In a groundbreaking study, scientists at Florida Atlantic University have created a "hybrid" system to examine real-time interactions between humans and machines (virtual partners). For more than 25 years, scientists in the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences (CCSBS) in Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, and others around the world, have been trying to decipher the laws of coordinated behavior called ‘coordination dynamics’. Unlike the laws of motion of physical bodies, the equations of coordination dynamics describe how the coordination states of a system evolve over time, as observed through special quantities called collective variables. These collective variables typically span the interaction of organism and environment. Imagine a machine whose behavior is based on the very equations that are supposed to govern human coordination.
Then imagine a human interacting with such a machine whereby the human can modify the behavior of the machine and the machine can modify the behavior of the human. An interdisciplinary group of scientists in the CCSBS created VPI, a hybrid system of a human interacting with a machine. These scientists placed the equations of human coordination dynamics into the machine and studied real-time interactions between the human and virtual partners. Their findings open up the possibility of exploring and understanding a wide variety of interactions between minds and machines. VPI may be the first step toward establishing a much friendlier union of man and machine, and perhaps even creating a different kind of machine altogether.More information:
http://www.physorg.com/news164363618.html