Movement-based interfaces for problem solving in dynamics

Humans have a natural ability to cope with the problems of moving in a changing environment. The motivation for our work is to engage our natural ability to move in the understanding of more abstract problems associated with dynamical systems. The question we address is: “Can human movement be coupled to simulations of arbitrary dynamical systems to help understand these more abstract mathematical problems?” In this paper we present a case study where users perform multiple trials to try to find a solution to a well known predator-prey problem by using a simple movement-based interface. Indeed users are able to find a number of different solutions without prior expertise in this domain. While these solutions fall short of being strictly optimal the results provide a convincing proof of concept as well as raising new questions to direct our further enquiries in this area