Behavioral Implicit Communication (BIC): Communicating with Smart Environments via our Practical Behavior and Its Traces

Bic Communication: From Observations To Signals

Given the emphasis on the non-obstructive nature of the AmI applications in relation to the natural activities of humans, much of contemporary research is focused on approaches that minimize or do not rely at all on “explicit” interaction (Augusto & McCullagh, 2007). From our perspective, a paramount example of “explicit” interaction is the use of linguistic or gestural communication to support interaction between users and smart environments. However, beyond these two kinds of communication, there is a third one that we call Behavioral Implicit Communication, where there isn’t any specialized signal (i.e. neither arbitrary acoustic symbols nor codified gestures), but the practical behavior itself is the message. BIC is very useful in a coordination context (see below), where by simply performing an action we send a message to our partner(s) in the interaction. This message may for example be intentional, i.e. the sender wants that the receiver knows that she is performing that action.

However, this message exchange presupposes a more primitive and basic substrate which is due to “observation”: the unilateral capability of the agent to observe the other’s behavior and to “read” it; to understand what she is doing, what she intends and plans to do (her goals), or at least to predict and expect her next position or action using this information, for instance (some sort of primitive “inference”) for “anticipatory coordination” (Castelfranchi, 2006).

In other words, communication is based on and exploits “signification” (the semiotic ability of cognitive agents; for example the ability to take ‘smoke’ as a sign of ‘fire’, or to ascribe ‘thirst’ to a drinking agent) that goes beyond simple perception but it not necessarily used only for communication.