In my perspective, Interaction can be divided into three parts
- People and People
- People and Objects
- Objects and Objects
But all interactions require at least three steps
- The input
- Transcoding
- The output
For interactions including people, this step can be interpreted as
- Physical/written/verbal communication
- Thinking
- Dialogue communications/actions
In the third step, both sides including in the interaction are required to respond to each other, rather than individually responding to the “instructions” given by the other. As a result of reflection, at least one party in the interaction will get positive feedback, even for negative behaviors, they will get the opportunity to revise their further actions/words.
Based on my definition, there are all kinds of Interactions during our daily life. Including face-to-face communication, computer programming and so on.
Here’s an instance that can easily exemplify the definition. Sophia, a humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, who is the first robot in history to be granted citizenship. She has rubbery skin and is able to display more than 62 facial expressions. The computer algorithms in Sophia’s “brain” recognize faces and make eye contact with people.
Just as the video shows, after hearing Dr.David speak, Sophia can quickly recognize his words, transcode them, and give facial expressions, eye contact and language dialogue after processing. The whole communication process between the two can be called an interaction.
Therefore, I also need to supplement the definition of interaction, which is sometimes a process of acquisition. For example, we first give the machine a program in advance, let him transcode and learn. When we send a specific command or signal to it again, it will recognize it and give corresponding feedback. In the case of living organisms, Pavlov’s conditioning experiment is a perfect example of learned interaction. Dogs can be trained to salivate in response to a light stimulus.
But there are also lots of exceptions. Take this for an example.
When we play the sticky spider man toy, we try to stick it on the wall. However, it cannot demonstrate the definition of interaction because it is due to the gravity that the spider man can climb the wall instead of reacting to our in-person instructions.