Welcome to the March 2017 SIGCHI edition of ACM TechNews.
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HEADLINES AT A GLANCE
How Technology Gets Us Hooked
The Guardian (02/28/17) Adam Alter
Sufficient exposure to technology can encourage addiction in people through the delivery of positive feedback and escalation of difficulty, and New York University's Bennett Foddy says video games are a prime example. "Video games are governed by microscopic rules," he notes. "When your mouse cursor moves over a particular box, text will pop up, or a sound will play. Designers use this sort of micro-feedback to keep players more engaged and more hooked in." Foddy stresses this micro-feedback must follow the action almost immediately, "because if there's a tight pairing in time between when I act and when something happens, then I'll think I was causing it." Foddy also says the addition of surface feedback, or "juice"--such as praise when an act is performed--is critical to a game's success. Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to surpass video games in terms of addiction because it is far more immersive, with multisensory feedback. However, experts warn of a dark side to VR, such as its potential to discourage users from interacting with real people and the real world. Whether a technology is addictive for the sake of profit or pure entertainment ultimately rests with the designer's intentions, but the boundary between these motivations is thin.
Wanted: Workers Willing to Defy Their Robot Bosses
Financial Times (02/28/17) Kaye Wiggins
Researchers at the University of Manitoba in Canada are conducting experiments to better comprehend how people might engage with robots in workplace scenarios. Such investigations into human-robot interaction are driven by forecasts that workplace robot deployments will continue to accelerate, especially those involving lightweight robots or "cobots" that work directly with people. University of Manitoba professor James Young found participants in one experiment would continue to perform tedious tasks at a robot supervisor's insistence, which illustrates the danger of attributing human-like traits to machines with a semblance of intelligence. Young says this raises concerns of employees trusting machines' judgment more than their own, which can be detrimental. "Employees should remember, it's just a machine and it doesn't always know what's going on," he says. Cary Cooper, a professor at the Alliance Manchester Business School in the U.K., is similarly worried about employees who work with robots suffering from a lack of social interaction. Companies hiring workers who will collaborate with robots may seek candidates willing to question the machines, as well as those with the flexibility and positive mindset to accept working with robots. However, Cooper says employers should take steps to properly manage the changes human-machine interaction will facilitate.
A Fascinating Glimpse at How We'll All Carpool in 2027
Wired (02/28/17) Liz Stinson
Hints as to how the advent of self-driving cars and increasingly popular carpooling may play out are suggested by a new Ideo initiative called the Future of Automobility project. The concept positions the car as a public resource forming the heart of a new marketplace in which self-driving vehicle owners can switch between ride sharing, car sharing, and private use. "We're encouraging car manufacturers to start thinking about this notion of designed interiors that facilitate really seamless sharing," says Ideo's Danny Stillion. One iteration of this project is a minivan that shuttles passengers who may or may not be strangers to each other. Riders can reserve a seat in advance and put it in social or private mode; the former activates noise cancellation technology, and the latter uses acoustic augmentation that makes it easier to hear other passengers. Ideo also designed the minivan's doors to open and close automatically, as well as a display screen on the front of the vehicle to show passenger information during pickup to make finding an unfamiliar car less problematic. "We can imagine a world in a not-too-distant future where transportation becomes a utility," notes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Daniela Rus. Researchers note new forms of mobility also could change the way cities, buildings, and parking lots are designed.
Augmented Reality Lets Cars Communicate to Reduce Road Rage
New Scientist (02/24/17) Timothy Revell
An augmented reality application that notifies other cars of why a driver is rushing or driving erratically has the potential to reduce road rage, according to Chao Wang and his colleagues at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. The CarNote system projects a transparent screen on a section of the windshield, displaying information from a connected smartphone without blocking the driver's view. Users can choose a symbol or text to display for situations in which they may need to rush, such as going to the hospital or airport. These signs would appear above their car as viewed by other drivers through their windshields. Another feature enables users to send Facebook-style "likes" and "dislikes" to other drivers. In a trial involving 30 people in a driving simulation, those who saw the signs were more forgiving of the erratic drivers than participants who saw no signs. However, the system did appear to distract drivers. Researchers say in the future "connected cars" could be designed to communicate directly with each other without the driver's input for issues such as right of way. CarNote will be presented this month at the ACM Intelligence User Interfaces (IUI 2017) conference in Limassol, Cyprus.
