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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.
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?
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...
Reminds me of this.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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...
Pity that the article is behind a paywall. Anyone has a link to the full text (PDF)?
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.'"
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.
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.
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