177 research outputs found
Claim Strength and Burden of Proof
In this paper, we report results from experiments in which people read conversational arguments and then judge (a) the convincingness of each claim and (b) the individual speakers\u27 burden of proof. The results showed an anti-primacy effect: People judge the speaker who makes the first claim as having greater burden of proof. This effect persists even when each speaker\u27s claims are rated equally convincing. We also find that people rate claims less convincing when they appear in the first part of an argument than when they appear in isolation
Morality in Tele-immersive Environments
ABSTRACT Humans are spending an increasing amount of time in teleimmersive environments interacting with avatars or virtual human bodies. Additionally, human behavior and cognition are affected by experiences in tele-immersive environments. Although there is substantial psychological work surrounding the notion of morality, there is little work that examines the interplay of immersive digital environments and the moral identity of the digital medium user. We conducted a study to explore how participants' moral behaviors and self-ratings of morality changed after immersion in either a moral or immoral tele-immersive environment. Results revealed that participants who witnessed the immoral scenarios felt and acted more immoral than participants in the moral scenario condition. These findings have important implications for understanding the effects of digital media as well as for the study of the psychological construct of moral identity
Facial expression analysis for predicting unsafe driving behavior
Abstract-Pervasive computing provides an ideal framework for active driver support systems in that context-aware systems are embedded in the car to support an ongoing human task. In the current study, we investigate how and with what success tracking driver facial features can add to the predictive accuracy of driver assistance systems. Using web cameras and a driving simulator, we captured facial expressions and driving behaviors of 49 participants while they drove a scripted 40 minute course. We extracted key facial features of the drivers using a facial recognition software library and trained machine learning classifiers on the movements of these facial features and the outputs from the car. We identified key facial features associated with driving accidents and evaluated their predictive accuracy at varying pre-accident intervals, uncovering important temporal trends. We also discuss implications for real life driver assistance systems
Immersive Virtual Reality Field Trips Facilitate Learning About Climate Change
Across four studies, two controlled lab experiments and two field studies, we tested the efficacy of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) as an education medium for teaching the consequences of climate change, particularly ocean acidification. Over 270 participants from four different learning settings experienced an immersive underwater world designed to show the process and effects of rising sea water acidity. In all of our investigations, after experiencing immersive VR people demonstrated knowledge gains or inquisitiveness about climate science and in some cases, displayed more positive attitudes toward the environment after comparing pre- and post-test assessments. The analyses also revealed a potential post-hoc mechanism for the learning effects, as the more that people explored the spatial learning environment, the more they demonstrated a change in knowledge about ocean acidification. This work is unique by showing distinct learning gains or an interest in learning across a variety of participants (high school, college students, adults), measures (learning gain scores, tracking data about movement in the virtual world, qualitative responses from classroom teachers), and content (multiple versions varying in length and content about climate change were tested). Our findings explicate the opportunity to use immersive VR for environmental education and to drive information-seeking about important social issues such as climate change
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Many Ways to Walk a Mile in Another’s Moccasins: Type of Social Perspective Taking and its effect on Negotiation Outcomes
The process of social perspective taking holds tremendous promise as a means to facilitate conflict resolution. Despite rapidly accumulating knowledge about social perspective taking in general, scholars know little about how the type of social perspective taking affects outcomes of interest. This study tests whether different ways to “walk a mile in another’s shoes” cause different outcomes. By taking advantage of a computer-based simulation (where participants can learn about others by virtually walking around in the shoes of other characters), we assigned participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N = 842) to five different perspective taking treatments or a control condition. Results show that perspective takers who receive information about the other party foster more positive relationships and make greater concessions than participants who did not receive information about the other party. Furthermore, those who experientially learned about the other party’s perspective felt more positive about their relationships and made greater concessions during the negotiation than those who were simply provided information about the other party’s perspective. No differences were found between virtually and imaginatively taking the perspective of others. These findings suggest the importance of accounting for the type of social perspective taking in studying how
this social-cognitive process may facilitate conflict resolution
Simulator Sickness, and Transformed Social Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Environments
Longitudinal CVE Research 2 Empirical research on human behavior in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) is in its infancy. Historically, one of the more valuable tools social scientists have used to evaluate new forms of media is longitudinal studies that examine user behavior over an extended period of time. In the current study, three triads of participants came to the lab for 15 sessions over a ten week period to collaborate for approximately 45 minutes per session. We examined nonverbal behavior, task performance on verbal tasks, and subjective ratings of presence, copresence, simulator sickness, and entitativity over time. Furthermore, we examined two types of transformed social interaction: nonverbal mimicry and facial similarity. Results demonstrated substantial differences in task performance, subjective ratings, nonverbal behavior, and simulator sickness over time as participants became familiar with the system. Furthermore, transforming avatar appearance to increase facial similarity sometimes improved task performance. We discuss implications for research on CVEs
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