The central thesis of this paper is that Rasmussen framed his approach to Cognitive Systems Engineering from the perspective of a Triadic Semiotic Model. This frame became the context for integrating multiple intellectual threads including Control Theory, Information Theory, Ecological Psychology, and Gestalt Psychology into a coherent theoretical framework. The case is made that the triadic se...

Semiotic dynamics is a novel field that studies how semiotic conventions spread and stabilize in a population of agents. This is a central issue both for theoretical and technological reasons since large system made up of communicating agents, like web communities or artificial embodied agents teams, are getting widespread. In this paper we discuss a recently introduced simple multi-agent model...

The paper attempts to review the impact of Thomas A. Sebeok (1920–2001) on biosemiotics, or semiotic biology, including both his work as a theoretician in the field and his activity in organising, publishing, and communicating. The major points of his work in the field of biosemiotics concern the establishing of zoosemiotics, interpretation and development of Jakob v. Uexküll’s and Heini Hedige...

This comment on Valsiner’s (2003) theory of enablement appreciates the theory’s contribution to fill the lacuna of social representation theory in dealing with individual reasoning and behaviour through a mechanism of semiotic mediation. It is shown, however, that the experimental illustration of the theory falls slightly short of providing evidence for the claims. In re-interpreting the experi...

User interface design is still more of an art than a science. Interface design and redesign is mostly based on empirical studies or prototypes but there is still surprisingly little theoretical or engineering understanding of how to go about the design process and produce good designs the first time around. We present a semiotic analysis that explains features of some user interface redesigns t...

Semiotic Engineering is a Human Computer Interaction theory which perceives software as a communication between its designers and its users. We present here how an inspection method from that theory – the Semiotic Inspection Method has been used in the context of action games to evaluate their accessibility. In particular, we present a case study in which we investigated how sound and music wer...

This paper examines the interaction between Semiotic choices and the presentation and solution of a family of contemporary mathematical problems centred around the so-called 'stable marriage problem'. I investigate how a socially restrictive choice of signs impacts mathematical production both in terms of problem formation and of solutions. I further note how the choice of gendered language end...

The challenge for our panel was to address the opportunities and challenges of synthetic task environments for basic research on human performance in sociotechnical systems. In doing this, the classical three-body problem from physics is used as a metaphor to illustrate the contrast between dyadic and triadic semiotic models of cognitive systems. In the context of this metaphor, synthetic task ...

This paper explores the semiotic status of algebraic variables. To do that we build on a structuralist and post-structuralist train of thought going from Mauss and Lévi-Strauss to Baudrillard and Derrida. We import these authors’ semiotic thinking from the register of indigenous concepts (such as mana), and apply it to the register of algebra via a concrete case study of generating functions. T...

The quality of communication processes in networked organizations is difficult to evaluate and improve, because of the many parties involved in meaning construction and responsibility assignment. This paper presents an outline of a communications quality model grounded in semiotics that can be used to construct a quality management system. Key elements of any such system are quality perspective...