Rebekah Rousi

Rebekah Rousi is a postdoctoral researcher in Cognitive Science, at the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Rebekah's professional and research background is vast and varied. She trained as a visual artist, majoring in printmaking and drawing at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. Then graduated with First Class Honours in 2005. Her research interests at that stage focused on post-colonial identity politics in Australia. After graduation she worked as an exhibiting artist (print and drawing), performance artist, as well as a gallery and events coordination assistant. She undertook a Masters of Arts, Nordic Arts and Cultural Studies (Digital Culture major) at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Upon graduation in 2007 she worked as a project planner for the Masters Program in Digital Culture, in addition to being a part-time lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences (JÄMK), and the College of Western Finland.

Since April 2009 Rebekah has been working as a human-computer interaction researcher specialising in affective design, user experience, in addition to testing and developing methods for user experience evaluation which emphasis the validity of qualitative data. In particular, Rebekah's work is concerned with analysing qualitative data for its ability to reveal mental information and basic hierarchies in which it is represented. This research area also relates to the fields of design semantics, cognitive semantics and to some extent empathy. Her PhD dissertation is "From Cute to Semiotics - a cognitive semiotic approach to user experience" (https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/42206/978-951-39-5388-1.pdf?sequence=2).

Publications

Rousi, R. (2013, October). The experience of no experience – Elevator user experience and the role of unconscious experience. In A. Lugmayr, H. Franssila, H. Kerkkainen & J. Paavilainen (Eds.), Proceedings of Academic MindTrek – Making sense of converging media. Tampere: ACM, 289-291. ISBN 978-1-4503-1992-8

Rousi, R. (2013, October). It feels brown – A cognitive semiotic model (C-model) of user experience. International Journal of Designed Objects. Common Ground Publishing, 39-50. ISSN 2325-1379

Rousi, R. (2013). Formidab