Book Reading # 48

Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers
Summary
This paper talks about how humans apply social rules to computers even though we know they are just computers. In their studies they discuss how people categorize computers by gender (perhaps pink computers for females), how people engage in polite behavior towards the computer, and humans interacting with dominant and submissive computers.
Discussion
It is impressive how we as humans unconsciously assign social traits to computer. How can a computer be dominant or submissive? I was surprised by the results the paper gives. The personality test and personality matching is also described in on of the other papers.

Computers are Social Actors
Summary
This paper talks about a study that involved 180 college computer literate students. The main goal of this study was to answer if people interact with computers applying social rules. There were five answers the authors wanted to answer from the results of the study.  Study volunteers would go through  a tutoring, testing, and evaluation session. After the three sessions, volunteers would answer a questionnaire about their experience.
Discussion
It is nice to read this paper at last, and it was actually by accident. This paper shows actual results about the five questions the authors wanted to answer.

Can Computer Personalities be Human Personalities?
Summary
This paper talks about determining the minimum set of cues to create a computer-based personality. There are two personality dimensions: dominance and the affiliation dimensions. The authors claim the a person with a dominant personality will perceive a computer as dominant,  and a person with a submissive personality as submissive. According to psychologists people tend to prefer to interact with other people of their same personality.
Discussion
The interesting thing about this paper is how they create a personality test and randomly match you with a computer with a certain personality. The results show that their initial hypothesis were all true. Individuals who were randomly placed with a matching personality computer found the experiment to be more satisfying.