SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

1. SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Thurs April 19, 2001

2. Today • Does human-computer social interaction differ from human-human interaction?

3. Building Automated Agents • Computer scientists trying to build believable agents: • ignore the vast psychological literature on personality • assume representations need to be rich • need sophisticated natural language processing and intelligent interaction • need realistic graphics, movement, and behavior

4. The Computer Are Social ActorsResearch Paradigm • CASA: Computer are Social Actors • by Nash, Reeves, Moon, Fogg, et al. • Main discoveries: • Social rules guiding human-human interaction apply equally to human-computer interaction • This kind of response can be invoked in humans using very crude representations of agentness.

5. A Survey of Responses • People apply politeness norms to computers • When asked to evaluate a progam’s performance: • people (generally) are “nicer” when “asked” by the program itself than when “asked” by a program running on a different computer

6. A Survey of Responses • People apply self-praise rules • People (generally) think more highly of a program that is “praised” by a program running on another computer than when the program “praises” itself • Computer programs that “criticize” are preceived as “smarter” than those that complement • Computer programs that praise themselves and criticize others are seen as less friendly than the converse. • These are consistent with findings in the social psychology literature.

7. A Survey of Responses • Artificial application of “team labeling” has similar social bonding effects with human and computer teams • If people are assigned to a “team” with a computer program, they are • more likely to cooperate with the program • view the program as more competent • view the program as being more similar to themselves • than in the control condition (working individually)

8. Attempts to Explain • Counterclaims: • This only happens with • people who do not understand how computers work • people who are socially or otherwise dysfunctional. • When people use the systems • they are adopting the perspective that they are interacting with the designer of the program • Nass et al. conducted studies that suggest that these are not the case.

9. Attempts to Explain • Nass et al. conclude that the explanation is: • human-computer interaction is fundamentally social • not anthropomorphic: • “tending to believe computers are like people” • human users behave as if computers were human, even though they know they are not • ethopoeia: • “assignment of human attitudes, attentions, or motives to non-human objects”

10. especially important for inter-personal relations Defining Personality • Personality study in psychology: • Provide a systematic account of the ways in which people differ from one another • Often study how to reduce personality traits into a small set of dimensions • Five orthogonal dimensions are currently in vogue: • (I) extraversion • (II) agreeableness • (III) dependability • (IV) emotional stability • (V) openness to experience

11. Defining Personality • Focus on the inter-personal dimensions: • extraversion • aka power, status, control dimension • ranges from dominant to submissive • agreeablenes • aka affiliation, warmth dimension • ranges from warmth to hostility

12. Defining Personality • The extraversion dimension • dominance: • able to give orders • talks others into doing what s/he wants • often assumes responsibility • submissiveness • easily led • lets others make decisions • avoids responsibility • Use these behavioral marks to explore if a computer program can exhibit a personality along a single dimension.

13. Hypotheses in Dominance Study • Hypothesis 1: • Participants will perceive a computer with dominant traits as being dominant and vice versa regarding submissive • Hypothesis 2: • Computers with dominant characteristics will not be perceived differently with respect to affiliation (warmth/hostility) than submissive ones • because these traits are orthogonal in human-human interaction • Hypothesis 3: • Computers with dominant characteristics will not be perceived differently with respect to competence than submissive ones • IBID

14. Hypotheses in Dominance Study • Want to see if people respond to computer “personalities” in the same way they respond to human personalities • studies show that people prefer others with similar traits (generally) • Hypotheses 4 and 5: • Participants will be more favorably disposed towards programs that match their personality • Participants will be satisfied with the interaction with the programs that match their personality

15. Experiment Design • 48 participants • undergrads • classified using a personality scale • 24 dominant, 24 submissive selected • 2 x 2 between-subjects design • factors: • computer personality • participant personality • levels? • all conditions balanced for gender

16. Procedure • Task: Desert Survival • first rank 12 objects according to importance for surviving in the desert (using pencil and paper) • Two computer monitors: • neutral: see the original list • dominant/submissive computer: proposes its own list • Both views allow listing of confidences from 1-10 • Particant enters info, then “sends” to other computer • Participants told the computer’s responses were contingent on what the participant typed • In actuality, all participants in a given condition saw the same content • Participant and computer left alone to exchange confidence levels • Afterwards, participant taken to another room • Makes a final ranking • Fills out a questionnaire

17. Creating the Perception of Personality • Phrasing of text • dominant: assertions and commands • submissive: questions and suggestions • Confidence levels • dominant: average confidence of 8.0, s.d. 0.8 • submissive: average confidence of 3.0, s.d. 0.8 • Interaction order • dominant: always went first (discussed item before partipant did) • submissive: discussed item after participant did • Computer name (confirmed by pre-testing) • dominant: Max • submissive: Linus

18. Measures • Dependent variables • program likeability • program competence • Measured via questionnaire, 10pt Likert scale • (Describes very poorly … Describes very well) • “For each word below, indicate how well it describes the computer you just worked with.” • assertive, friendly, helpful insightful, … • “For each word below, indicate how well it describes your interaction with the computer” • enjoyable, interesting, … • Other questions on satisfaction with the interaction and about the similarity between the computer’s interaction style and their own.

19. Results • Full-factorial ANOVA • All 5 hypotheses were supported • dominant computer was seen as such, same for submissive • no difference between dominant and submissive computers and their scores on affiliation dimension • submissive participants perceived the computer in both conditions to be friendlier than dominant participants • no difference between dominant and submissive computers and their scores on competence dimension • participants preferred the program that matched their personality types, and found them more competent • participants preferred the interaction with the program that matched their personality type

20. Discussion • Personality is • powerful • easy to manipulate • can provide cues for complex social behavior • people can respond as if the program has a personality • Suggests a procedure for research: • select a social science finding for human-human interaction • replace one human with a program • see if humans continue to interact in the same manner

21. Open Questions • Some psych findings suggest that the more people interact with each other the more similar they become … • How would people respond to inconsistent personality in a program? • What exactly is personality?

22. Silicon Syncophants • Will the same thing happen with human-computer interaction and • genuine praise? • false flattery?

23. Summary • People seem to treat interactive computers as if they were social actors • What are the implications? • for design of UIs • for understanding social interaction?