2010 cognitive science informing the design of attention aware social systems

27.5.2010 Thierry Nabeth and Claudia Roda

Cognitive Science informing the Design of Attention Aware

Social Systems

Claudia Roda American University

of Paris

Thierry Nabeth INSEAD

Workshop: “Management and Governance of Online Communities”

27 May 2010, Paris

Organized by the Orange’s Chair "Innovation and regulation in digital services“

of Ecole Polytechnique, and Télécom ParisTech


What are we up to

• Choose amongst social solicitations• Manage ongoing interactions• Access appropriate information


What are we up to

• Choose amongst social solicitations• Manage ongoing interactions• Access appropriate information

Design less intrusive, more adaptive, systems

Provide users with tools for managing cognitive resources allocation


What attention do we study?“For most people, attention is often the main currency - we publish to get the attention of others, we cite the efforts of others so that they get attention […]” B. Huberman 2008

“[inattentional blindness] denotes the failure to see highly visible objects we may be looking at directly when our attention is elsewhere.” Arien Mack 2003



“[inattentional blindness], denotes the failure to see highly visible objects we may be looking at directly when our attention is elsewhere.” Mack 2003

Long term

Short term




Long term

Short term

Social

Individual




Long term

Short term

Social

Individual

Effect

Cause


Why do we study attention?

• Understand human attentional processes• Define the economic value of attention• Predict behavior based on attentional traces• Support management of attention (how to

ensure effective allocation?)



• Understand human attentional processes– Cognitive psychology, neuroscience; short term,

individual, cause and effect; automatic vs control, what is selected and when

• Define the economic value of attention• Predict behavior based on attentional traces• Support management of attention (how to




• Understand human attentional processes• Define the economic value of attention

– Economics, marketing; long term, social, effect; how is attention captured and traded

• Predict behavior based on attentional traces• Support management of attention (how to




• Understand human attentional processes• Define the economic value of attention• Predict behavior based on attentional traces

– Politics, marketing, communication; long term, social, effect; forecast

• Support management of attention (how to ensure effective allocation?)




ensure effective allocation?)– HCI, management; short to long term, individual

and social, cause and effect; provide tools and recommendations




ensure effective allocation?)– HCI, management; short to long term, individual

and social, cause and effect; provide tools and recommendations

Attentional Breakdowns


Attentional Breakdowns: Causes

•Information Overload•Loss of context•Activity Fragmentation‘In a typical day, […] people spend an average of three minutes working on any single event before switching to another event [and] somewhat more than two minutes on any use of electronic tool, application, or paper document before they switch to use another tool’ (Gonzalez and Mark 2004, fieldwork observation of information workers: analysts, software developers, and managers.)


AB: Prospective Memory Failures

• Prospective memory failures may account for up to 70% of

memory failures in everyday life (Kliegel and Martin 2003; Kvavilashvili et al. 2001)

• Virtuality aggravates the problem? (loss of context, asynchronous communication, etc.)

• Task reminders• High association between target and intended action, focal

targets, and single target (automaticity)


AB: Prospective Memory Failures


• >40% no resume

• Task reminders• Context Reminders

(retrospective memory)• Context Restore• Cueing: Goal Activation Model (Altmann and Trafton 2002):

Goal and its retrieval cue must be sampled together before goal is suspended (availability of cue).

• Task recognition is main hurdle (move from application oriented to task oriented interfaces)

AB: Task Resumption Failures

O'Conaill & Frohlich 1995 (interruptions in workplace)


• >40% no resume

• Task reminders - Cueing: Goal Activation Model (Altmann and Trafton 2002): Goal and its retrieval cue must be sampled together before goal is suspended (availability of cue).

