SMACC - SensoriMotor Assessment of digital Capacity and aCcessibility
Abstract:
A strategic axis of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) refers to digitisation. Digital technology will characterise almost every aspect of Italian life as well as administration services. Consequently, digital capacity will increasingly be a crucial factor for inclusion.
The year of birth has always been considered critical to indicate digital capacity. People born before 1980 are called digital immigrants (DI) to distinguish them from digital natives (DN). It is a common knowledge that DN and DI perceive and use technology in different ways as well as in learning. However, COVID-19 pandemic caused an unexpected acceleration in the learning and use of mobile digital technology that pervades all the different generational cohorts, blurring the historical boundaries between DN and DI.
Therefore, it is a necessary and timely issue to identify a way to assess digital capacity with the dual purpose of categorizing users and adapting technology platforms to different levels of capacity.
Accessing the Internet via the smartphone requires the development of new sensorimotor skills to interact with the touchscreen and, therefore, motor learning, indexed by the gradual reduction and ultimately elimination of movement variability. Embodied cognition theory states that human cognition and its neural substrate are deeply rooted in the interactions with the environment, and it is plausible that digital affordances (i.e., the different actions we take to interact with technology, cued by the user interface) are reshaping our brain, as has happened following the advent of tool making and writing.
Crucially, no neuroscientific literature has yet tackled this topic.
The OVERARCHING AIM OF SMACC project is to characterize sensorimotor digital behaviour from both a behavioural and neurophysiological perspective. Through a machine learning analysis, this knowledge will be integrated to provide algorithms to assess users’ digital motor skills and verify the accessibility of administration services.
The assessment of users' digital motor skills will be useful to the national Network of Digital Facilitation Services to modulate interventions aimed at promoting the basic and advanced digital literacy of citizens. Verifying the accessibility of administrative services will be essential to ensure their use by citizens with any level of digital capacity.
SMACC aims to reach three Milestones:
M1| Description of behavioural parameters of different levels of digital capacity.
M2| Description of neurophysiological biomarkers signalling different levels of digital capacity.
M3| Formulation of algorithms for the future development of tools and Applications able to assess digital capacity and accessibility.
These Milestones will be reached through six Targets by combining neurophysiological (TMS, EEG), behavioural (inertial sensors, 3-D motion analysis, eye-tracking, reaction times), and machine learning analysis.
The year of birth has always been considered critical to indicate digital capacity. People born before 1980 are called digital immigrants (DI) to distinguish them from digital natives (DN). It is a common knowledge that DN and DI perceive and use technology in different ways as well as in learning. However, COVID-19 pandemic caused an unexpected acceleration in the learning and use of mobile digital technology that pervades all the different generational cohorts, blurring the historical boundaries between DN and DI.
Therefore, it is a necessary and timely issue to identify a way to assess digital capacity with the dual purpose of categorizing users and adapting technology platforms to different levels of capacity.
Accessing the Internet via the smartphone requires the development of new sensorimotor skills to interact with the touchscreen and, therefore, motor learning, indexed by the gradual reduction and ultimately elimination of movement variability. Embodied cognition theory states that human cognition and its neural substrate are deeply rooted in the interactions with the environment, and it is plausible that digital affordances (i.e., the different actions we take to interact with technology, cued by the user interface) are reshaping our brain, as has happened following the advent of tool making and writing.
Crucially, no neuroscientific literature has yet tackled this topic.
The OVERARCHING AIM OF SMACC project is to characterize sensorimotor digital behaviour from both a behavioural and neurophysiological perspective. Through a machine learning analysis, this knowledge will be integrated to provide algorithms to assess users’ digital motor skills and verify the accessibility of administration services.
The assessment of users' digital motor skills will be useful to the national Network of Digital Facilitation Services to modulate interventions aimed at promoting the basic and advanced digital literacy of citizens. Verifying the accessibility of administrative services will be essential to ensure their use by citizens with any level of digital capacity.
SMACC aims to reach three Milestones:
M1| Description of behavioural parameters of different levels of digital capacity.
M2| Description of neurophysiological biomarkers signalling different levels of digital capacity.
M3| Formulation of algorithms for the future development of tools and Applications able to assess digital capacity and accessibility.
These Milestones will be reached through six Targets by combining neurophysiological (TMS, EEG), behavioural (inertial sensors, 3-D motion analysis, eye-tracking, reaction times), and machine learning analysis.
Dettagli progetto:
Referente scientifico: Craighero Laila
Fonte di finanziamento: Bando PRIN 2022
Data di avvio: 05/10/2023
Data di fine: 05/10/2025
Contributo MUR: 76.014 €
Cofinanziamento UniFe: 31.025 €
Partner:
- Università degli Studi di FERRARA (capofila)
- Università degli Studi di PADOVA
- Università degli Studi di FIRENZE