Observation Networks: Leveraging the Persuasive Force
of Human Observation
Omar Khan
Berkeley Institute of Design
Computer Science Division
University of California, Berkeley
omar@cs.berkeley.edu
ABSTRACT
We briefly identify two situations where observation by humans
may be helpful at realizing positive behavioral changes. We
discuss why human observation is particularly important (as
opposed to strictly automated observation). We then introduce
observation networks, a framework for reasoning about
applications in ambient persuasion. We examine current ambient
persuasion applications within the observation network
framework. Finally, we suggest potential future research
directions.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems – Human
factors, software psychology
General Terms
Human Factors, Design
Keywords
Ambient persuasion, persuasive technology, ubiquitous
computing, observation networks, social influence
1. INTRODUCTION
In his work, "Behavior in Public Places" sociologist Erving
Goffman writes:
Where a person is being spied upon by direct or indirect
means, he may greatly modify his conduct if he suspects he
is being observed, even though he does not know the identity
of the particular audience that might be observing him. This
is one of the possibilities celebrated in Orwell's 1984, and its
possibility is one of the forces operative in socially
controlling persons who are alone. [8]
Indeed, this chilling effect of spying is often cited when people
list their fears of ambient intelligence. Yet there is great potential
for a desired change of conduct (or a desired attitude change)
when the person being "spied upon" chooses to be thus observed.
In this paper we briefly identify two situations where observation
by humans may be helpful at realizing positive behavioral
changes. We discuss why human observation is particularly
important (as opposed to strictly automated observation). We then
introduce observation networks, a framework for reasoning about
applications in ambient persuasion. We examine current ambient
persuasion applications within the observation network
framework. Finally, we conclude with potential future research
directions.
1.1 Traditional Support Mechanisms and
Breakdown
The following are two examples of support mechanisms people
traditionally use when they have certain problems:
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): recovering alcoholics join a
circle of other recovering alcoholics (and recovered alcoholics)
for support as they try to break the habit
- Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) Computer Alert Programs:
people with RSI install these programs to have them monitor
computer usage and suggest when the user should take breaks or
stop using the computer
These support mechanisms are not perfect: at their weakest point,
alcoholics often have no one available to support them and stop
them from lapsing (they are alone). Some users of RSI support
programs inevitably begin to ignore the break messages because
they find them annoying.
In other words, the RSI programs have the data at the right time
but not the force, whereas the alcoholics have forceful supporters
championing a recovery program but these supporters do not have
the required information at the right time, and are unable to act.
The science of persuasion by computer agents, captology [5],
studies how computer agents can be effective persuaders.
Researchers in this area are concerned with understanding the
potential force of computer recommendations like telling a typist
to take a break. On the other hand, to make another human
available at the time of a lapse, Alcohol Anonymous, for example,
assigns a recovered alcoholic to a recovering alcoholic that the
recovering alcoholic can call when she is worried about lapsing.
Notice that in the typing case there may be a limit to the
persuasive ability of the computer agent; in the AA case, the
recovering alcoholic is relying on her own strength to pick up the
phone and call when a lapse is imminent, strength that may not
exist [13]. Here we describe techniques in ambient persuasion that
leverage human observers that may be able to supplement
traditional methods and potentially alleviate these problems of
lack of force and lack of accessibility.
1.2 Why Humans?
In each of the above cases, we could attempt to build effective
persuasive computer agents to help the individuals in need.
Indeed, there is much research in that direction (see the
proceedings of the Persuasive Technology Conference, started in
2006, for example). However, intuitively we already know that
humans are quite effective persuasive agents, not just because
they intuitively understand social psychological principals of
persuasion and use them daily, but just by the very nature that
they are human and their presence/perceived presence imposes
constraints on others in the situation. Goffman writes of face-to-
face interactions:
Each individual can see that he is being experienced in some
way, and he will guide at least some of his conduct according
to the perceived identity and initial response of his audience...
Individuals sympathetically take the attitude of others present,
regardless of the end to which they put the information thus
acquired. [8]
Research on decision aids and advice suggests that people are
more likely to take human advice due to "motives such as sharing
responsibility for the decision and avoiding the appearance of
rejecting help." [3] The power of social influence, in particular, is
well documented [4].
