Computer Characters Tortured for Science

Rob Carr writes "Considered unethical to ever perform again with humans, researcher Mel Slater recreated the Milgram experiment in a immersive virtual environment. Subjects (some of whom could see and hear the computerized woman, others who were only able to read text messages from her) were told that they were interacting with a computer character and told to give increasingly powerful electric shocks when wrong answers were given or the 'woman' took too long to respond. The computer program would correspondingly complain and beg as the 'shocks' were ramped up, falling apparently unconscious before the last shock. The skin conductance and electrocardiograms of the subjects were monitored. Even though the subjects knew they were only 'shocking' a computer program, their bodies reacted with increased stress responses. Several of the ones who could see and hear the woman stopped before reaching the 'lethal' voltage, and about half considered stopping the study. The full results of the experimental report can be read online at PLoS One. Already, some (like William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute) are asking whether even this sanitized experiment is ethical."

Comments

Interesting Experiment

[MyLongNickName]

Take two groups: One has first gone through this "virtual torturing", the other is the control group. After this, each group will actually torture a volunteer in the same manner. Would the first group have less of an emotional response than the control group? I am sure there are many wrinkles to work out in the methodology, but this would be interesting to see the result of media on human response. It should pretty effectively answer who is right (or how right each side is) in this debate.

Re:Fun for everyone!

[daeg]

Expanding on what you said, do the experiment with eight groups.

The first and second groups act as they did in this study.

The second and third groups act as the first and second, but with a man.

The fourth and fifth groups act as the first and second, but with a man, but of a different race (black subjects get a white victim, etc).

The sixth and seventh groups act as the first and second, but with a man they are told is an enemy combatant.

There are a lot of variations of this, and I doubt any of them are very ethical. But being unethical doesn't make the results uninteresting or invalid, but without a sufficiently large group, any results would be generally untrusted (but still interesting!).

Exposure to Video Games Important?

[DeeSnider]

And instead of becoming accustomed to the virtual person and ceasing to empathise, many volunteers became more anxious as the study continued. Measures of stress, such as heart rate and sweatiness of palms, increased. These measures are nearly impossible to fake, and confirmed for Slater that the volunteers were actually feeling uncomfortable, rather than performing as they thought the experimenter would expect.

I've got to wonder what the participants' exposure to video games or other "virtual environments" would have on their responses. To a gamer, I'm not sure rapid heart rate, and sweaty palms indicate increased anxiety. They might have just been "getting into the game."

I remember when Half-Life first came out my friend and I spent a lot of time running around beating the innocent bystanders with our crowbars and watching them beg for forgiveness. We weren't doing it because we were sadists, just curious gamers. We'd never seen NPC's react in such a realistic way before, and thought it was "cool". My girlfriend came into the room while we were doing this and was horrified, got really upset and asked us to stop. Not being as avid a gamer, I don't think she was used to dissociating her emotions from video game characters.

I don't think video game violence numbs players to real world violence, but it sure numbs them to video game violence. Seems to me like prior experience would play a major role in your reaction to this experiment.

Re:Of course it's ethical

[PingSpike]

I agree.

This made me think of a personal antecdote. I don't know how many people played any games from the dungeon keeper series, but I used to play the first one a lot. One of the hallmarks of the game is that you're an evil character. However, as much as the ability to play a different persona appeals to me, every time I set out to play an evil character in any game I end up feeling remorse for killing innocents, even though they aren't real.

Anyway, in dungeon keeper (Real time strategy) you start out with a group of loyal imps. They are weak, small and do all of the mining and grunt work in your dungeon. They are unique in the game in that they can be created, and will always serve you no matter how poorly you treat them. The game allows you to slap creatures to make them work harder. There is little downside in doing this with imps since they won't flee the dungeon in anger and since they are poor fighters their health level isn't really important. Logically, all imps should be regularly slapped for maximum dungeon efficancy. And in fact, the computer controlled rival keepers do just that.

But I couldn't really do it as a matter of course. I actually felt bad, knowing full well that they weren't real. They made noises like they were in pain but of course thats just the computer. It was only when I was in a dire spot (doing a fast gem seam grab at the start of the map and then fortifying the walls to hold off an attack) that I would slap them, and even then I felt kind of bad.

So I can sort of understand how the results are similar to the original experiment. Its evoking an emotional response, and playing it again logic.

Mirror Neurons

[Rob Carr]

Mirror neurons are neurons that fire in response to what we see someone else experience. The other person picks up a pot, part of our brain that would be needed to pick up the pot fires as well. Pick up a hot pot without protection, and the person screams -- and part of your brain feels the burn. We're hard-wired for sympathy. The computer program is triggering mirror neurons in the human observer. I'd bet the researchers that wrote the computer program would have exhibited some signs of distress at the computer NPC being tortured -- even though they, better than anyone, would know that no human was involved.