Unfiltered: Instagram Has Become a Haven for People Making Sensitive and Stigmatized Self-Disclosures
Drexel Now (02/23/17) Britt Faulstick
Researchers at Drexel University say Instagram has become a popular medium for people suffering from depression to express their feelings and find solace. Drexel's Nazanin Andalibi says Instagram was chosen partly because it allows for the use of pseudonyms, "and we wanted to see how people might behave differently on a more image-centric [platform], rather than one that is driven solely by textual posts and comments." Andalibi and Drexel professor Andrea Forte categorized posts according to the type of disclosures in the text and captions, and also coded the content of images inspired by visual sociology techniques using context clues. Comments on posts were categorized in a similar manner, and then statistical analysis was applied to learn what types of responses were most often elicited from specific types of posts. Andalibi and Forte found 41 percent of the posts elicited comments expressing positive social support, and "those who value feedback, engage in support seeking, or disclose sensitive concerns, do receive significantly more feedback." In addition, users who post about self-harming behaviors tend to get more empathetic comments. The researchers presented their study at the ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2017) in Portland, OR.
DARPA: We're on the Cusp of Merging Human and Machine
Computerworld (02/13/17) Sharon Gaudin
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) believes it stands on the brink of novel human-machine integration. "I think the recent science and technology developments we're making at DARPA, as well as the embracing of physiology and [artificial intelligence], is enabling us to set up the conditions for profound changes on how humans and machines can work together," says DARPA Biological Technologies Office director Justin Sanchez. "We are giving our physiology the opportunity to work with machines in a different way." Sanchez notes AI is increasing machines' ability to understand complex systems, while growing acceptance of wearable physiological analysis devices and other advancements are driving hybrid systems toward near-term breakthroughs to alter the environment as a function of human physiology. These breakthroughs could include direct neural interfaces to help people with brain injuries form and retrieve memories. DARPA also is developing implantable computers that process neural signals and use them to control devices. Sanchez says possible future military scenarios enabled by such advances could involve equipping soldiers with technology to learn new languages more easily, or with contact lenses that let them share the view of drones flying overhead.
Likelihood of Dieting Success Lies Within Your Tweets
Georgia Tech News Center (02/21/17) Ben Snedeker
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers led by professor Munmun De Choudhury have found a direct link between a person's attitude on social media and the likelihood their dieting efforts will succeed. The researchers found dieting success can be predicted with an accuracy rate of 77 percent based on the sentiment of the words and phrases the dieter uses on Twitter. Successful dieters tend to be more focused on topics related to health and fitness, and they are more socially interactive. Meanwhile, those who are not successful dieters often produce Twitter content that has a negative tone, and they tend to be more uneasy and fearful in their posts. Participants in the study connected their MyFitnessPal (MFP) and Twitter accounts. The researchers examined more than 2 million tweets and more than 100,000 MFP entries from nearly 700 individuals. Tweets were analyzed for linguistic attributes that reveal connections between a user's behavioral expression and their health. De Choudhury notes new analytical methods could be developed to provide greater health and wellbeing benefits. The research was presented at the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2017) in Portland, OR.
Understanding Social Immersion, Improving Instructional Design Are Vital to Keeping VR Around
Campus Technology (02/21/17) Sri Ravipati
The Immersive Learning Group at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education in January hosted a workshop to develop a roadmap for improving immersive learning with virtual reality (VR). The school marked the occasion by signing a pact with China's Beijing Normal University's Smart Learning Institute (SLI) and NetDragon to collaborate on VR research. SLI can build on the Harvard school's EcoMUVE software and curriculum, which employs virtual environments to educate middle-school students on ecosystems and casual patterns. EcoMUVE was one of several immersive ecosystems co-developed by Harvard professor Chris Dede. He says SLI will create software enabling a VR version of EcoMUVE called EcoVERSE. It will support a blended virtual environment in which students will sometimes use avatars within a virtual ecosystem, while at other times students will be inside a VR experience within a virtual ecosystem. "The concept of being virtually co-located but physically distributed I think is a very interesting one, and VR and immersive technology give people the sense of being in a shared space together even when they're not physically there," Dede says. He also notes increasingly affordable VR technologies are removing most barriers to adoption, although there still are obstacles to understanding a need for educational VR.
