Microblog #48, "Media Equation Parts 1, 2, & 3"

This also includes the Full Blog for Media Equation

Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers

Clifford Nass - Stanford
Youngme Moon - Harvard
The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2000

Computers are Social Actors
Clifford Nass, Johnathan Steuer, and Ellen R, Tauber, Stanford
CHI '94, Boston, Massachusetts.

Can Computer Personalities be Human Personalities?
Clifford Nass, Youngme Moon, BJ Fogg, Byron Reeves, and Chris Dryer, Stanford
CHI '95, Denver, Colorado


1
Summary
This paper describes how individuals react to computers as if they were humans, even though they clearly do not believe this to be the case. The authors speculate on why this so, and appear to favor the theory that scripts simply kick in in response to certain stimuli. That is, the interaction is "mindless".

Discussion
This is an interesting topic. I wonder if the effects ascribed herein are more prevalent among the general public than among computer scientists? On, maybe more likely, it varies by effect. I would guess computer people are less likely to be polite to a bot, but more likely to name their machines.


2
Summary

This paper covers much the same material as the first, in a shorter format with much more precise presentation of results, which were broadly similar. This provides additional evidence that people are polite to computers, treat them as entities in the social sense, and even ascribe them gender without consciously doing so.

Discussion

There isn't a whole lot to say about this paper that I didn't say about the first, although I do approve of the new format.

3
Summary

This paper is the very brief finale to the Media Equation series. It rehashes one of the few points from paper 1 not studied in paper 2 in paper 2's style.

Discussion

See the commentary from the above. All this paper states is that people will treat a computer as a dominant actor if the word choice for the questions reflects that, and the converse.

Full Blog
Summary
This series of papers describes, in detail and with supporting graphs and experiments, the high degree to which humans treat computers as if they were humans. The extent appears to be almost anything that is taken at the unconscious level rather than having to be consciously thought about, where everyone agrees computers are not people. Interactions tested included whether humans are polite towards computers, whether they ascribe gender to computers, and whether rules about what is said to an individuals face rather than to his evaluators still hold.

Discussion
The paper was very interesting because it describes some unexpected interactions between human and machine. The biggest weakness of the paper was that it wandered somewhat, at least in the first, causing trouble with reader engagement.

It would be interesting, as future work, to see if the "separate actors" exercises would have the same results in repeated substituting different (and different looking!) programs on the same machine for different machines.

Clifford Nass, from stanford.edu via GIS