notes from class 2006.02.23

prototypes:

model that has been experimentally verified through time/experience
how quickly can people recognise characteristics that define an exemplar prototype
*perceptual* aspect (vs. manipulating)

roles:
theatre as metaphor, based on language
everything has to be grounded on the physical world, all metaphorical
"fits the role" "plays the part" --> theatrical performance, presentation

what does metaphor mean?
- multiplicity of roles, choice, multi-facet
- social interaction with other 'actors' and the 'audience'
- adjust to audience's response to the actor's role
- can audience believe the role? too theatrical? not realistic?

internal vs. external self

person is complex, only small elements / glimpses can be seen at one time
performed public face <----> internal private state
multifaceted complex

role : intentional use of signaling
deliberate roles vs. unintended roles
- contextually dependent, subtle gradation between deliberate and indeliberate roles
professional : have to play role at work (waiter, customer service, business partner)
forced : have to play role as caretaker for a lost child

sometimes roles can be more accepted / popular in society
feels easier to do, mainstream
alternative crowds have to more consciously adjust to fit in society

judith butler: how much is gender a performance vs. nature?
* how much of our behaviour is defined by our environment and cultural forces?
* how much is defined by our own nature?

readings:

prestige + intimacy balance and optimization
economic view of relationships
stereotyped view of men and women
people being observed (close-knit college group)
- group-specific conversation + interviews
- 'want to find a husband' task
you interpret things differently depending on the hypothesized models of the men
he's this type, that type, define + judge behaviour accordingly
what types of characteristics (and the set of them) that define the prototype
- and how can i expect this guy to treat me as a girlfriend?

effects of deception:
- not answering the phone -- effect of 'being inaccessible'
- phones have complex deception -- faking phone calls, faking making/receiving
- easy to find stories of pretending to be on the phone
robert dunbar: cellphones as LEKKING behaviour
- telephone as an easy source of fake signaling
self-assessment of prestige vs. public-assessment (psychology)
people are aware of when they send emails, displays what time you're available
act like high-status -- not as deceptive as flat out lying
manipulating exactly what aspects of you are perceived by others
deception is a gamble -- double or nothing depending if you're caught (and news spread)
- if discovered your role / perception / status drops
can be high status in one group, low status in another group; how to share knowledge
high risk of deception in a highly competitive group
face-saving: want to avoid humiliation and embarassment
cooperation (friends, community) + competition (for self prestige and prestigious men) among the women
cooperation vs competition --> complexity of community
ex. flickr : community of themes
cooperative: want to collaborate on a single project
competitive: who can do the most or most interesting
flickr came out of a game design -- design of built-in community
online systems: who has the most connections? more quantitative than qualitative
how can you make things more sustainable -- more ongoing competitive community

observations:

au bon pain
two women seated
perceptions based on gender (what girls notice, what guys notice)
perceptions based on background (indian, german)
mainstream role -- current college student in boston
-- how much is clothing / look a conscious or subconscious decision
nalgene bottle, north face jacket
long-term interactions are harder to fake, keep consistent

text-based signals vs. visual representations
sense of affectiveness?

second life:
how do you see representatio
competence counts -- the more experience you have in a space
clear who is an insider vs. outsider
what are communities and the boundaries?
boundary issues are acute
how do you legitimise your participation
how to deal with boundaries
community-based economy
how does money translate into these different spaces?

milwaukee craigslist personals:
wants a woman with baggage
14 questions - contact me if you say yes to any of them
guy is confident + sense of humor
is he joking, or desperate, or malicious?
no description of himself except for the outward questions
try to deduce a backstory from an ambiguous outlay
how can you interpret the world from limited information? make deductions.

