International Commun tion Association

Johan F. Hoorn

Vrije UniversiteitFaculty of Sciences, Department of Computer Science

Section Information Management & Software EngineeringSubsection Human Computer Interaction, Multimedia & Culture

jfhoorn@cs.vu.nl

May 25, 2003San Diego, CA

Personification:Metaphor and Fictional Character

in CMC

www.cs.vu.nl/~jfhoorn

Personification,what is it?

Theory

Personification

Pierre Mignard (1694). Time Clipping Cupid’s Wings.

Fictional character(Time, Cupid)

used as a metaphor(Time is a man, Love is a boy)

for an abstraction(Time, Love)

Personification

Fictional character(Robby)

used as a metaphor(Human is machine)

for an abstraction(Help, Search, Navigate)

Bill Gates (1997). Robby the Robot.

Software agents can bepersonifications

No Personification

Fictional character(Builder)

used literally(Builder is a tutor)

for an abstraction(Help, Instruct, Create)

RealTimeAide (2003). Building tutor.http://www.realtimeaide.com/tutor/tutor.htm

For this agent,the metaphoric aspect

is missing

What’s the useof personification

in CMC?

Research question

Ease ofunderstanding Fun

Task relevanceUser support“Look and feel”Etc.

User effort Motivation

Literal icon/dialog

Metaphoric icon/dialog

Mediated person/Fictional character (FC)

Personification(FC plus metaphor)

Should we apply personifications?

Should we apply personifications?

User effort Motivation

Literal icon/dialog + (easy) - (no fun)

Metaphoric icon/dialog - (difficult) + (surprising)

Mediated person/ - (build a ++ (involve-

Fictional character (FC) relationship) ment)

Personification - - +++(FC plus metaphor) Personification is

more effort for more motivation?

Agents, what dothey communicate?

Theory

Agent-Mediated Communication

Sender Message Receiver

System’sstakeholder

(e.g., client,designer,manager)

Fictional character

End-user

Goals:- instruct- persuade- entertain

Goals:- be instructed- be persuaded- be entertained

+ metaphor

Match?

Agent-Mediated Communication

Sender Message Receiver’s perspective

Fictional character

End-user

+ metaphor

Humanprocessing

Goals:- instruct- persuade- entertain

System’sstakeholder

(e.g., client,designer,manager)

PEFiC

Metaphor process

Supportuser

goals?

noyes

Useagent

Don’tuse

agent

Goals:- instruct- persuade- entertain

Goals:- be instructed- be persuaded- be entertained

Match?

Receiver

System’sstakeholder

(e.g., client,designer,manager)

End-user

yes

no

Maintain agent

Alter agent

Message

Supportother goal?

no

yes

Agent-Mediated Communication

Sender’s perspective

http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/eos/users/l/lester/www/images/IPA/cosmo_ok.gif

Agent-Mediated Communication

Sender Message Receiver’s perspective

End-user

Humanprocessing

PEFiC

Perceiving and ExperiencingFictional Characters

For empirical evidence, see and hear:

Characters,how are they processed?

Results of other studies

Norm

Epistemics

Aesthetics

Ethicsgood

beautiful

realistic

bad

ugly

unrealistic

Involvement

Distance

Appreciation

dissimilar

irrelevant

negative valence

similar

relevant

positive valence

%

%

ENCODE COMPARE RESPONDFe

atur

es o

f situ

atio

nan

d Fi

ctio

nal C

hara

cter

Identification,empathy, sympathy,warm feelings, approach, etc.

Detachment,antipathy, cold feelings, avoidance,etc.

Appraisal domains

Mediators Fuzzyfeature sets

Subjective norm vs.group norm

PEFiC model

http://www.scpcug.com/wmwand12.html

Task-irrelevant features(goal ‘instruction’)

Relevant featuresif goal is ‘entertainment’

PeedyInvolvement

Distance

Example of PEFiC in action for factor Relevance to user goals

What is the roleof epistemics?