• Context Reminders (retrospective memory)

• Context Restore• Task recognition is main

hurdle (move from application oriented to task oriented interfaces)





AB: Disruption of Primary Task

• Interruptions consume 28% of knowledge workers’ day (Spira, Goldes 2007)

• Negative effects of interruptions is widely reported

• Interruption management requires evaluating:– Interruption relevance– Notification content, ambient, etc.– Notification Timing (Bailey) - Interruptibilty (Fogarty)– Notification modality

• Device Coordination


AB: Disruption of Primary Task

Attentive television (Shell, Selker, & Vertegaal, 2003)

Example

eyebox2 by Xuuk, Inc. http://www.xuuk.com


AB: Missing important events and information

• There is no conscious perception of the visual world without attention to it (Mack and Rock 1998; Simons and Chabris 1999) - Inattentional Blindness, Change Blindness

• Lack of context

• Perceptual approach (use of pre-attentive features to make important elements stand-out)

• Adaptive visualisation: use knowledge of user’s focus, e.g. gaze information

• Device selection• Support to Human Social Attention (follows, likes replace

eye-gaze)


AB: Missing important events and information

Tag-cloud: perception + user attention + social

Example

Recommendation: user attention + social


More Attentional Breakdowns

• Retrospective Memory

• Habituation related

• Emotion / Motivation related

• Social attention breakdown

• …

MS-SenseCam


Other cognitive processes

• Long term attention management– People need to dedicate enough of their

attention to become experts• Human social attention (eye gazing)– The brain is able to decode where other

people direct their attention to• Other (chronobiology, etc…) …


Long term attention & learning

• “Deliberate” practices:– It takes at least a decade to become an expert on a

subject, and it requires dedication (i.e. sustain attention over a long period of time)

The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. It will take you at least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort

K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely (2007).

K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely (2007). The Making of an Expert. Harvard Business Review. July–August 2007


Human social attention

• Social cognition:– Neurocognition: Role of eye gazing in human social attention. (Birmingham)– Learning: The role of attention in social learning. (Brown & Adler)

• Human Social Attention In Online system? – This is also about how people manage their perception in online social

networking (Facebook, Twitter) by creating profiles and emitting buzz, with the objective of “existing” in the “online social space” (grabing other’s attention)

"What makes gaze so special is that in addition to typically providing an excellent indication of someone's direction of attention, it can be used to infer a wealth of other social information that we can use on an everyday basis. For instance, gaze is used to modulate social interactions, by facilitating conversation turn-taking, exerting social dominance, or signaling social defeat or appeasement”

Elena Birmingham and Alan Kingstone

Birmingham, Elina and Kingstone, Alan (2009) Human social attention: a new look at past, present, and future investigations. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156 . pp. 118-140 http://web.mac.com/alan.kingstone/Site/Publications_files/bk_annals_09.pdf

Brown, J. S. & Adler, R. P. (2008). “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0”. In Educause Review, January/February 2008, 43 (1), 16–32. Boulder: Educause.


Attention Economy: Who cares?The new web(s) perspective


Managing attention: Promises of a revolution

“What counts most is what is most scarce now, namely attention”

Michael H. Goldhaber (1997)

“the New Currency of Business”Thomas Davenport & John C. Beck, 2002

Michael H. Goldhaber (1997), The Attention Economy and the Net, First Monday Vol.2 No.4 - April 7th. 1997

Thomas H. Davenport, John C. Beck (2002). The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business. Harvard Business School Press (September 2002)


The disillusion(what happened to attention economy?)

And what we got !!!

Adoption

Time

Still … «breathing»

Expectations ...Adoption

Time

Attention has become«The new currency»

Time

Attention has become«The new currency»


Managing attention: Who cares?

“I gave a presentation this week on decision-making, and someone in the audience asked me if I thought information overload was an impediment to effective decision-making. "Information overload...yes, I remember that concept. But no one cares about it anymore," I replied. In fact, nobody ever did.”

Thomas Davenport, December 8, 2009

Blog post: “Why We Don't Care About Information Overload” http://blogs.hbr.org/davenport/2009/12/why_we_dont_care_about_informa.html


Should we care?

• In Management?– Probably not (Organization - Business as usual)– Maybe (network organization)– Sure! (marketing. Communication as usual)

• New Web (social web; web2; web of things)?– Probably yes. (more room for new models; concept of

emergence)– Should attention theories (social or not) inform us about how

to support the functioning of social systems? Definitively yes. (cf. Human (ir)rationality !).