for next week:
model of fashion
quality that is being signaled stays the same
the FORM of the signal changes over time
quality : affiliation + status
offskirts + inaccessible information ---> knowledge is shared over time

exists:
- need a lot of social mobility
social positions are changing
people's ability to move around is high
- world where knowledge + information are very peak commodities
knowledge is spreadable, not consumable (not like money or food)
fashion -- show your access to information

middle ages, roles werent defined by hierarchy knowledge
"fashion" began late 14th century
because of the increased social mobility, trade routes
sumptuary laws: who can wear particular clothing so people are forced to 'look their part'
(only royalty can wear purple, etc)
centuries go on: rate of sharing knowledge gets faster and faster
competition with upper classes who have resources to update their clothing
how to update
notions of fashions in nonmaterial culture - rate of change is rapid
popular music as fashion
blogs as fashion (researched domains: politics, entertainment)
fashion motivated by society AND by marketing

simple model:
high status does X
lower status learns about it and does X
high status needs to reinterpret and do Y

though hierarchy is not simplified
there's complex overlappings and interactions

subcultures: gothic, alternative
authenticity and commitment to a representative state

fashion can imply status or authentic commitment

academia: fashion driven world
fashions in research types, trends in approach
how to pursue knowledge?
show where you are in terms of knowledge
reviewing papers and grant proposals (committees), in comtemporaries
-- "this problem is no longer fashionable"

information is important
rate of change of fashion and knowledge is rapidly increasing
day-to-day energy to keep up with flow of information
- portray oneself as knowledgable, up on what's buzzing

notes for 2006.02.16

2006.02.16
week 2

open for questions:

how can signaler know when receiver has 'gotten' the signal?
ex. facial expressions (not clear how other ppl are responding)
difficult and ambiguous online -- what is the response?
try to gather info to help shape the response

increased complexity from moving from animal world to human world

fur-coat wearer -- how do they know that the signal was received successfully?
salient confirmation / reinforcement (ex. invited to fancy parties)
going by your own and other's experiencing (modeling your behaviour after successful others)

performance :: compendium of everything you do, complex system put together by all different pieces of behaviour and display
--> comes through with extensive established knowledge

(from assignment)

assessment signal: signaling a need

suicide bomber ends the relationship between signaller and receiver
hunger strike -- the relationship lasts since the person slowly wastes away, weakens, but does not die
showing strength for fighting particular cause
- combining physical cost as well as associative cost
putting price on a cause --> signal of need of life, attention

quality : absolute importance of a political statement
not in domain of quality being signaled

absolute need of food or life vs. personal internal model of what the cost is
(harvard: jessica stern, top scholar on suicide bombers)
suicide --> reward vs. suicide --> eternal damnation
loss of life is less of a handicap

how do we discourage the personal assessment of benefit / cost?
a whole complex belief system -- aggression + salvation

conventional signal : war medals

signaling bravery, veteran
can be awarded by the secretary of defense in doing well in a war
or buy them on ebay
easily copied and for trivial money cost
needs to be backed up by other supporting factors
need to verify through questions, more evidence of knowledge
object doesnt have inherent connection, but it changes meaning based on the ease of availability
the people who would respond most to the medal would be the actual veterans, and they would be able to tell more accurately
for a war medal -- low benefit through a dishonest signal

what are the social costs for wearing false badges? punishment costs? shame?
determines how valuable a deceptive signal comes out to be, and what are the benefits?

immediate reward (getting ahead in a queue) vs. longterm award (respect, acceptance, being justly awarded)

valar (sp?) deceptively pledged large sums of money to people
thought that he would pull through, but the money did not exist

healthier deception (believe you are a better person, strive) vs. unhealthier deception (personal psychological wellbeing > truthfulness)

conventional signal: white iPod earbuds

indicating iPod ownership, which indicates association with apple brand, music-loving, iconoclastic
white earbuds are now commercially available, to connect to any system
what does the whiteness mean? meaning changes with time and across people
first: early adopters got it, relished the white earbuds
as use of iPod spreads, the signal of exclusivity changes, white earbuds as signal weakens
white earbuds became uncool, stigma --> the exclusive group now changing to more expensive headsets, something different