This is not to say that persuasive computing agents are not
effective. Indeed, as Fogg points out [7], these agents have many
advantages over humans: they can be present in places where
humans typically can't go; they can be persistent to a degree that
humans cannot; they can store vast amounts of information and
access that information; they can be distributed at a far larger
scale than humans; etc. However, ambient persuasion gives us the
opportunity to leverage all these properties of computing agents
and bring the persuasive force of humans to bear, in situations
where normally humans would not be co-present. The force of
human persuasion makes involving humans in the ambient
persuasion task worthy of further research. We now describe the
observation network framework as one potential tool for
reasoning about human involvement in ambient persuasion.
2. OBSERVATION NETWORKS
An observation network consists of:
People
1) two types of individuals: the observed and the observers. The
observed specify observation properties that they wish to have
viewed by the observers. A single person may act in both roles.
Sensing and Observing
2) sensors that watch the observation properties of the observed
and relay relevant changes to the observers
3) an observation channel over which sensors can transmit data
4) an observation medium that conveys the observed sensor data.
Each observed and observing individual may have a different
observation medium.
Feedback (optional)
5) a feedback mechanism individuals can use to track their
thoughts (be it about their goals or the observations)
6) a feedback channel over which feedback can be transmitted to
other individuals
7) a feedback medium for conveying feedback
To make this concrete, consider a possible observation network
for an RSI sufferer, Tina, who has trouble getting away from her
keyboard and mouse, despite the cause of her RSI being heavy
usage of those peripherals. Her goal is to limit this potentially
harmful behavior. Tina has installed software on her computer
that will monitor her peripheral usage and broadcast "Tina is
hurting her hands" as her instant messaging away message when
Tina is overusing her peripherals. She asks her coworkers to
instant message her, call her, or come to her office when they see
that message. She also implicitly is inviting her coworkers to chat
with her about her problems later -- RSI is a chronic problem, and
so feedback at any time is likely helpful.
Here, Tina is the observed individual, her coworkers (and perhaps
anyone who sees her away message) are the observers, her
keyboard and mouse usage are the two observation properties, the
peripheral usage monitoring software is the sensor and relay, the
instant messaging network is the observation channel and the
instant messaging software on each individual's computer acts as
the observation medium. There are a few feedback mechanisms:
instant messaging, phone, or face-to-face discussion. In particular,
there are feedback mechanisms that afford immediate reaction to
observations (like IM or calling) and delayed mechanisms (like
face-to-face chat). Each has their own advantages.
The designer of the observation network may intend to persuade
the observed, the observers, or both. They may design software to
act as persuasive agents, and in addition leverage the observed
and observers as persuasive agents.
2.1 Where is the Persuasion?
Persuading the Observed
As Goffman points out, simply knowing that you are being sensed
and observed may be enough to persuade you to modify your
behavior. Thus, the design of observation mediums for the
observed is extremely important. Mediums that remind the
observed who will see the data (e.g. "Sensor data is being
transmitted to your mother"), or how many people will see the
data (e.g. "25 active users will receive your sensor data") may
influence the observed to change their behavior. Mediums that
aggregate trends (e.g. "You have violated your regulatory goals 9
of the past 12 days") and suggest that they will be transmitted can
also be used to persuade.
In addition, feedback from observers can also persuade. Just
receiving feedback can remind the user that they are being
watched. Feedback can also remind the observed of their personal
goals, and that others want to help them achieve that goal.
Feedback can be aggregated (e.g. "7 friends want you to finish
your paper") and it can be usefully disruptive (e.g. receiving a
phone call as feedback to interrupt a behavior that might be
problematic).
Persuading the Observers
While it is not something that is immediately apparent, observers
may be the objects of persuasion. In the scenario where the
observed is looking to receive feedback, the observer needs to
provide that feedback. This likely requires some work, and hence
the observer needs to be persuaded to do this work. This might
involve appealing to the observer/observed friendship (e.g. "Your
friend Tina needs your help..."), appealing to a sense of
competition (e.g. "You are Tina's #2 supporter in her network.
