Enactment-Based Storytelling

Background

The DiME project investigates the use of embodied enactment to support children's creative thinking and creative self-efficacy in storytelling. We target children aged 8 to 11, as they undergo a period often referred to as the 'fourth-grade slump'. DiME has resulted in a prototype that enables children to create stories through body enactment and the use of physical objects in a motion-tracking system setup. The system is based in the core concept of performative authoring. The main mechanisms by which performative authoring functions are the following:

  • Body enactment and the support of physical objects allow the child to draw from his or her embodied prior experiences to bring forth story ideas.
  • Story ideas are expressed in a form:
  1. ...in which the child is fluent, i.e., body actions, thereby decoupling the technical skills of storytelling from idea generation.
  2. ...that is of interest to the child, in our case, in the form of animated cartoons.
  3. ...that allows the child to de-identify herself from her inadequacies in expression, without a sense of authorial empowerment and satisfaction.
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Activity

  • We are currently investigating the development of low-cost solutions to the implementation of DiME through the Kinect and other tracking devices. 
  • We are also currently studying how gestures help children to scaffold creativity in collaborative storytelling scenarios.

Project Team Members

  • Maricela Mirelez (Undergraduate student, Psychology)
  • Kumar Sridharamurthy (MS student, Visualization)
  • Nazif Ali (Undergraduate student, Computer Science)
  • Dr. Sharon Lynn Chu (Assistant Professor, Visualization)
  • Dr. Francis Quek (Professor, Visualization)

Related Publications

  1. Chu, S., Quek, F. and Sridharamurthy, K. (2015). Augmenting Children’s Creative Self-Efficacy and Performance through Enactment-Based Animated Storytelling. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI'15). Stanford University, CA. ACM.
  2. Chu, S. and Quek, F. (2014). Exploring Performative Authoring as a Story Creation Approach for Children. In Proceedings of International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS ’14). Singapore, Singapore.
  3. Chu, S., Quek, F. and Sridharamurthy, K. (2014). Ready...Action! A Performative Authoring System for Children to Create Animated Stories. In Proceedings of the 11th Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology Conference (ACE ’14). Madeira, Portugal.
  4. Chu, S. and Quek, F. (2014). The Effects of Visual Contextual Structures on Children’s Imagination in Story Authoring Interfaces. In Proceedings of Interaction Design & Children (IDC ’14). Aarhus, Denmark.
  5. Chu, S., Quek, F. and Tanenbaum, J. (2013). Performative Authoring: Nurturing Storytelling in Children through Imaginative Enactment. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS ’13). Istanbul, Turkey. [Best Paper Award]
  6. Chu, S. and Quek, F. (2013). Things to Imagine With: Designing For the Child's Creativity. In Proceedings of Interaction Design & Children '13. New York City, NY: ACM.
  7. Chu, S., Quek, F., Gusukuma, L. and Tanenbaum. J. (2013). The Effects of Physicality on the Child's Imagination. In Proceedings of Creativity and Cognition '13. Sydney: Australia.
  8. Chu, S., Quek, F. and Lin, X. (2011) Studying Medium Effects on Children's Creative Processes. In Creativity & Cognition ‘11. ACM: pp. 3-12: Atlanta, GA.
DiME