not just fashion change (i.e. white buds to purple buds), but costly signal to show audiophile nature (costly headsets)
note: subtract out the benefits

gave up sound quality (cost) to be cool (benefit)

you have good sound quality (benefit) and looking cooler (benefit)
--> you can defend yourself as caring only about audio rather than caring about riding on the iPod fashion train

paradox of being perceived as cool by not trying to be cool

apple brand campaign of the white earbuds -- reinforcing the adaptation of the actual user market

where do new ideas come from? cyclical process from the marketing to the client usage; complex parameters
trend-watching is an art and a science --> affected by directions of society, marketing, subcultures

what does society define as something worth paying for?
debt vs. quality of life vs. material goods vs. caring about certain things vs. wanting to look like caring about certain things
subjective experience of a signal!

assessment signal: body fat

less - industrial nations:
if you have body fat, positive indication that you have ample nutrition and dont have to labor
reliable -- if you are poor and dont have much, you eat less and work more, and have a leaner body

more - industrial nations:
sit-down work, sedentary
easy to be fat
cheap food is fattening
gym memberships are expensive
being fat or skinny: drifting into a conventional signal
is this aspect of appearance... controllable? accepted? natural? main goal?
commodity of a difficult/rare body ideal. power of exclusivity -- difficulty of being thin, or being fat

relates to body image, perception through media, construction of a society body ideal

ex. suntanned skin.
if most low-status labor is outside, then thin/tan is low-status, pale/plump is high-status
when low-status labor moves inside, the tan shows more leisure and cost to go on sunny vacation / go tanning salon

complexity of body fat parameters: biology, genes, diet/nutrition, activity, metabolism, cost of trainers/gym/spa/dietfood

obesity epidemic -- controversial -- medicine/science/health vs. cosmetic/fashion.

what does being obese signal? depends on other supporting factors
nascar shirt --> poor, uneducated, can't control
tuxedo --> fatcat, wealthy, executive
history of medical conditions
changes in today's food industry, lowercost foods are plentiful and fatty
it's expensive to eat healthy, organic, natural stuff

equating thinness with control, discipline, focus, perfection (extreme: anorexia)
culture-changing --> meaning of signal changes

conventional signal: IM away messages

indicating 'busy' or 'unavailable' status
can deceive that you dont want to talk to someone particular
costly to find out if the person is actually being truthful

designing online spaces --
putting up an away message is super easy to do and to signal dishonestly
analyse comfort levels of
what does saying one is 'away' really signal?
-- closing down channel of communication
ambiguous in terms of why someone is 'away'
new language -- culture of away messages
responsibility and expectation -- you should respond if you're not set as 'away'
need to have specific messages to explain behaviour (i.e. taking a shower)
away messages instill a new level of dialogue
binary 'away' gives a blanker, ambiguous, face-saving option (neutral indication)
and users dont necessarily want to lie by saying they're 'busy' or 'away'
which opens up the door to more detailed accounts and narratives, higher expectation of explanation

signaling tradeoff: privacy versus detail

faceted identity: what identity you share with friends, family, co-workers, roommate
collapse of boundaries with a shared mediated interface (IM, cellphone, social network profile, etc)
might be inappropriate or confusing to collapse these boundaries

new stuff: social identity

- how do we understand other people?
george simmel (1907) - how is society possible?
how do we make sense of other people? receive fragments, and we fill in spaces
underlying framework: prototype theory (a way of generalising the world)
abstract concepts -- what is a chair? who is a good person?
you assign individual instances to prototypes -- classes -- functionality / form
is the pope a bachelor?
prototype theory - social types --- know more about the people, how to understand and interact
different to speak to / refer to gender, social status, background, etc.

