on Maps Based Interaction in Social Networks (MapISNet’07) (Vol. 159, p. 172).

Alcañiz, M., Gamberini, L., Zaragozá, I., Martino, F., Kerrigan, D.,Davide, F. (2007).Shared Virtual Environment (SVE): A framework for developing social games. Poster presented at ACE ’07, June 13-15, Salzburg (AU)

Juan, M. C., Alcañiz, M., Gamberini, L., Zaragoza, I., & Martino, F. (2007, June). Shared virtual environment (SVE) a framework for developing social games. In Proceedings of the international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology (pp. 258-259).

Spagnolli A., Gamberini L., Petrucci G., Spoto A. (2007) Genere e Modalità di Partecipazione: Preferenza per uno Stile ‘Staccato’ nelle Discussioni On-Line. Congresso Nazionale AIP – Sezione sviluppo. Bergamo, 20-22 settembre.

Tona, T., Spagnolli, A., Gamberini, L. (2007). Sequential Organization of Chat Conversations: The case of a decision making activity in small groups. Poster presented at CHItaly ’07, Padova, May 28-30, Padova (Italy).

Master Thesis:

“L’effetto di feedback basati sulla struttura delle reti sociali nell’interazione mediata da computer” by Roberto Baù (2008); Supervisor: Luciano Gamberini.