John McGowan
John McGowan

Dr John McGowan

Lecturer

 0131 455 2461

  J.McGowan@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

For my PhD at Edinburgh Napier University, my research involved the production and investigation of the use an interactive real-time audio visual tool to aid in music therapy for people on the autism spectrum. A prototype application, CymaSense, was successfully trialled with autistic participants in a 12-week study. Results indicated an increase in communicative behaviours. See cyma-sense.uk for further information.

A new project, Stress Management Augmented Reality Tool (SMART) is looking at ways in which to assist people with autism in helping manage stress through technology. See the link below for Research Gate.

I completed an MSc in Animation and Visualisation a few years ago at DJCAD in Dundee, and am Lecturing in Sound Technology, Audio and Responsive Environments at Napier as well as supervising Masters and Honours Degree projects. I am also a 3D generalist although my recent skill set has focused on Modelling, Dynamics and Compositing. In addition I have been a writing/recording and performing musician for the past 30 years, and continue to integrate music with my academic work.

School

Research Groups

Themes

Research Areas

Events

Esteem

Invited Speaker

  • Differabled Charity Presentation
  • Podcast - 'We Have No Idea'

 

Reviewing

  • Reviewer
  • Reviewing

 

Filter by

Date


8 results

Investigation into Stress Triggers in Autistic Adults for the Development of Technological Self-Interventions

Conference Proceeding
McGowan, J. J., & Mcgregor, I. P. (2023)
Investigation into Stress Triggers in Autistic Adults for the Development of Technological Self-Interventions. In Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23). https://doi.org/10.1145/3597638.3608392
Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face daily challenges dealing with stress, for example, at work, or in public spaces, which can be overwhelming in terms of coping w...

Proceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference

Conference Proceeding
(2023)
Proceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference. . https://doi.org/10.1145/3616195
Audio Mostly is an interdisciplinary conference on design and experience of interaction with sound that prides itself on embracing applied theory and reflective practice. Its ...

Cymatics: The Visualization of Sound

Digital Artefact
McGowan, J. (2021)
Cymatics: The Visualization of Sound. [Podcast]
'We Have No Idea' is a podcast that explores and discusses ideas relating to everything we think we know. Each episode features the host, Adrian Walker, in conversation with e...

Evaluation of the Use of Real-time 3D Graphics to Augment Therapeutic Music Sessions for Young People on the Autism Spectrum

Journal Article
Mcgowan, J. J., Mcgregor, I., & Leplatre, G. (2021)
Evaluation of the Use of Real-time 3D Graphics to Augment Therapeutic Music Sessions for Young People on the Autism Spectrum. ACM transactions on accessible computing, 14(1), https://doi.org/10.1145/3445032
The present research evaluates the effectiveness of CymaSense, a real-time 3D visualisation application developed by the authors, as a means of improving the communicative beh...

Real-time 3D Graphic Augmentation of Therapeutic Music Sessions for People on the Autism Spectrum

Thesis
McGowan, J. J. Real-time 3D Graphic Augmentation of Therapeutic Music Sessions for People on the Autism Spectrum. (Thesis)
Edinburgh Napier University. Retrieved from http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2386291
This thesis looks at the requirements analysis, design, development and evaluation of an application, CymaSense, as a means of improving the communicative behaviours of autist...

Exploring Musical Creativity through Interactive Cymatics

Conference Proceeding
McGowan, J., Leplatre, G., & McGregor, I. (2017)
Exploring Musical Creativity through Interactive Cymatics. In Proceedings of the 31st International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference (HCI 2017)https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/HCI2017.67
What does music look like? Representation of sound has taken many forms over time, from sinusoidal wave patterns, through to random algorithm-based visualisations based on the...

CymaSense: a novel audio-visual therapeutic tool for people on the autism spectrum.

Conference Proceeding
McGowan, J., Leplâtre, G., & McGregor, I. (2017)
CymaSense: a novel audio-visual therapeutic tool for people on the autism spectrum. In ASSETS '17 Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (62-71). https://doi.org/10.1145/3132525.3132539
Music Therapy has been shown to be an effective intervention for clients with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC), a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that can affect people i...

CymaSense: a real-time 3D cymatics-based sound visualisation tool

Conference Proceeding
McGowan, J., Leplâtre, G., & McGregor, I. (2017)
CymaSense: a real-time 3D cymatics-based sound visualisation tool. In DIS '17 Companion Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems (270-274). https://doi.org/10.1145/3064857.3079159
What does music look like? Representation of music has taken many forms over time, from musical notation [16], through to random algorithm-based visualisations based on the am...

Current Post Grad projects

Previous Post Grad projects