Main Arguments:
- When the computer is viewed as a source (CAS), people respond socially to the technology itself.
- When the computer is viewed as a medium, users’ social responses are not directed towards the technology but are affected by it.
1.0 What is Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
- HCI is an interdisciplinary field.
- It investigates how people think about the human-machine interaction, and
- is concerned with the factors that can improve the usability of computer systems.
2.0 The Social-behavioral approach to HCI / “soft” science paradigm
- Treat interactions between humans and computers as “conversations”, or to HCI as analogous to human-human conversations.
- Highlighting the importance of communication-related variables.
- “Humanise” computers by basing them off human-like attributes such as personality and group membership.
- (as opposed Management Information Systems (MIS) research, which looks at computers as a tool to an end and stresses implications of implementing technology)
- Structural interfaces such as modality and interactivity also influence these interactions.
3.0 Computer as Source
- Computer interfaces with a wide array of social cues such as natural language use, interactivity, human social roles, speech, and anthropomorphic agents
- Computer as Social Actors (CASA): People automatically treat computers as social actors which evoke in users a wide range of social attributions (the process by which individuals explain behaviours or events or develop causal explanations for outcomes).
3.1 Social responses to communication technology
- Seeing computers as social actors (humans) we can’t help but apply our social biases onto them if we associate certain attribute with stereotypes
- E.g. Computers voice assistance that utilises male voice tend to be perceived as more proficient in technical subjects.
- Personality also affects how people reacted with computers – they tend to respond more positively to computers whose personalities match their own.
- Personality includes sub-attributes such as level of confidence, assertiveness, submissiveness, introversion and extroversion.
- Attributes and Personalities are social cues, or triggers, to social scripts associated with them, triggering spontaneous social behaviours grounded in interpersonal relationship.
- Principle of reciprocity
- A computer that reveals its vulnerabilities elicited people’s willingness to help more.
3.2 Embodied Agents and Human-Robot Interaction
- The tendency to anthropomorphize computers is automatically activated.
- Can be used to predict the level of loyalty people feel towards the computer/robot
- Factors that affect such phenomena:
- The degree of resemblance to a human
- Form (whether it has a face or facial features)
- Functionality (nonverbal behaviours, like nods and gaze)
- The perceived degree of autonomy
- Leads people to ascribe animacy and intentionality to them
- The degree of resemblance to a human
- Implications:
- Improvements in working relationships
- Derives more responsibility from the human
- Creates a stronger bond between human and artificial actors
- Influences attitude towards the system
- Realism can be negative as well:
- Having facial features can hinder performance of user
- Unrealistic expectations and mismatch
- Anthromorphic agents may backfire when behaviours fail to map onto user expectations
- For socially sensitive topics, mechanomorphic interfaces may be better (because it seems neutral
- Improvements in working relationships
3.3 Why Social Responses?
- Causes for the inherent socialness of HCI
- Computer as Proxy / Parasocial account: Users have the software programmer in mind when interacting with the interface, and develop an attachment
- Lack of understanding of the computer – though there is no correlation as shown by the lack of significant difference with children’s feelings towards computers.
- Mindlessness: people only focus on the cues and fail of the interaction
3.4 Comparisons between HCI and Human-Human Interaction
- People are more excited to interact with other humans (as shown in one study).
- Participants talked more, were more likely to use relationship-oriented statements and reciprocate their partners’ influence attempts when they think of CAS.
- People adjusted their interpersonal distance
4.0 Computer as Medium
- Computer as Medium (CAM) means that the computer is viewed as a conduit of content, and not a source (human-like producer).
- Akin to mass communication
4.1 Intermedia comparisons
- Use
- Web displacing television use for entertainment needs.
- Compulsive use of internet brings about concerns with psychosocial consequences.
- Internet addiction: individuals who lack self-presentational social skills show markedly greater preference for online social interaction (POSI), resulting in problematic Internet use (PIU)
- Credibility
- Individuals seldom pause to check the credibility of the source
- user motivation and ability predicts critical evaluation of online information credibility
- Cognitive effects
- User factors
- Changing and diverse web behaviours and interaction styles
- System variables
- information-processing theories borrowed from cognitive psychology and educational technology research
- Linear site designs: promotes factual learning
- User factors
4.2 Variable-Centered approach
- As technologies mature, common attributes emerge and specifical attributes or variables.
- Multimedia
- Transformation from single modality (TV and Radio) has become newer and multiple modality technologies
- In this field, scholars are interested in how different modalities of interaction with “computer-based media and analyse the cognitive impact of various modalities by altering our processing of underlying content and inducing a sense of presence.”
- Interactivity: taken to be an attribute of the technology rather than the user.
- The inclusion of:
- choice, 2-way conversations, real-time participation, user activity, speed, mapping…
- Interactivity residing in the process of interaction
- Significant psychological effects
- Induce a sense of telepresence
- The inclusion of:
5 Future Trends
- HCI research will likely to be characterised by efforts to specify the mechanism with these
- The ability to uncover individual differences.
- The five meditation of five user perceptions
- relevance,
- Interactivity
- Involvement
- community
- and novelty