Slashdot Mirror
Biofeedback Games and The Placebo Effect
vrml writes In medicine, it is well-known that sugar pills sometimes produce the same effects as real drugs (Placebo Effect). But could that happen with computers too? The first scientific study of the Placebo Effect in computing, just published by the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies , gives an affirmative answer. The experiment considered affective computing, that is those fancy applications that claim to know user's emotions by detecting physiological parameters with sensors. Researchers took two well-known affective computing systems and used them to control in real-time the state of an avatar that looked more and more nervous as users' stress level increased, and more and more relaxed as it decreased. But they also considered a third system in which, unbeknown to users, the sensors were disconnected from the computer and the avatar state was controlled by a random stream of physiological data instead of the real user's data. Results show that participants believed that the sham application was able to display their stress level. Even worse, only one of the two (costly) affective computing systems produced better results than the placebo. This suggests that evaluations of such novel computer applications should include also a placebo condition, as it is routinely done in medicine but not yet in computer science.
The emotional state of the player is influenced by what he sees on the screen.
How about adding the placebo effect to the turing test. The "turing macine" should be able to re-act to idiots as well as live people.
I wonder if this effect could be used therapeutically. Have the biofeedback and all, but maybe provide a nudge/bias towards stress relief...
But then, that's not much better than putting crystals over a client's (rube's) body to let the negatons out.
Isn't this the same con perpetrated by the lie detector industry?
Could have saved themselves a lot of effort just by researching how people actually believe magic 8-balls.
The Placebo Effect is just our poor bodies reaching some limits vs more and more clever scientific studies.
As I understood it, it was self healing abilities only triggered by "someone gives a damn about me" that we don't easily access every day to fix other problems.
So having computer programs just goes more towards the whole "look, it's now on a computer" we've seen in darker scenarios. I'll stay positive on this note.
If you just stick 300 fortune cookies into a computer program, a few of them will strike home and then you get "therapeutic benefit". (I know, because I have a file of over a hundred of them, from asking my Chinese restaurant to give me a bunch each time. A few of them are really pretty good.)
Studies keep trying to go super narrow to carefully limit "complexity" but I am beginning to think the "Scientific Method" is on the verge of missing "Emergent Results" when they risk small details but leave behind controlling micro-scenarios.
Sideways from the Slashdot tradition, I didn't read the article because one look at the summary says it's too narrow, and it's become the Press's job to "expand them". Some journalists try hard, a few are hacks.
Much more broadly, I have smashed together a few projects I know have helped me.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I wonder if this has any implications for internet crap that goes viral. Reason for it is, that so much stuff has gone silly, but I am never able to discern why, it always seems just stupid to me like gangnam style or the old spice commercial. It would be interesting to see if people were led to believe it was going viral, would it change their opinion, as opposed to just regular crap on the internet which goes nowhere. Is this a case of placebo effect as well, where people are told to like something because everyone else does, if you remove the everyone else and telling aspect, would the same content matter?
So all of those papers using computer science to process control vs non-control didn't have a control. Darn...
or plain Sugar Frosted Sugar Bombs, when I need a change.
"You are getting smarter and smarter, day by day."
"Fortune favors the bold."
Tomorrow's winning lottery numbers are: 3 14 17 21 30 34
Did one of those hit home? :)
Reminds me of this.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The USPTO granted yet another patent yesterday with the magic enchantment "on a computer" to the lead researcher of the placebo experiment.
In yet another news troll company number 1 was granted a patent for placebo on ....wait for it ...."mobile phone" today.
The 'placebo' one is merely successful using the data collected by this feature. And we all know that it exists - every computer will go wrong just when you are most dependent on it working right...
The Placebo Effect is just our poor bodies reaching some limits vs more and more clever scientific studies.
The Placebo Effect doesn't exist. google "powerless placebo".
Pity that the article is behind a paywall. Anyone has a link to the full text (PDF)?
I believe many brands do that already
for exemple Apple:Give a random Display to someone and claim it is a "Retina Display"
and make the person compare it with a display with a much higher DPI,
the chances the person will say the "Retina" one is better are high
The test was already done by a few talk shows in USA and France , give an iphone 4 before the release of a newer one, and claim "its the new iphone" some people said "it is much better than the 4"
One Brand name can have a powerful placebo effect too.
give a Device with no brand and the very same one with the brand on it, user's judgement will be very biased.
My own observations of those who choose to use Apple products is they are high-strung and prone to anxiety attacks when their high-priced shit doesn't work.
They also seem to be approximately 50x more likely to be homosexual.
Can anyone explain to me why homosexuals, who only make up approximately 1% of the population, make up approximately 50% of the Apple luser base?
Perhaps that is a natural result of Apple fucking them in their asses every time they bend over.
However, I don't know if there is an actual causality involved in my hypothesis, to wit:
Do Apple products appeal more to queers or does using Apple products make you more queer?