prestige + intimacy
teaching a child to speak to different people in different ways
enculturation
culture -- shared notions, norms, prototypes, stereotypes
we need these prototypes to function -- cant start from scratch every time about every person
notion of roles, expectations, assumed knowledge
cost of prototypes: an imperfect fit, can be misleading or wrong than expected

sculptural: some cues lead to mental representation, prototype fitting, complex process
constant cognitive modifications the more knowledge and experience gleaned from the world
mediation -- both applying and learning personal prototype representation
how do these models overlap? are shared? conflict?
how to translate prototypes into a kind of language to discuss and to share? how to articulate?

online world, signals are sparse, and how do prototypes formulate in that culture?
deliberate deception vs. unintentional deception
absence of cues and signals
understanding cost to manage different levels of deception

good luck on the next assignment!

please link to your first assignment!

http://smg.media.mit.edu/classes/IdentitySignals06/IntroToSignals.html

reminder, for weekly assignments as a whole, you should have them in by the tuesday before the next thursday seminar. this first week's okay, we had a little confusion, but it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the semester.

see you tomorrow!

notes for 2006.02.08

introductory class!

seminar style:
1st half: discussion
2nd half: introduction to new material

intro:
theoretical framework of online communication
medium is gateway for information
similar to architecture -- the space shapes your experience, affects you, changing your perceptions

mapping biological theory of signaling theory to communication
understanding and applying the models across the boundaries

how do we perceive each other in different spaces?

design spaces for online behaviour

signaling : economic way of studying communication
costs, benefits of sender and receiver of signals, to be honest, to be skeptical, etc

what is the difference between social (membership of groups, how do groups form boundaries, hierarchies) and personal identity?
read little bits of information --> rendering mental representation of a person

signaling exists in a world of 'competition'
need to distinguish oneself from others

handicap principle -- wasting energy to show that you are ever the more stronger

everyday conversation competition - authoritative, knowledge.
motivation to behave in certain ways, presenting yourself in a way, a public 'persona'
fashion of ideas -- knowledge-based hierarchy

diego gambetta - streetwise: how taxi drivers choose which fare to pick up
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871543087/102-0196640-9564952?v=glance&n=283155

reputation systems -- recognisable identity online
what are costs / benefits to making people at some ways identifiable?
gossip (effusive) vs. reputation systems (less exciting)

how to punish transgressors (liars, dishonest signaling) effectively?

gifting systems

faces, what are emotions? what do faces reveal and not reveal

designing systems on how to represent people

reading assignments + short essay / design problem

final: long paper OR design project
spec out the design and workings

assignments are online. post them to a link + upload your URL.
open-discuss list, or blog . -- class members to discuss.

veblen: theory of the leisure class.
to have statement reliable, should be wasteful of resource in domain
- display wealth in a wasteful fashion
- like gazelle waste energy
- how do you display leisure?? it's hard to display instantaneous.
- examples: time-wasting activities --> knowing latin, growing orchids, breeding dogs
be able to waste resources and display the waste

zahavi : handicap principle :
http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/handicap/handicap_principle.html
--> to display quality honestly, show it wastefully

qualities : things that are hidden that you want to know
signals: perceivable representation of underlying qualities

signals can be honest (indicates a quality that is true) or dishonest (indicates a quality that is not true)
signals can be reliable ((almost) always be honest) or unreliable (ambiguously credible)

stable: society can accept rates of honesty/dishonesty
unstable: rate of dishonesty is too high

signaller + receiver == two parts of system
truths:
- a system will exist if it is more beneficial for signaller to signal honestly
- more beneficial than not for the receiver to get honest signals
- signals are more honest if more costly to signal dishonestly

cues vs. signals
cues: anything that you use to observe the world
ex. mosquito finds you through CO2. a cue to your presence.
signals: deliberate purpose to indicate a hidden quality

these can overlap, ambiguous boundaries
ex. wearing a fur coat signals wealth/status; serves as unintentional cue as person as animal-killer.

purpose of signal must be to communicate
receiver gets cues whether or not they're deliberate

handicap signals: signaling through waste (i.e. huge antlers, conducting leisure activities)

assessment signals:
costly to dishonestly signal highly reliable.

