Invstr73
06-02-2005, 07:34 PM
Dan if this article is in the wrong place I apologize. I wasn't sure where this would fit in but thought it was a good read.
Psychologists and salesmen call it the "chameleon
effect": People are perceived as more honest and
likeable if they subtly mimic the body language of the
person they're speaking with. Now scientists have
demonstrated that computers can exploit the same
phenomenon, but with greater success and on a larger
scale.
Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human
Interaction Lab strapped 69 student volunteers into an
immersive, 3-D virtual-reality rig, where test
subjects found themselves sitting across the table
from a "digital agent" -- a computer-generated man or
woman -- programmed to deliver a three-minute pitch
advocating a notional university security policy
requiring students to carry ID whenever they're on
campus.
The anthropomorphic cyberhuckster featured moving lips
and blinking eyes on a head that nodded and swayed
realistically. But unbeknownst to the test subjects,
the head movements weren't random. In half the
sessions, the computer was programmed to mimic the
student's movements exactly, with a precise
four-second delay; if a test subject tilted her head
thoughtfully and looked up at a 15-degree angle, the
computer would repeat the gesture four seconds later.
For the other half of the participants, the program
used head movements recorded from earlier students,
ensuring they were realistic but unconnected to the
test subject.
The results (.pdf), to be published in the August
issue of the journal Psychological Science, were
dramatic: Only eight of the subjects detected the
mimicry (one of them falsely). The remaining students
liked the mimicking agent more than the recorded
agent, rating the former more friendly, interesting,
honest and persuasive.
They also paid BETTER attention to the parroting
presenter, looking away less often. Most
significantly, they were more likely to come around to
the mimicking agent's way of thinking on the issue of
mandatory ID.
In all, the mimicry accounted for 20 percent of all
the variance in the subjects' perception of the agent
and its Ashcroftian message. "This is the biggest
effect that we've found," says Stanford communications
assistant professor Jeremy Bailenson, head of the lab.
"It's not fragile, it doesn't depend on gender. Across
the board, everyone found the mimicker more
persuasive."
"This opens the door to digital agents taking
advantage of this strategy and USING IT for or against
us, depending on how you look at it," says researcher
Nick Yee, a doctoral student at Stanford and co-author
of the paper.
Bailenson says the research not only shows that
computers can take advantage of our psychological
quirks, but that they can do it more effectively than
humans can because they can execute precise movements
with scientifically optimized timing.
The killer app is in virtual worlds, where each
inhabitant can be presented with a different image,
and the chameleon effect is no longer limited to
one-on-one interaction. A single speaker -- whether an
AI or a human avatar -- could mimic a thousand people
at once, undetected, transforming a cheap salesman's
trick into a tool of mass influence.
The principal even has application in today's
cyberspace, where most denizens communicate through
their fingertips and not virtual-reality headsets, he
says. "How fast you type, the ways that you formulate
sentences, the way you use capital letters -- all of
these things are very mimickable," says Bailenson.
The experiment wasn't Bailenson's first exploration of
how computers can be used to mold opinion
subliminally. One week before last November's
presidential election, the lab conducted an experiment
in influencing voters that proved stunningly
successful.
The lab recruited a national sample of voting-age test
subjects and had them complete a survey of their
attitudes toward President Bush and Sen. John Kerry
while viewing side-by-side photos of the presidential
candidates.
What the subjects didn't know is that for one-third of
them, their OWN faces had been digitally blended, or
"morphed," into the photo of Bush at a 40-60 ratio. A
different one-third had their faces morphed with
Kerry's. The final third saw only undoctored photos.
The control group favored Bush by about the same
three-point margin as the national election to come.
But among the test subjects who were morphed with
Dubya, "Bush won by 15 points in a landslide," says
Bailenson. And the voters who were blended with Kerry?
"Kerry won by 6 percent," he says. "We actually made
Kerry win the election when his face was morphed with
the observer, and we had a zero-percent detection
rate."
Even Bailenson calls that experiment scary. But he
says his lab isn't about using computers to dominate
the human will. "Digital representations of people are
inherently flexible," Bailenson says. "I can look
however I want and behave however I want. What I study
is, in this brave new world where people are
represented by ones and zeros, what's going to happen
and how are people going to react?"
And Yee, an expert in virtual worlds, says the work
will have real and positive applications. For example,
"If kids learn better sitting in front of the teacher,
than you can build an online environment where each
kid is in front of the teacher," he said.
