Goldsmiths - University of London

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Academic project team members

From 2006-2010, Jonathan is Principal Investigator in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths on three large scale EC funded academic research projects exploring innovative future media services and their impact on human behaviour. All three are multi-partner collaborations involving both academic and commercial partners.

PASION (psychologically augmented social interaction over networks)

  • exploring the effects of making explicit in communication implicit non-verbal communication cues

Games@Large

  • providing wireless rich gaming experiences on multiple display devices around the home (and in other contexts) from a central server

Vital Mind

  • exploring the potential for digital brain-training/brain activity games to slow down the impact of age related cognitive decline

3 Research colleagues actively working across PASION, Games@Large and Vital Mind

  • Eva Ferrari (M.Sc., Laurea in Psicologia - Padova), Research Associate (PASION)
    Eva's research interests are focused on Social Communication and New Technologies, developed during a training period in 2006/2007 at the Human Technology LAB, at the Department of General Psychology at the University of Padova. Through her dissertation thesis (M.Sc) on the application of Social Marketing in Service and Professional Industries she further developed her interest in studying users' needs and experiences from media. She used an exploratory and ethnographic approach to study the use of new technologies by people in their social and physical contexts. Having focused on studies on the ease of use and accessibility of consumer media products and services, as well as psychological evaluation of advanced media, Eva is now a Research Associate on the PASION project. Her role is focused on the evaluation of 2 new mobile social networking applications - one supporting collaborative knowledge work, the other a mobile game.
  • Richard Carmichael (M.A., M.Sc., PhD), Research Fellow
    Richard studied psychology at the University of Dundee followed by a Masters in Critical Social Psychology at Lancaster University and a PhD within the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. His past research includes a study of identity in TV adverts and a diary and interview-based study of becoming vegetarian. He has also worked in publishing, wildlife conservation and TEFL. He is now Research Fellow on the Games@Large project on digital gaming. Current research interests: behaviour change through persuasive technology, mobile persuasion and persuasive/serious games, especially on the following topics: environmental and animal advocacy, activism, citizenship, diet and health. Richard would be happy to supervise student projects in any of the above areas.
  • Andrea Miotto (M.Sc., Laurea in Psicologia - Padova; Masters in Social, Work and Communication Psychology), Research Associate
    Andrea studied psychology (BSc and MSc.) at the University of Padua from 2001 to 2008, during his studies he spent a year in the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Bergen (Norway). He then did his work placement at HTLab, a research group within the Department of General Psychology at the University of Padova, before moving to Goldsmiths College - University of London to work for i2 media research. He has applied his skills in several projects investigating social indeces of mediated interaction, in particular focused on Social Network Analysis.

    Andrea's research interests have included social network analysis, Human-Computer Interaction, advanced interactive Information Computer Technology (ICT), usability issues related to media, psychological evaluation of advanced media, adoption and use of media products, digital TV.

    Currently involved in the Vital Mind project whose objective is to enable older adults to actively and autonomously participate in mind fitness activities while sitting in front of their TV set.

    Recent publication:
    Martino, F., Miotto, A., Davide, F. and Gamberini, L. (2007). Exploring Social Network Indices As Cues To Augment Communication and to Improve Social Practices [pdf]. 1st International Workshop on Maps Based Interaction in Social Networks (MapISNet '07).

Until the end of September 2008, Dr Elaine Beattie was a Research Fellow in the team, on the PASION project. Since 1st October 2008, Elaine has been a Lecturer in the Psychology Department.