Hi Lassi,
Thanks for your message.
Good point. Nass' work edges onto the same territory.
One of my PhD students some years ago did a sweet PhD looking at
emotionally-based online shopping interfaces using Nass' 'computers as
social actors' and 'Media equation' concepts. Although it was useful in
several other ways, her research showed up some limitations of those kind
of approaches and the way they assumed a given sense of 'what it is to be
human' that is very conservative and lowest common denominator.
The challenge inherent to and revealed by Nass' work is whether the
generally accepted 'understanding' that is taken for given about 'what it
is to be human' is way too superficial and naïve. His later work on whether
we can get better understanding of human behaviour by watching how we
interact with computers makes a start on that challenge.
Others, however, have already explored much further down that path, e.g.
Fernandez-Armesto's 'So you think you're human?' (or even Darwin's 1872 book
on Emotion ).
Studying and theorising in this area is all made more difficult because the
embedded simplistic pictures we have from 5000 years of history of
conceptualising about being human trap our thinking and make it difficult
for us to envisage other perspectives.
One way forward is to look for windows where it's possible to get the
occasional glimpse of how to see things better. Regardless of its form and
rhetoric style, the link on superstition in computer use points to a
different way of seeing what it is to be human (beyond the criticism of lack
of technical skills). Its comments about users provide a mini-snapshot of
how we shift to other ways of being when faced with situations beyond our
competence. I suggest that in itself makes the issue of interest to design
work because designers typically work beyond their competence and hence
potentially subject to the same sorts of unusual behaviours.
It raises questions such as:
'What alternative ways of being and thinking do designers use when they are
making decision in situations for which they do know what is best?'
' How much do designers fall back onto designing by anthropomorphising
situations?'
'Is the kind of behaviour described in the link explained only by
anthropomorphising, or are their better or more foundational explanations
that go deeper than anthropomorphic habituation?'
All of these are potentially of use in research identifying better ways to
design and better theories relating to designer and user's behaviours.
Best regards and thanks again,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lassi A
Liikkanen
Sent: Friday, 1 June 2012 4:17 PM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Another part of theory of usability
> Linnda Caporael has written several papers on anthropomorphism, some
> of them addressing machines. If anyone has citations on similar
> topics, I'd be interested.
Prof. Clifford Nass from Stanford has published two books on the topic,
building on years of research done about computers as social actors. You
might also find the Media equation paper by him and Byron Reeves an
interesting read.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Lied-Laptop-Relationships/dp/1617230014
http://www.amazon.com/Clifford-Nass/e/B000APEYU2
Best regards,
Dr. Lassi A. Liikkanen
Researcher, project lead (http://musiq.fi) Helsinki Institute for
Information Technology HIIT
FI tel +358 50 384 1508
http://hiit.fi/lassial/
twitter: @lassial
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