An embodied cognition framework for interactive experience

Interactive art is, by its very nature, concerned with audience experience. The interaction is the essence the meaning of the work to the participant. An embodied cognition framework may be used to explore individual’s cognition within a cognitive system while he or she is engaged in an interactive art experience. A cognitive system is identified as a system of interactions between the participants, the tools and the environment engaged in the experience. The aim of this paper is to characterize a person’s interactive experience of different artworks using an embodied cognition framework in which bodily interaction, thought and perception of feedback are examined. The protocol analysis used to characterize participant experiences is shown to be an appropriate method for investigating interactivity in the art context. The results showed that identifying the presence of interactions between body and feedback, body and thought and thought and feedback provides an effective way to characterize each artwork experience. We discuss how these modes of interactions can be used as a measure for investigating other interactive artwork experiences in future work.