Visualizing Digital Identity

We cannot see what our digital identity looks like or view what it says about our behavior, feelings, or actions that are stored online. The data that is collected by surveillance from our smartphones build a fragmented and distorted reflection of ourselves. This stockpile of our data and this mirrored self it creates have become an increasingly valuable commodity that fuels the surveillance economy. While the existence of these datasets is not always obvious, they are attainable by request while the reflection of yourself they create is a heavily guarded secret. The digital identity created by this collection of data is explored through visual communication design. Datasets were acquired by applications such as Google, Spotify and Instagram from my smartphone. With this information I explore if design methodology can be applied to create a representation of my digital identity, and what critical reflections can these representations reveal about my digital identity? New processes were explored by using researching through design. In this process, the disconnections between concepts contained within the topic of digital surveillance and digital identity are analyzed. The scope of the project and the visualizations move through cycles of simplification as they narrow towards a place where a reflection can be made. These visualizations use Methodology from Surrealism and Discursive Design in their process and reflection. This recounts my research through design, and explores visualization of digital identity through using design as a medium for understanding. The visualizations move in a timeline through a series of iterative explorations. Each iteration contains its own context, process, and reflection. The iterative exploration moves towards understanding the digital identity by approaching the subject from multiple perspectives and executions of design. A theme of a distorted and fragmented reflection appears as the visualizations evolve in their process of iteration. The resulting understanding of a digital identity may never be finalized, but the resulting discourse invited through exploration becomes subjective reflections. This understanding of our fragmented and distorted reflections of our digital identity opens possibilities for further research.Master of Design, Visual CommunicationMAV

Designing Chatbots for Crises: A Case Study Contrasting Potential and Reality

Chatbots are becoming ubiquitous technologies, and their popularity and adoption are rapidly spreading. The potential of chatbots in engaging people with digital services is fully recognised. However, the reputation of this technology with regards to usefulness and real impact remains rather questionable. Studies that evaluate how people perceive and utilise chatbots are generally lacking. During the last Kenyan elections, we deployed a chatbot on Facebook Messenger to help people submit reports of violence and misconduct experienced in the polling stations. Even though the chatbot was visited by more than 3,000 times, there was a clear mismatch between the users’ perception of the technology and its design. In this paper, we analyse the user interactions and content generated through this application and discuss the challenges and directions for designing more effective chatbots

Menstrual Cycle and Facial Preferences Reconsidered

Two previous articles reported that women prefer less feminized male faces during the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, supposedly reflecting an evolved mating strategy whereby women choose mates of maximum genetic quality when conception is likely. The current article contends this theory rests on several questionable assumptions about human ancestral mating systems. A new empirical test also was conducted: 853 adults, primarily from North America, evaluated facial attractiveness of photos. The study included more complete evaluation of ovulatory status and a greater number (n = 258) of target women than past research. The results did not suggest any greater preference for masculine faces when fertilization was likely. The article concludes with general comments about evolutionary theorizing and interpersonal relationships

Mosquito Feeding Affects Larval Behaviour and Development in a Moth

Organisms are attacked by different natural enemies present in their habitat. While enemies such as parasitoids and predators will kill their hosts/preys when they successfully attack them, enemies such as micropredators will not entirely consume their prey. However, they can still have important consequences on the performance and ecology of the prey, such as reduced growth, increased emigration, disease transmission

Facing Aggression: Cues Differ for Female versus Male Faces

The facial width-to-height ratio (face ratio), is a sexually dimorphic metric associated with actual aggression in men and with observers' judgements of aggression in male faces. Here, we sought to determine if observers' judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio in female faces. In three studies, participants rated photographs of female and male faces on aggression, femininity, masculinity, attractiveness, and nurturing. In Studies 1 and 2, for female and male faces, judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio even when other cues in the face related to masculinity were controlled statistically. Nevertheless, correlations between the face ratio and judgements of aggression were smaller for female than for male faces (F1,36 = 7.43, p = 0.01). In Study 1, there was no significant relationship between judgements of femininity and of aggression in female faces. In Study 2, the association between judgements of masculinity and aggression was weaker in female faces than for male faces in Study 1. The weaker association in female faces may be because aggression and masculinity are stereotypically male traits. Thus, in Study 3, observers rated faces on nurturing (a stereotypically female trait) and on femininity. Judgements of nurturing were associated with femininity (positively) and masculinity (negatively) ratings in both female and male faces. In summary, the perception of aggression differs in female versus male faces. The sex difference was not simply because aggression is a gendered construct; the relationships between masculinity/femininity and nurturing were similar for male and female faces even though nurturing is also a gendered construct. Masculinity and femininity ratings are not associated with aggression ratings nor with the face ratio for female faces. In contrast, all four variables are highly inter-correlated in male faces, likely because these cues in male faces serve as “honest signals”

