Indira Thouvenin teaches Virtual Reality at the University of Technology Compiegne. Her research focuses on informed interaction in virtual environments, and how knowledge representation and sensory motor knowledge are linked within these environments and can be used for training, designing, and collaboration within virtual worlds.
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Here’s a bit more context about informed interaction:
Informed interaction is a concept connecting 3D interaction in virtual environment and knowledge representation. An ‘enactive’ approach to cognition or ‘enaction’ inspires our work with the concept of ‘action guided by perception’. This notion originates from the reflections of Francisco Varela, a neurobiologist who, following his work with Maturana in Chile, sought an alternative to computationalism and connectionism as approaches to understanding cognition. Varela’s attempts to introduce concepts from the biological cognitive sciences and his research in neuroscience lead to the concept of ‘embodied cognition’.
Our objective is to understand how human experience can be at once reinforced,capitalized and re-exploited in a virtual environment. We are particularly interested in activities centered on training, design and collaboration for which on one hand knowledge engineering provides a pertinent level of abstraction and on the other hand virtual reality offers modes of interaction with sensory feedback which are beneficial for the users involved (trainers, students, designers, remote workers, etc.). In this vast region of investigation, we have chosen to focus on a single area: the relationship between interaction and knowledge within informed interaction.
In this interview, Indira talks about a specific application of VR training by talking about how VR is used to train pilots of barges. VR provides a safe learning environment as well as the opportunity to learn through failure.
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Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
