Maps & Minds: Geospatial Analytics for Studying Human Cognition

Garrett C. Millar



Preliminary Oral Examination

November 4th, 2020

    Helena Mitasova
    Committee Chair
    Geospatial Analytics
    Ross Meentemeyer
    Committee Member
    Geospatial Analytics
    Laura Tateosian
    Committee Member
    Geospatial Analytics
    Aaron Hipp
    Committee Member
    Geospatial Analytics

Pre-CGA Background & Experience


  • Designed and ran studies on student learning and intelligent tutoring systems in science domains
  • Measured student learning using eye-tracking, physiological devices, and facial recognition software (emotions)

    MetaTutor IVH Project  Designed and tested intelligent multi-agent hypermedia systems for collecting student learning data (e.g., eye-tracking, log-files, facial expressions of emotions) to support STEM learning.

    Crystal Island Project  Worked with colleagues in Computer Science to design studies examining how students learn about science and literacy from game-based learning environments.

Navigating the Mind: Geospatial Analytic Approaches for
Assessing Human Cognition



    Completed Work


    Chapter 1  Tangible Landscape: A Hands-on Method for Teaching Terrain Analysis

    Other Work  Increasing Underrepresented High School Students' STEM Career Awareness and Interest: An Informal Geospatial Science Program



    Ongoing Work


    Chapter 2  Space-time Analytics of Human Physiology for Urban Planning

    Chapter 3  PoPS: A Spatial Decision-Making Support Framework for Plant & Pest Management Scenarios


Chapter 1  Tangible Landscape: A Hands-on Method for Teaching Terrain Analysis

  • Research Objective: Test the effectiveness of a hands-on method for teaching spatial concepts using Tangible Landscape
    • Tested students’ acquisition & transfer of knowledge
    • Examined students’ ratings of the system’s usability & user experience

Interaction, Feedback, & Example Solutions

Evaluation Materials


Topographic Map Assessment (TMA)

Assessed students’ acquisition &
transfer of spatial skills.

Tangible Lesson Assessments: Landforms

Measured student’s knowledge specific
to content in the landforms lesson

Tangible Lesson Assessments: Cut & Fill

Measured student’s knowledge specific
to content in the cut and fill lesson

Results & Contributions


  • Tangible Landscape supports both improved user experience as well as marginal, task-specific knowledge building
  • Several implications for the design and implementation of tangible teaching methods for learning about Landscape Architecture (and other topics)


    Acknowledgements
    • Software design & development: Drs. Anna Petrasova, Vaclav Petras, Payam Tabrizian, and Brendan Harmon
    • Study implementation: Carla Delcambre of the Landscape Architecture department and her Grading and Drainage course at North Carolina State University

    Reference

Other work  Increasing Underrepresented High School Students’ STEM Career Awareness and Interest: An Informal Geospatial Science Program

  • Research Objective: Develop activities with Tangible Landscape and other related curricula lessons to increase underrepresented high school students' spatial thinking and interest in GIS (STEM)
  • Lead evaluative procedures for:
    • Improving student competence in science
    • Nurturing student enthusiasm for science
    • Interesting students in research or other science-related careers

Developed Activities

Water Flow Trail Planning
Landforms Channeling
Cut & Fill Ponding

See Developed TL Activity Website:  gcmillar.github.io/Tangible-Landscape-Activities-GAPS/index.html

Results & Contributions


  • Goal 1: Improving student competence in science
    • Average 3.39 (out of 4) on being able to explain background material during project presentations
  • Goal 2: Nurturing student enthusiasm for science
    • 56% of participants indicated an increased interest in learning science
  • Goal 3: Interesting students in research or other science-related careers
    • 80% of parents stated their child gained skills to use in a STEM career

    Acknowledgements
    • Program facilitation: Drs. Eric Money, Kyle Bunds, Helena Mitasova

    Reference

Chapter 2  Space-time Analytics of Human Physiology for Urban Planning

  • Research Objective: Using mobile sensing to improve the understanding of how people experience their environment.
  • How?
    • Examining spatial variation in people’s physiological responses in relation to the surrounding environment, to provide urban planners objective metrics on how individuals experience urban design elements.
  • CHIPS cycle highway project (with Ondrej Mitas, Joost de Kruijff, Lisette Hoeke, Paul de Coevering)
  • CELTH Storysperience project (with Ondrej Mitas, Moniek Hover, Marcel Bastiaansen, Wilco Boode)

CHIPS: Cycle Highway Project

  • Test new wayfinding concepts (signage)
  • Participants: 12
  • Type of bike: e-bike
  • Cycle track: 18 km cycle highway
  • Before and after implementing new wayfinding

Study Area & Cycle Track

Data Collection


Credit: Lisette Hoeke | Breda University of Applied Sciences

Chapter 3  PoPS: A Spatial Decision-Making Support Framework for Plant & Pest Management Scenarios