Brain Sensors for Better Learning
Tufts Now (02/06/17) Anna Nowogrodzki
Researchers at Tufts University have developed Brain Automated Chorales (BACh), a machine-learning algorithm that incorporates neuroscience into interactive digital learning. BACh gathers brain sensor information from a headset and uses it to adapt a task for learners in real time--for example, playing a piece of music on a keyboard--by measuring the learner's cognitive load from moment to moment. BACh employs functional near-infrared spectroscopy to quantify oxygen levels up to 3.5 centimeters into the brain, which is a way of measuring the cognitive load. When the cognitive load slips under a specific threshold, it signals to the algorithm that the learner is ready for more complex learning material, and it introduces an additional line of music to the piece being played. Tests with the system suggest this process increases the efficiency of learning. BACh's developers presented their research last year at the ACM Conference for Human-Computer Interaction (CHI 2016) in San Jose, CA. BACh co-developer and University of San Francisco professor Beste Yuksel says her follow-up work with the algorithm will involve adding emotion-detecting capabilities via facial-recognition technology and a wristband, which could enable BACh to respond to users more effectively.
Brain-Computer Interface Advance Allows Fast, Accurate Typing by People With Paralysis
Stanford University (02/21/17) Bruce Goldman
A Stanford University-led research study found a new brain-computer interface (BCI) can enable paralyzed people to type by thought with record speed and accuracy. Three study participants suffering from severe limb weakness had one or two electrode arrays implanted in their brains to record signals from the motor cortex, which governs muscle movement. The signals were relayed by cable to a computer and converted via algorithms into point-and-click commands directing a cursor to characters on an onscreen keyboard. With minimal training, each subject was able to outperform the results of all previous BCI tests, and none of the participants needed automatic word-completion assistance to achieve their typing rates. The intracortical BCI is a BrainGate Neural Interface System that uses a small, electrode-outfitted silicon chip that taps into the electrical signals of individual neurons. "This study reports the highest speed and accuracy, by a factor of three, over what's been shown before," says Stanford professor Krishna Shenoy. "We're approaching the speed at which you can type text on your cellphone." Shenoy anticipates within five to 10 years a self-calibrating, fully implanted wireless BCI will be created, functioning around the clock without caregiver assistance and with no cosmetic impact.
Interactive Health Apps May Inspire Healthy Behaviors, but Watch the Tone
Penn State News (02/23/17) Matt Swayne
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) conducted a study to determine if online interactive health applications are more likely to encourage healthier habits in users, but their expression of information in a conversational tone may impart a false sense of security. "In general, it speaks to the design of interactive delivery of health information that it is not only engaging, but also inspiring," says PSU professor S. Shyam Sundar. The researchers imply the display of interconnected questions and answers enforces a sense of contingency that leads to better website engagement and may subsequently boost the probability the user will adopt more healthy strategies. "We think that interactivity has been achieved when the system's output is contingent on the user's input in a continuous threaded way," Sundar says. However, he notes a more informal tone in the messages--often embodied in short phrases such as "mm-hmm" and "go on"--could make users assume they are at less risk of health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Sundar suggests a lack of face time with their doctors may drive more patients toward online health assessments and apps. The researchers note such apps could be designed as simple instant-messaging-like tools, instead of highly sophisticated instruments.
Five Innovations Harness New Technologies for People With Visual Impairment, Blindness
NIH News (02/03/17) Kathryn DeMott
The U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute (NEI) is funding technologies to help people with low vision or blindness perform daily tasks. The University of Arkansas' Cang Ye developed a co-robotic cane that helps users navigate indoor environments via a computerized camera and a motorized roller tip. The prototype's computer stores preloaded floorplans while the user can give the cane verbal instructions via a microphone and speech-recognition technology. Ye also has developed a fingerless robotic glove to guide the user's hand to doorknobs, handles, and small objects. Yantao Shen at the University of Nevada enhanced the glove with a system of pins that transmit either a mechanical or tactile signal to prompt users to position their hand to grip desired objects. Meanwhile, developers at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute integrated a global-positioning system, computer vision, and a geographic information system into a smartphone app that delivers auditory prompts so users can identify the safest street-crossing location and stay within the crosswalk. The same team is working on the camera input-output (CamIO) system, which enables visually-impaired users to explore objects naturally with real-time audio feedback. Schepens Eye Research Institute's Eli Peli is working on another NEI-funded project, which uses lenses with tiny prisms to help people with tunnel vision expand their field of view.
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