Global Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

User Discourse Analysis in an Avatar-Mediated Environment

Leon James and Diane Nahl

Analysis of self-report statements by users indicates what information is noticed, how it is evaluated, and what the person intends to do with it. User discourse is spontaneously produced during the process of engaging technological affordances. A model is described explaining the synergy between users’ affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor biological systems in interaction with technology. Charting the flow of people’s micro-information behaviors gives an empirical representation of how people actually receive information by noticing, appraising, and evaluating it, as well as how they make use of that information by intending, planning, and engaging the system. Survival and adaptation in this human-computer symbiosis relationship can thus be visibly marked in the virtual world where feelings, intentions, thoughts, noticings, and interactions are expressed through avatar mediated information and communication activities.