  • Research Objective: Assess the effectiveness and ability of PoPS framework for facilitating plant & pest management decision-making
  • Design and development work for:
    • effective communication of adaptive management through Tangible Landscape & PoPS Dashboard
  • Two use cases:
    • Sudden Oak Death
    • Spotted Lantern Fly (PoPS)

SOD: Upcoming Evaluation Efforts


Pre-workshop Post-workshop Semi-structured Interview

PoPS: User Interaction Design & Development


Landing Page Welcome Page Home Page

Ongoing Analytic Development: Mapping People Toolbox

People & the Environment: Geo-analytical Guidelines and Software Tools for Measuring Environmental Interaction and Experience


Related Publications

Millar, G. C., Mitas, O., Boode, W., Hoeke, L., de Kruijff, J., & Mitasova, H. (in preparation). Space-time Analytics of Human Physiology for Urban Planning., To be published as a Special Issue of: Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (CEUS). Millar, G. C., Tabrizian, P., Petrasova, A., Petras, V., Harmon, B., Mitasova, H., & Meetenmeyer, R. K. (2018). Tangible landscape: A hands-on method for teaching terrain analysis. In Proceedings of the 2018 chi conference on human factors incomputing systems (pp. 380:1–380:12)., New York, NY, USA: ACM. [Winner of the Honorable Mention for Best Paper Award]

Software & Applications

Geospatial Application Stress3d - Uses cyclists' physiological data to see how stress and emotions can be affected by our environment.
Geospatial Application Emotion Musuem - Uses a 3D model of a museum and geotagged emotion data to explore which exhibits in the Vincent Van Gogh Centre visitors find the most exciting.
Serious Game Learning through Play - Computer game which encourages students to design virtual cities and, in the process, think critically about the relationships between numbers.

Related Presentations

Tangible Landscape: A Hands-on Method for Teaching Terrain Analysis. 2018 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Montreal, Canada, April 2018 Hands-on Methods for Teaching Landscape Form and Processes. US Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (USIALE), Chicago, Il, April 8-12 2018
Increasing Underrepresented High School Students' STEM Career Awareness and Interest: An Informal Geospatial Science Program American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2018, December 12 2018 Mapping the Emotional Dimension: Measuring Human Behavior Across Space & Time to Inform Tourism & Leisure Management. Visiting Scholar Residency at Experience Measurement Lab; Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, Netherlands.

Extending Dissertation Work


    Dissertation Chapter 1.5  Teaching Terrain Analysis with Tangible Landscape
    • Follow up study to: Tangible Landscape: A Hands-on Method for Teaching Terrain Analysis
    • Collaborating with Drs. Brendan Harmon & Nicholas Serrano at Louisiana State University
    • Comparing different user interfaces and teaching methods to substantiate the most effective way for teaching Landscape Architectural grading and site engineering

    Dissertation Chapter 2.5 
    • Short paper on geospatial software application Stress3d: Stress3d: An Interactive & 3D Framework for Exploring Human Behavior
    • Collaborating with Harvard Medical School to develop visualizations for their Nurses' Health Study

Timeline


Fall 2019 Spring 2020 Summer 2020
  • Complete Research Proposal
  • Preliminary Written & Oral Exams
  • Submit Chapter 2 to Computers, Environment & Urban Systems Special Issue
  • Dissertation-relevant Travel
    • Oregon: Evaluative work for Sudden Oak Death Management Workshop
    • Boston | Harvard Medical School: Setting goals and deliverables for ongoing development and visualization work for Nurses' Health Study
    • Baton Rouge | LSU: Running follow-up study to Chapter 1
  • Finalize work on Chapter 3
    • Write and submit publication on the effectiveness of PoPS framework for facilitating decision-making during plant & pest management scenarios.
  • Publication on Tangible Teaching follow-up study? Chapter 1.5 Teaching Terrain Analysis with Tangible Landscape
  • Dissertation-relevant Travel:
    • Netherlands: Continuation of geospatial externship with Experience Measurement Lab (CHIPS & CELTH projects)
  • Submit written dissertation
  • Presentation & oral defense
  • Graduation! 🎓 👨🏼‍🎓 🍻


  • Presentation Link: gcmillar.github.io/presentations/pre-proposal

    Extra Slides

    User Experience Survey

    (Ras et al., 2012)

    • Examined how students perceived and interacted with Tangible Landscape, & how they collaborated to solve a problem
    • Constructs:
      • Performance expectancy
      • Pragmatic quality:
        • physical objects (wooden carving tools, physical landscape model)
        • visual objects (projection, digital feedback)
      • Effort expectancy
      • User experience

    Results

    Knowledge Building: Tangible Lessons

    Individual Scores Mean Scores

    Results

    Knowledge Building: TMA

    Individual Scores Mean Scores

    Results

    User Experience

    • All items rated above the neutral value of 4 (out of 7)
    • Most advantageous aspects of Tangible Landscape?
      • ability to explore various solutions for the given problems (e.g., water flow, landforms, cut and fill)
      • physical objects allowed students to change parameters (e.g., location of solution points) very quickly
      • projected visual feedback helped them better understand the effects of changing those parameters