There aren't enough female Apple lusers to test my hypothesis for statistical validity.
I'm left to only hazard a guess that most females stay away from Apple products because they know they will never get any satisfaction from any queer Apple lusers.
I would like to hear from both straight and lesbian female Apple lusers about this.
I'd like two know which two systems aren't bullshit
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They left the "science" part out of "computer science" and now they're amazed that the results of something unscientifically done didn't hold up to scientific scrutiny?
Fools, the lot of them.
Conclusion: "Recommend that autonomy of subject is taken into account in future studies, where success during trial is in subject's interest."
In good biofeedback studies, the subject should not be aware of the parameter they are attempting to control (e.g. I read a study in which the subject learned to raise and lower their body temperature at will, where as far as they were concerned, they were just trying to move a ball across a screen with their mind.)
Biofeedback is an interesting field with a lot of good scientific support, but suffers from a bad reputation due to prevalence of pseudoscience.
Disclaimer: I have worked on biofeedback research projects in the past.
Let's not forget the morally questionable Facebook experiment as well. It toyed with peoples emotions in a noticeable way that it made them either wholly positive or negative in regards to replying or posting things.
Imagine if a service made it a point to make you happy.
Instead, we get awful interfaces, annoying decisions by people that legally shouldn't be allowed to breathe, operating systems designed for systems they aren't being used on, forcing interfaces on people that do not want them and using hilariously bad statistics to defend them (MS Ribbon!), and so much crap thrown at us it just leaves you feeling empty.
Users agree: adding a progress bar makes a thing faster.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
One swallow does not make a summer. The Placebo Effect has been documented in countless studies, and is the primary mechanism by which anti-depressants work. Read the Wikipedia page, which also mentions the meta-analysis you allude to. Also, tell me how you double-blind the "no treatment" case ...
I remember going into the office next to mine at a game development company and watching a couple of guys playing a boxing game. After a minute or so, I noticed that the movements on the screen seemed to have little to do with what the guys were doing with the controllers. I watched a little longer and asked if they were actually playing the game. They checked, and the game was in demo mode.
", it is well-known that sugar pills sometimes produce the same effects as real drugs "more correct:
, it is well-known that sugar pills sometimes make the patient feel like they are experiencing same effects as real drugs
It's important because charlatan take advantage of the first statement. There are case where people give up real treatment in place for a magical one and swear they 'feel' better.
Andy Kaufman is a great example.
More accurate even:
Deceiving one self based on an emotional buy in to something.
We see similar things in none medical areas. For example, someone who buys a new car will ignore or excuse away defect. How long they do it goes up with the expense of the car relative to income,.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There was some survey done in the UK a few years back where the researcher went around and asked a bunch of people in various disciplines how often they used double-blind experimental designs. The results were kind of depressing. Physics was the worst at about 0.5% or something. Medical stuff was around one third. Oddly enough, the highest rate was for... ESP researchers.
So this sort of thing seems pretty widespread.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
The placebo effect heals nothing. It makes people feel better, not actually make them better.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
thnx for the response but...i have to respectfully disagree here...not with you per se, but more with common parliance
the situation you describe is *similar* to "the placebo effect" used in research, but it is not an example proper
the situation you describe is an *economic* effect, which should not be confused...they call it the "snob effect" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... In college I learned it as "snob good"
**yes** by this definition, most things people buy are in some way a "snob good"...ex: buying Charmin Ultra Soft instead of regular TP
remember, just an example...just like your wine example, it's a purchase of a good, which is governed by different behavior rules than personal actions like taking a sugar pill
"the placebo effect" that became part of common parliance is really, truly, only should describe the behavior we see in research when the control (placebo) group reports the same effect as the experimental thing
the problem is human behavior is **COMPLEX** and we have not, in any way, fully described it scientifically
so, lots of things people do could be called "the placebo effect" in some fashion, and you would have good reason to say so...b/c "the placebo effect" itself is poorly defined!
i'm aiming at clearing up linguistic differences so we can talk about the real issue
bottom line, every "placebo effect" we see has an explanation grounded in science that is testable
Thank you Dave Raggett
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. - JS Mill
"But then, that's not much better than putting crystals over a client's (rube's) body to let the negatons out."
See, that is just silly. Look at the facts:
1. Doing anything will have a placebo effect.
2. THE PLACEBO EFFECTS WORKS, AND IMPROVES PEOPLES LIVES
3. Therefore crystal therapy can be quite useful, and far cheaper than conventional therapy.
Yes, when evaluating new medical procedures we should take into account the placebo effect. But since the placebo effect is one of the strongest "treatments" available, we should also work on maximizing the effect as well.
Why aren't we doing that? Why the hate on placebo treatments?
Double Blind studies are done to isolate placebo effect.
In medical research with patients who have consented to said research.
Which is very different from, "routinely done in medicine."