New setting

• It is not about data, it’s about interaction– Personal control; engaged participant; identity, …

• Now, streams of information are available– Activity streams + sensors everywhere. (the Web2 vision)

• New population?– They know to multitask?– Do not care about their privacy? They actually like to ‘emit’

(Facebook, Twitter, Mobile devices)


It’s the Interaction Stupid!

• In the Web 1.0, it was about “information overload”– The user was a absorber of information who had to filter too

much information

• In the Social web (Web 2.0) it is about “interaction overload”– The user is an active participant who has to manage his

interaction with others (& manage the cost of this interaction), but as a receptor (accepting solicitation) but also as an emitter (impression management). This user is also engaged in various activities of different nature (multitasking; task switching).


Designing Social Attention Aware Systems

Informed by social & cognitive theories


AtGentive / AtGentnet

• One of the stated objective:– Supporting people interacting with others in online

communities in a more effective manner.

• How – Via a online social systems (a cognitive system) which

design was informed by cognitive principles


Some general cognitive processes

• Perception– Observe, filter, select

• Reasoning– Deliberation, planning, Intention

• Operation– Execute

• Metacognition– reflect & learn


Supporting Social Attention

• Perception (Interface)– Filtering, emphasizing or hiding

• Reasoning (Decision support)– Assessment, Recommendation, ..

• Operation– Multi-tasking, automate,

• Metacognition (reflect & learn)– Analysis of attentional behavior & learn


Perception support

• Perception– Observe, filter, select

• Examples of mechanisms:– Social transluscence– Personalization of the interface taking into

account ‘social information’– Management of (social) notification /

solicitations


Reasoning support

• Reasoning (Decision support)– Assessment– Recommendation, ..

• Examples of mechanisms:– Recommendations (e.g. who should you connect

to; or group to be affiliated, and Why)


Operation support

• Operation– Multi-tasking– automate,

• Examples of mechanisms:– Provide the social context in an interaction (who is this

person, what do we have in common, what are my previous interaction with her) This is the equivalence task recovery.

– Watch list (used to monitor resources and people, and reduce the need to remember). Example: Wikipedia


Metacognition support

• Metacognition (reflect & learn)– Analysis of attentional behavior & learn ..

• Examples of mechanisms:– Possibility to monitor activities, and to assess the

effort dedicated to these activities (log, read, contribute, …).

– Possibility to assess the impact of your actions (who reads you).


Examples


Examples (2)


New directions of research for Attention Aware Social SystemsInformed by social & cognitive theories


(New/relevant) directions of research

• Personalization in the social web– ‘Social’ customization & adaption

• Territory & identity– Role & behavior in a social context

• Computational social science– Sensing & mining

• Multi-device hybrid interaction– The Web of things


Personalization in the social web

• Already present in social systems– Customization: What to emit / receive. – Adaptive interface, ‘social’ recommendations, ...– Monitor activities (me / others)

• Objective– Put user is in control (customization)– Reduce the cognitive effort (presentation, decision support,

fluidify actions)– Attention allocation effectiveness


Territory & identity

• Occupy the social space (territory)– i.e. Territories in Wikipedia, Group behaviors (online urban

sociology? cognitive ethology?)– Roles (lurkers, contributors, connectors, …)– Behavioral demographics (e.g. GenY)

• Online Identity– Self exposure (attention signal you send)– Reputation (attention you get)


Computational social science

• Streams of Information– Streams of data from a gazillion of sources, providing

access to the “reality”. (Web2 vision)– Social sensors (& web of things)

• Processing the social data– Mining the data. (e.g. ‘reality mining’)– ABSS (Agent-based Social Simulation?)

Reference: The MIT Human Dynamics Laboratory http://hd.media.mit.edu/


Multi-device hybrid interaction

• The Web of things

• Mobile

• Sensors networks


Research ???

• Research questions?– Theories– Hypotheses

• Research validation– Approaches (theories & methodology)– Data?

Technology

2010 cognitive science informing the design of attention aware social systems