Anatomy of interaction experience: Distinguishing sensory, semantic, and behavioral dimensions of interactivity

Abstract

Understanding the experience people have in a direct or mediated interaction is essential to defining interactivity and theorizing its role in communication, but the question of what constitutes a person’s perceptual experience of interaction, namely perceived interactivity, has not been systematically inquired. The objective of this article is to define the general structure of perceived interactivity, which provides an integrative framework to compare and evaluate interaction forms or situations involving human actors as well as both old and new media. A major premise of this framework is that an interaction experience, whether direct or mediated, consists of three underlying dimensions – sensory, semantic, and behavioral.