Physiological Stress Mediates the Honesty of Social Signals

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Sex, War, and Disease: The Role of Parasite Infection on Weapon Development and Mating Success in a Horned Beetle (Gnatocerus cornutus)

While parasites and immunity are widely believed to play important roles in the evolution of male ornaments, their potential influence on systems where male weaponry is the object of sexual selection is poorly understood. We experimentally infect larval broad-horned flour beetles with a tapeworm and study the consequent effects on: 1) adult male morphology 2) male-male contests for mating opportunities, and 3) induction of the innate immune system. We find that infection significantly reduces adult male size in ways that are expected to reduce mating opportunities in nature. The sum of our morphological, competition, and immunological data indicate that during a life history stage where no new resources are acquired, males allocate their finite resources in a way that increases future mating potential

Individual Facial Coloration in Male Eulemur fulvus rufus: A Condition-dependent Ornament?

Researchers studying individual variation in conspicuous skin coloration in primates have suggested that color indicates male quality. Although primate fur color can also be flamboyant, the potential condition dependence and thus signaling function of fur remains poorly studied. We studied sources of variation in sexually dichromatic facial hair coloration in red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur fulvus rufus). We collected data on 13 adult males in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar, during two study periods in 2006 and 2007, to determine whether variation in facial hair coloration correlates with male age, rank, androgen status, and reproductive success. We quantified facial hair coloration via standardized digital photographs of each male, assessed androgen status using fecal hormone measurements, and obtained data on reproductive success through genetic paternity analyses. Male facial hair coloration showed high individual variation, and baseline coloration was related to individual androgen status but not to any other parameter tested. Color did not reflect rapid androgen changes during the mating season. However, pronounced long-term changes in androgen levels between years were accompanied by changes in facial hair coloration. Our data suggest that facial hair coloration in red-fronted lemur males is under proximate control of androgens and may provide some information about male quality, but it does not correlate with dominance rank or male reproductive success

The interplay between gonadal steroids and immune defence in affecting a carotenoid-dependent trait

The hypothesis that sexual ornaments are honest signals of quality because their expression is dependent on hormones with immune-depressive effects has received ambiguous support. The hypothesis might be correct for those signals that are carotenoid-dependent because the required carotenoid deposition in the signal, stimulated by testosterone, might lower the carotenoid-dependent immune defence of the organism. Two pathways underlying this androgen-dependent honest signaling have been suggested. Firstly, androgens that are needed for ornament expression may suppress immune defence, a cost that only high-quality animals can afford. Alternatively, immune activation may downregulate the production of androgens in low-quality individuals. Which of these alternatives is correct, and to what extent these effects are mediated by the different metabolites of androgens, remain open questions. To provide answers to these questions, we manipulated the levels of testosterone (T), 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT), and 17-β-estradiol (E2) in diamond doves Geopelia cuneata, a species in which both sexes exhibit a carotenoid-dependent, androgen-regulated red–orange periorbital ring of bare skin. On the first day of the experiment (day 0), we inserted steroid-releasing implants into groups of birds and on day 14, we subjected half of the birds to an immunological challenge by immunizing them with sheep red blood cells (SRBC). In females, but not in males, androgen but not estradiol treatments reduced antibody production to SRBC. In addition, the immunological challenge reduced redness and size of the trait as well as androgens levels in both sexes and in all treatments. This indicates that an immunological challenge can lower circulating T at the cost of the trait expression. These findings are in accordance with both pathways postulated in the immunocompetence-handicap hypothesis, but do not entirely support the idea that the immunosuppressive effect of androgens yields honest signaling since both T and DHT were not immunosuppressive in males, for which sexual signaling is supposed to be especially important