Here's more crazy information about the human brain, as if implicit biases weren't enough. Dr. Clifford Nass of Stanford is a professor of communication. And now I have a whole new appreciation for that subject, despite the fact that I made a lot of fun of that major while I was in school. I mean, is talking really that difficult?
Nass went through a whirlwind of studies for us. Navigation systems can encourage safer driving if the voice is related to your emotional state. Happy people like a happy navigator, and well, misery loves company. Sad computer navigators can actually cause happy people to have more crashes.
When randomly assigned avatars and made to take math tests online, people with male avatars think they do better and actually do do better on the tests. No matter if those people are male or female. People with male avatars also try harder.
Robots can disagree with people in a productive way as long as their voices don't come from their bodies.
People would like the Microsoft Paper Clip much better and think it functioned better if it told you to send Microsoft an email when the help result wasn't useful.
Male German BMW drivers won't take direction from a female computer navigation voice.
Multi-media mulitasking involves brain function in ways that psychologists used to think was impossible. Women are better at mutitasking than men but like it less.
And the research goes on and on. It actually seems highly related to the implicit bias studies, but it is amazing how we ascribe some of these traits and biases to inanimate objects. Especially if they talk to us. Creepy.
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