But Yee admits the lab's findings could lend
themselves to unsavory exploitation. "You could get a
postcard from President Bush that has 20 percent of
your facial features."
Psychologists and salesmen call it the "chameleon
effect": People are perceived as more honest and
likeable if they subtly mimic the body language of the
person they're speaking with. Now scientists have
demonstrated that computers can exploit the same
phenomenon, but with greater success and on a larger
scale.
Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human
Interaction Lab strapped 69 student volunteers into an
immersive, 3-D virtual-reality rig, where test
subjects found themselves sitting across the table
from a "digital agent" -- a computer-generated man or
woman -- programmed to deliver a three-minute pitch
advocating a notional university security policy
requiring students to carry ID whenever they're on
campus.
The anthropomorphic cyberhuckster featured moving lips
and blinking eyes on a head that nodded and swayed
realistically. But unbeknownst to the test subjects,
the head movements weren't random. In half the
sessions, the computer was programmed to mimic the
student's movements exactly, with a precise
four-second delay; if a test subject tilted her head
thoughtfully and looked up at a 15-degree angle, the
computer would repeat the gesture four seconds later.
For the other half of the participants, the program
used head movements recorded from earlier students,
ensuring they were realistic but unconnected to the
test subject.
The results (.pdf), to be published in the August
issue of the journal Psychological Science, were
dramatic: Only eight of the subjects detected the
mimicry (one of them falsely). The remaining students
liked the mimicking agent more than the recorded
agent, rating the former more friendly, interesting,
honest and persuasive.
They also paid BETTER attention to the parroting
presenter, looking away less often. Most
significantly, they were more likely to come around to
the mimicking agent's way of thinking on the issue of
mandatory ID.
In all, the mimicry accounted for 20 percent of all
the variance in the subjects' perception of the agent
and its Ashcroftian message. "This is the biggest
effect that we've found," says Stanford communications
assistant professor Jeremy Bailenson, head of the lab.
"It's not fragile, it doesn't depend on gender. Across
the board, everyone found the mimicker more
persuasive."
"This opens the door to digital agents taking
advantage of this strategy and USING IT for or against
us, depending on how you look at it," says researcher
Nick Yee, a doctoral student at Stanford and co-author
of the paper.
Bailenson says the research not only shows that
computers can take advantage of our psychological
quirks, but that they can do it more effectively than
humans can because they can execute precise movements
with scientifically optimized timing.
The killer app is in virtual worlds, where each
inhabitant can be presented with a different image,
and the chameleon effect is no longer limited to
one-on-one interaction. A single speaker -- whether an
AI or a human avatar -- could mimic a thousand people
at once, undetected, transforming a cheap salesman's
trick into a tool of mass influence.
The principal even has application in today's
cyberspace, where most denizens communicate through
their fingertips and not virtual-reality headsets, he
says. "How fast you type, the ways that you formulate
sentences, the way you use capital letters -- all of
these things are very mimickable," says Bailenson.
The experiment wasn't Bailenson's first exploration of
how computers can be used to mold opinion
subliminally. One week before last November's
presidential election, the lab conducted an experiment
in influencing voters that proved stunningly
successful.
The lab recruited a national sample of voting-age test
subjects and had them complete a survey of their
attitudes toward President Bush and Sen. John Kerry
while viewing side-by-side photos of the presidential
candidates.
What the subjects didn't know is that for one-third of
them, their OWN faces had been digitally blended, or
"morphed," into the photo of Bush at a 40-60 ratio. A
different one-third had their faces morphed with
Kerry's. The final third saw only undoctored photos.
The control group favored Bush by about the same
three-point margin as the national election to come.
But among the test subjects who were morphed with
Dubya, "Bush won by 15 points in a landslide," says
Bailenson. And the voters who were blended with Kerry?
"Kerry won by 6 percent," he says. "We actually made
Kerry win the election when his face was morphed with
the observer, and we had a zero-percent detection
rate."
Even Bailenson calls that experiment scary. But he
says his lab isn't about using computers to dominate
the human will. "Digital representations of people are
inherently flexible," Bailenson says. "I can look
however I want and behave however I want. What I study
is, in this brave new world where people are
represented by ones and zeros, what's going to happen
and how are people going to react?"
And Yee, an expert in virtual worlds, says the work
will have real and positive applications. For example,
"If kids learn better sitting in front of the teacher,
than you can build an online environment where each
kid is in front of the teacher," he said.
But Yee admits the lab's findings could lend
themselves to unsavory exploitation. "You could get a
postcard from President Bush that has 20 percent of
your facial features."