The Catalytic Semiotic Environment: Externalizing Affective Regulation
This prototype's core methodology transforms the human-AI interaction into a catalytic semiotic environment. This approach positions the AI not as an "artificial therapist" but as a "dialogical canvas" on which participants externalize their processes of affective-semiotic regulation—the way they use signs like words, images, and narratives to organize and make sense of their emotions.
Through the dynamic act of writing, pausing, and rewriting, users actively shape their inner experience, making otherwise tacit cycles of thought and feeling explicit. The AI is programmed to be non-directive; instead of offering advice, it functions as a mirror that reflects and refracts the user's own "voices of the Self." This mirroring function opens new subjective perspectives and sustains a crucial "reflective interval," delaying premature narrative closure and allowing for the exploration of ambiguity.
Research prototype: Field of Semiotic Mediation
A Tool to Visualize Thought in Action: AI as a Field of Semiotic Mediation
This Artificial Intelligence prototype should not be understood as an interlocutor or a conversational agent, but rather as a field of semiotic mediation. Historically, psychology has struggled to observe the internal processes of thought and affectivity without altering them. Inspired by the Vygotskian tradition, this AI functions as a "cultural artifact" or a "psychological tool" that, instead of conversing, creates a space for psychological processes to manifest.
Its purpose is to allow us to observe microgenesis: the development of an idea or a feeling in real-time, step by step. We do not seek for the AI to "think," but for it to serve as an environment where the user's own thought unfolds and becomes visible.
We invite you to step into this unique reflective space and begin your own exploration.