You've sent her 20 encouraging messages") or simply making
feedback easy (e.g. make feedback only require 1 click).
Finally, there is the case where the observer is the intended
participant to persuade. Perhaps the observed is having features of
her activities sensed to convey exemplary behaviors. In this case
the observation mediums per individual observer should be highly
tuned to achieve the persuasion goals.
3. OBSERVATION NETWORKS IN
PRACTICE
In this section we wrap the observation network framework
around two examples, one in elder care and the other in online
social networking sites. We reframe the systems as observation
networks and use this framing to afford discussion.
Social Network Display for Elders
Researchers created a social network display depicting the
strength of social connections in an elder's network [12]. The
authors had a very clear goal for their system, as it relates to the
elders: "Ubiquitous computing and affective displays are
employed to visually convey the temporary nature of isolation
and to reinforce progress toward social engagement" while not
being prescriptive but instead boosting reflection and feelings of
self-efficacy. Sensor data from badges and phone conversations is
used to determine the "social index" of a person in a particular
elder's network. The social index is mapped to a distance from the
"sun" in a solar system display, with the elder acting as the sun.
The displays also included a bar graph indicating the level of
involvement between the elder and each individual in the
network, and a line graph indicating the cumulative social activity
for the elder on each day.
Interestingly, in this observation network, everyone in the social
network is both observed and an observer. Of course, the elder is
privileged in both categories. The sensors and observation
channel are both obvious but the observation mediums are
interesting. Elders prefer the solar system display, whereas
caregivers prefer the line graph depicting daily elder activity.
Elders use a social interaction journal as a personal feedback
mechanism where they reflect on their interactions and also
connect their interactions to the data seen on the displays. In
addition, elders and caregivers often speak of the displays during
visits, potentially reinforcing their usage. Finally, face-to-face and
phone conversation between caregivers, and between caregivers
and elders, also act as a feedback channel.
This observation network appears to have successfully persuaded
some members of each elder network. Attempts at preventing
social isolation were observed amongst elders who, for instance,
initiated phone calls rather than waiting, and initiated peer contact
beyond immediate family members. Finally, caregivers modified
their behavior in reaction to the displays -- some created games
around who could be the "best child" or the one closest to the sun
in the solar display.
Discussion
The authors clearly recognize that the observation network is not
just an artifact that can be dropped into the situation with little
tuning. The network's configuration must respect the practices of
the participating community of individuals. Hence the goal is
subtler than simply increasing social engagement. However,
noting this, the observation network framework suggests possible
improvements. For example, all individuals had access to the
same three displays. While this likely facilitated easy discussion
around shared artifacts, customization of the caregiver graphs to
show, for example, individual caregiver trends, might have been
more persuasive at encouraging caregiver engagement.
Furthermore, beyond selecting one of the three displays, there
does not seem to be any interaction mechanism. Being able to
annotate the network with feedback, or at least zoom or filter
parts of the network, might lead to engagement, especially
amongst caregivers. Indeed, the computing abilities of caregivers
likely far exceeded those of the elders, suggesting an asymmetry
worth exploiting.
Facebook Applications (see http://www.facebook.com/)
While not exactly a situation one encounters in everyday life, the
adoption of social networking tools has grown rapidly, and many
children and young adults spend large amounts of time each day
on these sites. These networks provide interesting insights that
may be transferable to domains of ambient intelligence. For
instance, by default on Facebook each user's actions are
monitored and broadcast in the news feeds of their friends. These
actions range from adding a favorite song to their list of songs, to
messages indicating changes in the user's relationship status.
Recently, Facebook has allowed application developers to provide
applications that can tap an individual's social network. These
applications are also able to broadcast information in the news
feeds of a user's friends. Consider a user who is the only person in
her network who has installed a particular application. The
observation network centered on this user's interactions with the
application constitutes an interesting object of study. The
observed user is the one who has already installed the particular
application. The observers are her friends. Interestingly, there is
not a direct observation channel between the observed and her
friends. Instead, there is one other observer, the privileged
observer, Facebook itself. It monitors all of the observed user's
behaviors on the site and decides which to share with friends in
each news feed. Thus, every news feed (the observation medium)
is customized. Whenever the observed user interacts with the
application, the application has the opportunity to broadcast
messages to her friends'. These messages appear as hyperlinked
text on friends' news feeds. Here is where the application
designers have a chance to convince the observers to install their
application.
