Computers As Social Actors

Computers As Social Actors
Date: 17th Feb 2020/Monday

This article begins with a very interesting story about a man found shouting I am going to kill you, the residents heard the shouts and called the police. On arriving the police found that the man was shouting on the computer. So basically this directs us towards how computers persuade humans to behave in a specific manner. Social cues from computers are important to understand because they trigger automatic responses from people. As a social actor the computer does three things, first it rewards the people with positive feedback, they model a target behavior and third they provide social support. Interacting directly with a computer is a social experience. If a technology is physically attractive, it will have greater persuasive power. For example if an interface, device or onscreen character is physically attractive , it may have an halo effect, user may assume the product is intelligent , capable and reliable. If interactive faces are to be used for counseling and training, they need to be visually appealing and pleasing to be effective. The researchers conclude that appearance of a computer character is sufficient to change its influence.  But designers need to understand the ethics of their target audience while creating a persuasive technology product. 

Second types of cues include psychological cues, for example smiling faces, text manages that convey empathy etc. The Stanford Study on similarities says that we tend to listen to people who are similar to rather than listening to people who are different. They have the ability to persuade us more. They introduced the concept of submissive and dominant computer personalities. They tested this in a hypothetical situation, where you are traveling in a plane and it crashes in a desert, and there are a few things like the sun glasses, salt tablets, water etc that have survived with you. And you have rank the items accordingly how useful they would be to you in such  situation. A dominant computer was created by using an interface with bold, assertive typefaces for the text, the computer would go first and make confident statements about the what the user should do. Where as creating a submissive computer, the computer let the user make the first move, the font was simple in italics and showed a low ranking on the confidence scale. 48 participants were chosen from 200 people to be submissive and dominant participants. The information provided by all computers was the same only the style of the computer in which it interacted was different. Participants felt more comfortable with the computer which had similar personalities like them and vice versa. So, basically it proves that designers of persuasive technologies need to take account of their target audience, the products would be more persuasive if they match the personalities of the users.

I can relate this to the use of Voki, its an interactive software which has similar features  like the  humans. They can customize the appearance, choose a particular language to interact and easily integrate into different subjects. Students can create their own meaningful learning experiences using this tool. This could be used for sharing persuasive messages to the communities. Students could take on various leading roles and perform tasks accordingly. I think Voki has been designed keeping the persuasive factors in mind, its attractive and appealing, can take on different avatars, is language friendly and the website has details of how it could be integrated into different subjects which include language learning, science, math and social studies.

Similarly in another study , the participants were given a problem to serve, and they were asked to work with a computer as their teammate with a label or otherwise. The interaction with the computer was the same for all participants. The participants who thought the computer was their teammate, thought the computer was more smarter and provided helpful suggestions. Teammate computers were found to be more effective in changing the behaviors of the participants. Computing products can also use spoken language to persuade or convey messages. For example eCommerce sites like Amazon use language to convey social presence and persuade their users to buy products. Another important persuasive use of language is through praise ad research proves that praise whether sincere or no has a positive effect on an individuals behavior. The praise from a computer would definitely generate the same results. The praise made people feel better about themselves, they ended in a better mood, felt more powerful and knew they had performed well. They also found the interaction more engaging, were willing to work with the computer and thought the computer had performed well. 

We all now all cultures have social dynamics, these refer to  the norms , rituals and practices of the cultures that people have to adhere to. Most e commerce site use these social dynamics to persuade users. Then there is talk of the rule of reciprocity, which states if you receive a favor for someone then you have to pay it back. In a study conducted by the Standford students students were asked to perform a task using a computer and the situation that was created was intended to give the impression that the computer had done them a favor. When the same set of students were assigned a different task, the ones who thought computer had done them a favor returned to the same computer, and did more work on the computer as compared to the other controlled group. So, people do fee the need to reciprocate when they know computing technology has done them a favor.

Similarly, if people know of Eliza, who was created as a computer psychotherapist impressed many and people started designing computers to take roles in leadership, these include being teachers, counselors, experts, judges and so on. Ask Jeeves is one such example where the computer takes the role of the butler and has the same welcoming features of a butler in a restaurant which is more appealing to the users that visit the site. Last, its important to know when to use the social cues, they might be distracting at times. For example while working on a spreadsheet program or word you dont look for social cues, but these might be helpful while looking up products on ebay or amazon.

This was an interesting read which provided an opportunity to think about the persuasive features of the technology products that we use. Siri, Alexa, Google Home have similar persuasive features. They make suggestions based on your preferences. Alexa's skill could be programmed. IBM Watson chat bot could be trained also to persuade users. Various chat bots that we see on websites serve the same purpose of convincing and persuading people to behave in a certain manner. These are serve as helpful agents at times. When we design technology tools, as educators we need to keep in mind these features, where these could be helpful and where they would simply lead to distraction.

Enjoy Reading till my next blog.

Regards and prayers

Sheeba Ajmal