From character to metaphor

Agent-Mediated Communication

Message Receiver’s perspective

End-user

Humanprocessing

RMP

Race model ofMetaphor Processing

For empirical evidence, see:

Part of Epistemics

descriptive figurative descriptive figurative

realistic

descriptive figurative descriptive figurative

literal metaphor

unrealistic

ASSOCIATION COMMUNICATION FORM EPISTEMICS

drooling feet constrained

suit

‘tutor is a human’

‘product presenteris a dog’’

‘human is a machine’

‘conversation partner is a human’

Metaphor is part of Epistemics

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/courses/ICS104/course-notes/metaphors.ht; http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/ags/wbski/lehre/digiSA/Methoden_der_KI/WS0102/methki15.pdf

literal metaphor

drooling (too enthusiastic)(saliva)

Metaphors,how are they processed?

Results of other studies

Categorymatch?

Sufficient descriptive ANDdescriptive/figurative

intersection?

Sufficientdescriptive/figurative

intersection?

Calculatedescriptive/figurative

intersection

Activatedescriptive and

figurativefeatures

Activatedescriptive and

figurativefeatures

‘Anomaly’

‘Metaphor’‘Literal’

no

no yes

Calculatedescriptiveintersection

Racemodel ofMetaphor

Processing

human machine

yes no

EEG: N400 atfrontal cortex feet constrained

Cosmo

How come metaphorsare harder to get but

do not take more time?

Discussion

Errors are the answer

Sufficientdescriptive/figurative

intersection?‘Metaphor’‘Literal’

no yes

Response times for literal and metaphor are about equal.No way telling whether these two information sourcesare serial or parallel

Problem:

Calculatedescriptive/figurative

intersection

Calculatedescriptiveintersection

If serial (1 before 2), applying metaphor is more time consumingand probably, more difficult to understand

If parallel, metaphor can be applied without losing time-efficiencyand trouble of understanding

(1) (2)

Investigate Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP) in response topartial error pattern (after Coles et al., 1995)

Solution:

Calculatedescriptive/figurative

intersection

Calculatedescriptiveintersection

(1) (2)

‘Literal’ ‘Metaphor’

Few errorsfor ‘Metaphor’

Many errors for ‘Literal’ invisible in behavioral measures(e.g., RT) because they arecorrected before response execution visible in EEG

Thus, speed isnot the difficulty

in metaphorbut

accuracy is

For full argumentation, see:

‘Metaphor’ ‘Literal’

Partial error ‘Literal’

LRP low

LRP highCorrect ‘Metaphor’

Predictions for contralateral effects of finger movementduring metaphor processing

(fictitious data)

stimulus

responsebuttons

motor cortex

stimulusonset

stimulusonset

Shall we apply personifications, then?

User effort Motivation

Literal icon/dialog + (easy) - (no fun)

Metaphoric icon/dialog - (difficult) + (surprising)

Mediated person/ - (do I like the ++ (personal

Fictional character (FC) character?) -ized)

Personification - - +++(FC plus metaphor)

PEFiC RMP

Appreciation (Fun)Task relevanceValence (User support)Aesthetics (“Look and feel”)Ethics (Good bot vs. bad bot)Epistemics (Graphic rendering)Similarity (cf. Avatars)Involvement-distance

N400 (surprise)Two information sources:- descriptive- descriptive/figurativeTime efficiency

Category mismatchError prone (LRP)

high

high

Personification ismore effort for more motivation

Future work

We developed a software package for testing existing and newly created agents:Stimulus and trial production, RTs, and in the future, questionnaires and EEG extensions.

Downloads: http://www.antbed.tk/

What is it?

What can youdo with it?

Create environments in PowerPointand let the agent do its actions

Actionpreview

Personification:Metaphor and Fictional Character

in CMCTHE END

Wanna know more? Visit www.cs.vu.nl/~jfhoorn