Arts & politics, anyone? Not only teens in Google's Lively

There's not only rampaging teenagers and dirty sex in Lively, Google's virtual world of cartoon-like chat rooms. Or would you have thought that you'd find an art gallery with the title "Captured fractions of human history" here?



This room belongs to Yaniv, a 36 year-old Jew from Israel who decorated walls and floor of his room with animated slideshows covering politics, art and history. The pictures in the backround are constantly updating themselves. We talked about religion and problems between fundamentalist Arabs and Jews and I learned that I would have been treated differently if I hadn't told him I was married. Since you can pretend to be anything in a virtual world, carrying any name you choose, it is a good example of how important it is to take "virtuality" seriously - social conventions are in the backpack of anybody logging into virtual worlds.

Because once you feel immersed you act like you would in the "real world" - even if you're just displayed like a cartoon-like Avatar.

If you use Windows you can have a look at the Exambitions Gallery right now (yeah I know that's lame - Google doesn't love Mac users):
www.lively.com/dr?rid=7746274979763050908

P.S. naturally I'll never know if Yaniv isn't in fact a teenager anyway(although I'm pretty sure because of our conversation)...nevertheless he created something interesting with that simple platform. Oh by the way here's my "virtual meeting & presentation room" in Lively, just in case. Here's a picture of it (for Mac users - blame Google, not me):



Consiliera's virtual meeting room in Lively WEITERLESEN...

The Psychology Of MMO Players: Community Managers and Psychologists Speak

A group of MMO community managers and psychologists from the University of Texas came together at GDC Austin to examine common scenarios.

community managers "are being the police, the therapists, the legal system, the arbitrators."

Dr. Gosling urges the industry to take advice from outside disciplines, such as psychologists, and even consider specialization in different aspects of community management.

Read the full blog post here: AGDC: The Psychology Of MMO Players: Community Managers, Psychologists Speak >>
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If you don’t “get” Facebook and Twitter, read this NY Times article [Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog]

Blog post listing the highlights of an excellent New York Times article by Clive Thompson (who is also columnist in Wired magazine) about:

- the psychological and sociological view: ambient awareness and weak ties

- how microblogging and social networking is having effects a small-town life has

If you don’t “get” Facebook and Twitter, read this NY Times article on Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog >> WEITERLESEN...

PsyBlog: 7 Myths of Crowd Psychology

PsyBlog: 7 Myths of Crowd Psychology
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Teaching language to robots - let them learn like kids do and then teach each other

Plymouth University researchers will build two robots using hardware and software allowing them to interact with humans and each other to exchange learned information like humans. They are equipped with cameras, speakers,  microphones and tracking devices in order to learn about nonverbal communication (gestures, pointing) and the meaning of words just like childrens would. The goal of the project is to teach concepts to robots including the meaning of words and enable them later to teach each other. The robots will then use the Internet as a medium to interact and are no longer limited by the slow real world to do “show and tell” teaching. Nice!

Teaching language to robots - let them learn like kids do and then teach each other >> WEITERLESEN...

Your brain is quicker than you think. What's wrong about that?

Your brain is quicker than you think. What's wrong about that?



While I am all in favor of the studies showing the value of not overthinking a decision (because your brain knows better), I can’t subscribe to the “humans don’t have a free will” conclusion. The thesis that humans may don’t have a free will seems to engage people continiously to date. I am not a neuroscientist (although I studied Psychology for a time) and this might be a very stupid statement but I am going to make it anyway: whenever I read about the experiment which showed that our brain knows about 10 seconds before we consciously know what we are going to decide (and thus concluding that we don’t really have a free will), I think the subjects just thought that was the moment they claimed it was (when they chose to push a button). They just didn’t recall it correctly because it wasn’t conscious. The brain did (no surprise here, nothing “eerie” about it). Which is why I trust my gut (=brain) whenever making complex decisions after looking at the facts but I don’t trust anybody who thinks that his brain imaging technique and push-button experiments tell us anything about free will. Then again, I have a pretty good relationship with my brain since it’s me. But wait a minute - who is telling me all my thoughts? Uh, right. WEITERLESEN...

Conformity magic in action: Elevator Psychology and The London Underground

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rciLxMnJL8]

Conformity (group pressure leads to actions against rational judgement) can do pretty spooky stuff, and if you think that today is any different than the fifties: find an elevator which has two doors, take some friends with you and do your own psychological experiment.

— Elevator Psychology and The London Underground (via feedly) WEITERLESEN...

“magicians and cognitive neuroscientists are getting at similar questions, but while neuroscientists have been looking at this for a few decades, magicians have been looking at this for centuries, millennia probably”

“magicians and cognitive neuroscientists are getting at similar questions, but while neuroscientists have been looking at this for a few decades, magicians have been looking at this for centuries, millennia probably”
—

How magicians control your mind - The Boston Globe

It’s all about the way our brain perceives things and who knows better than magicians, who fool your perception professionally, how that works? This article is about the beginning collaboration of neuroscientists and magicians (no joke). WEITERLESEN...