Discussion
Facebook has a strong incentive to help people find useful
applications -- then the users stay on the site longer and could
make Facebook more money. Hence, Facebook adds information
to news feeds like "Friend X removed the ABC Application" so
that users get some indirect information about the effectiveness of
certain applications. However, Facebook's goal of spreading good
applications means that it can integrate more information into
addition and removal messages in the news feed. For instance,
Facebook could aggregate how many of your friends have
installed a particular application (e.g. "30 of your friends have
already installed the ABC Application"). Facebook could also
encourage users to use feedback mechanisms beyond addition or
removal of applications. Broadcasted comments on particular
applications may be effective.
4. RESEARCH DIRECTION
Improving Current Observation Networks
The discussion above suggests changes worth exploring in the
elder care and online social network settings. Indeed, viewing
both the observation medium and feedback mediums as
persuasive technologies that can leverage human observation in
addition to computational persuasive methods, immediately
suggests new approaches that imply human observation, remind
about human observation, and reflect the amount of human
observation. We believe that analyzing current observation
networks in more detail will give a better understanding of
beneficial points in the observation network design space,
problematic areas, and unexplored areas.
Developing New Observation Networks
The elder care example illustrates the complexity of designing an
observation network: many individuals are involved, with
different habits and intents, and different expertise. Moreover, the
observation network has to be integrated into a community likely
already overwhelmed with commitments. Finally, there are
privacy and ethical concerns that cannot be overlooked. All these
concerns are shared by ambient intelligence technologies. Where
ambient persuasion may differ is that certain individuals in the
network champion the incorporation of the observation network
because it is being used to affect a behavior in a way they desire
and endorse. Leveraging this observation may help open doors for
ambient intelligence acceptance in general.
We are currently interested in developing observation networks
that can be used to cause attitude change (if not behavioral
change) as it relates to actions impacting the environment. One
anecdotal observation suggests why observation networks may be
effective: some people, when out socializing, feel pressure to
obey social norms and recycle appropriately, but when home,
alone, throw everything in the garbage. Indeed, there may be
social norms around environmental actions that can be translated
to isolated-individual situations via observation networks (e.g.
[11]).
Challenges
In one of the first papers on captology, Fogg highlights the
difficulty of doing research on persuasive technologies where
factors external to the technology are leveraged for their
persuasive power. Indeed, it can be hard to measure the impact of
external persuasive factors like human observation and separate
those factors from the technologies themselves. This likely means
that we need to engage sociologists and social psychologists to
help us make sense of these complicated interactions. It also
means a careful study of the group persuasion literature (for
example, [10]) to discover what might be transferable from lab
domains to the real world. We are hopeful that others see the
potential here, as indeed Fogg is now doing research on Facebook
(see the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab Facebook site at
http://captology.stanford.edu/facebook/overview.html).
There is no doubt that human observation is a powerful influence
on behavior -- however, right now we have no way of measuring
the total effect on all individuals in the observation network.
Many researchers are interested in the effects of interruption on
individuals. Observation networks can be viewed as integrating
yet another interruption into our already packed lives.
Configuring observation networks as persuasive games [2] may
be one route worth exploring [1].
Finally, as has been echoed in other studies of persuasive
technology [9], it is important to understand whether observation
networks can have long-term behavioral effects, and whether they
are effective at changing behaviors when the technology is not
present.
5. CONCLUSION
Humans still clearly privilege human-human interaction over
human-computer interaction. Indeed, our norms of social
interaction suggest we are often thinking of our behaviors and
how they are seen by others, an attitude we don't currently adopt
when we engage with computers. Ambient intelligence lets us
connect humans to other humans who are not co-present, and
supply observation data to describe certain behaviors. We believe
that these networks can effect positive behavioral changes, and so
studying these complex networks should be an important part of
the ambient persuasion research agenda.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank John Canny and Jonathan Hey for their support.
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