index signals (semiotics, charles pierce): some inherent connection to the quality being signaled.
index signals are not costly (i.e. tiger is big enough to scratch higher up on the tree) if you're honest.
index signals are extremely costly if not impossible if you're dishonest. hard to fake.

humans are clever to fake or create dishonest signals.
if benefit is high enough, motivation to dishonestly signal (i.e. rent expensive car, get a fake tan)
circumventions -- propelled by ability to invent vs. ability to pick out dishonesty

conventional signals: signal + quality relationship established by convention
no addition cost for physically producing signal (i.e. slapping on a bumper sticker)
kept honest if level of competition is low (i.e. child on honor roll)
kept honest by punishment costs --- societal repersussion to dishonest signals
-- putting on a siren to get through traffic -- the risk/cost of getting caught doesnt make it worth it

sparrows grow badges on chest to indicate status
- the lowstatus ones 'disguised' as highstatus was, initially accepted, but when they were discovered, and were attacked

brightness is a handicap - higher risk for predation
butterflies -- mimicry.
mimics: (batesian) looking like a poisonous through colouration.
makes world more dangerous for the actual, fit butterflies.
mullerian mimics: collaborative reinforcement of signal
http://dorakmt.tripod.com/evolution/mimicry.html

signaller:

personal benefit by changing the perception of people reading my signals
beneficial in itself (having an expensive car is costly but you at least enjoy the car)
balance of benefits : signaling + nonsignaling

cost in producing signal (time, energy, money) (i.e. spending years getting ph.d. vs. buying a bumper sticker)
cost of dishonesty / punishment.

receiver:

some benefit when the signal is perceived, can learn something about the signaller

costs of assessing the signal may be high (cost of time, energy)
music concert: longer you listen the cost of time/boredom/opportunity cost
frogs mating croaks: longer you go, you may attract predators
or cost of obtaining knowledge to properly assess signal -- how do you evaluate?
-- can be informed to tell if this person is being honest (i.e. jobtalk, admissions)

punishment:
- possible to circumvent way to pay full cost to give impression of signal
- want to punish dishonest signals
- what motivates altruistic punishment? social cooperation with assumed altruism (idealistic model)
neuroscience / psychology -- carrying out punishment can be costly as well as beneficial (stimulate reward-part of brain)
willingness to take risks <-- stable --> reward to punish
- cost and benefit to policing behaviour, gauging motivations

dynamics of a system constantly changing over time -- change of environment, people, beliefs

--> art of interpretation
shape an interpretation that makes sense.

subjectivity ---> how do you learn to make better and better assumptions about people?
'honesty' is always up to interpretation.

signal to increase level of valid knowledge of receiver
(1) signal has to be honest
(2) signal has to be understood
(3) signal has to be believed

(incorrect knowledge is a change for the worst).

next time: evaluating social status, hierarchy. cultural role. social groups. boundaries of knowledge.
signal efficacy. strategic costs vs efficacy costs (just getting signal across).

have assignments posted by the preceding tuesday of class. and read other people's postings, too!

and come with questions and topic points for class discussion. it'll be fun!

striped shirts and green sweaters

good to see eighteen faces at this morning's class.

in attendance:

• jim gouldstone
• pallavi vedurumudi
• alea teeters
• ivan askwith
• neal grigsby
• elan pavlov
• malte ziewitz
• garett hwang
• jesse gray
• nadya nilina
• benjamin mako hill
• michal kopec
• mirja leinss
• jeff orkin
• young joong chang
• jeevan kalanithi
• orkan telhan
• aaron zinman

please let me know if you did not receive an intro message from the class list, identitysignals06@media.mit.edu, or if there are corrections for the above.

welcome.

let us commence by breaking the pristine surface of this sparkly new blog. welcome to professor donath's techno-identity seminar for spring 2006, and come here to keep tabs on class notes, updates, news, and assignments. fire up your RSS readers, repolish your friendster profiles, and look forward to a great semester.