The Daedalus Project: Our Virtual Bodies, Ourselves?

The Daedalus Project: Our Virtual Bodies, Ourselves?

(via naki)



The survey results suggest that we tend to be just like optimized selves and the real world stereotypes hold in virtual worlds as well: women are socializing, graceful explorers and men are over-achieving sociopaths…ah well :-)



From the survey: “(…) much of avatar choice seems to revolve around mirroring; taller people prefer taller avatars, older people prefer older avatars, male players prefer more masculine characters, and female players prefer more feminine characters (…)” WEITERLESEN...

“It’s actually about people making things together.”

“It’s actually about people making things together.”
—

Really » Blog Archive » I’m in ur browser, chatting in 3D

Nice blog post about all the buzz (quoting Rosedale, Linden Labs founder) and I couldn’t agree more. It’s about facilitating collaboration in an ever-changing, globalized and internationalized (business) world and about using modern bandwidth and technology in order to reduce travelling time and costs, cultural barriers and borders. And, additionally, about fun. Always :-) WEITERLESEN...

“The next time someone tells you to settle down and pick just one thing for your career (…)...

“The next time someone tells you to settle down and pick just one thing for your career (…) I recommend you reply as follows: “I appreciate your concern, but since I don’t share your dream of becoming a prized poodle, I must reject your advice as being utterly stupid” Then challenge them to a round of disc golf. :)”
— What If You Have Many Different Interests and Cannot Commit to Any of Them?

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Path 101: What are people with similar personalities doing with their careers?

Path 101: What are people with similar personalities doing with their careers?
Interesting project: your participation will help them develop an effective personality quiz - one that helps people figure out what like-minded people are doing with their careers. Take the personality test and help the Path 101 team build enough data to be useful to many people. WEITERLESEN...

The Power of “New”: the appeal of “new” is hard-wired into our brains

The Power of “New”: the appeal of “new” is hard-wired into our brains
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Why asking for help is easier than you think and actually helps others to live longer

I just found this interesting bit on the PsyBlog: “Ask for help, but don’t ask for too much”. People notoriously underestimated how likely others were to help them by as much as 100%. The reasons are our difficulty to think like another person (egocentric bias) and the social pressure the other person is put under.

There’s two very practical messages coming out of this research:

1. If you want help, just ask. People are much more likely to help than you think, especially if the request is relatively small. Most people take pleasure in helping others out from time-to-time.

2. Make it easy for others to say no. The other side of the coin is that most of us don’t realise just how hard it is to say no to a request for help. Other people feel much more pressure to say yes to our requests than we realise. If the help you need is likely to be burdensome then think about ways of making it easier to say no.

I’d like to add more interesting facts:

• other studies have shown that helping actually makes people feel better that being helped


• older adults helping others are healthier and live longer

In fact studies by the Institute for Social Research (ISR) from 2002 showed that older people reduce their risk of dying by nearly 60 % compared to peers who provide neither practical help nor emotional support to relatives, neighbors or friends.

Well - to me those studies suggest two things:

• If you’re young and clueless or just in a bad spot do ask for help. It’s not only that your problem will most likely be solved because others usually say yes, but at the same time you help another person to feel better and live longer


• you might learn something (from asking) that you, once you get older, can use to help others - extending your own lifetime and improving your health significantly.

What more could we ask for? WEITERLESEN...

Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies

Nothing new, but a timeless compilation of important social studies, from the Halo Effect over the Standford Prison Experiment to Conformity. The blog author, a Psychologist from London, asks his readers at the end which study tought us the most about human nature. Obedience to Authority by Milgram leads with 23% as of today. If I look at my everyday life and at what people I know do most of the time, I’d vote for Cognitive Dissonance. There seems to be nothing better than to justify something stupid with a very good reason just to balance out your brain (because our brain hates to feel unbalanced). Here’s a recent example of how politicians use to do that.  PsyBlog: Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies WEITERLESEN...

Virtuelle Welten wie Second Life fördern Soft Skills des 21. Jahrhunderts bei jungen Menschen

Aus eSchool News (mit Beispielen): “Online gaming can help students develop many of the skills they’ll be required to use upon leaving school, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity (…)” Gaming helps students hone 21st-century skills WEITERLESEN...

Buchtipp (englisch)

Making Up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World (Chris Frith). Wunderbar geschriebenes Buch für alle, die sich mit Hirnforschung und Psychologie beschäftigen. Kompakt und für dieses Thema ungewöhnlich amüsant stellt der Pionier der bildgebenden Verfahren alle wichtigen Beispiele aus der Historie sowie neueste Erkenntnisse dar. WEITERLESEN...

Psychografie von Avataren

Auszüge aus dem Bericht der Marktforschungsfirma Market Truths über “Psychographic Segments and Media Consumption” (Januar 2008). Interessant für alle, die Zielgruppen in Second Life erreichen wollen: Meeting Transcript: Avatar Psychographics »
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