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Human Behavior in the Virtual Environments Alexander Voiskounsky

Human Behavior in the Virtual Environments Alexander Voiskounsky. Faculty of Arts, Institute of Information Studies & Librarianship, Charles U, Prague December 8, 2008. Alexander Voiskounsky:. Dept. of Psychology, Moscow State University after M.V. Lomonosov 8/5 Mokhovaya st.,

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Human Behavior in the Virtual Environments Alexander Voiskounsky

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  1. Human Behavior in the Virtual EnvironmentsAlexander Voiskounsky Faculty of Arts, Institute of Information Studies & Librarianship, Charles U, Prague December 8, 2008

  2. Alexander Voiskounsky: Dept. of Psychology, Moscow State University after M.V. Lomonosov 8/5 Mokhovaya st., Moscow 103009 Russia E-mail: vaemsu@gmail.com

  3. Virtual Environments are usually called Cyberspace “On a deep psychological level, people often experience their computers… as an extension of their minds & personalities – a ‘space’ that reflects their tastes, attitudes, and interests” Archetypically, we tend to experience cyberspace as a psychologically human space. Its visual & auditory context resonates with our experience of the ‘real’ world; compared to books or media, cyberspace is much more interactive; it is a social space filled with other people. Source:A.Barak & J.Suler, in: PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CYBERSPACE, Cambridge U Press, 2008, 1-9

  4. Internet development in Russia • 1980s – National Center of Automatic Exchange of Information (Acad. of Sciences): limited access of selected representatives of several organizations (including the MSU), with assisting operators. • Late 1980’ – enthusiastic Unix programmers worked on computer telecommunications. • August 1990 – connection to fuug.fi (Helsinki). • 19 Sept. 1990 – registration of the domain .su • 7 April 1994 – registration of the domain .ru

  5. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE INTERNET RESEARCH IN RUSSIA IS ASSOCIATED WITH VYGOTSKY Vygotsky emphasized that the higher mental processes (including cognition) are of social origin, their development is based on joint actions (especially within the zone of proximal development, in the child-adult dyad), on interpersonal communication, and presumably on mediated forms of behavior.

  6. Theoretical background (continued) Investigation of mediated forms of behavior is traditional for the Vygotskian approach in (Russian) psychology. The main mediating sources are, according to Vygotsky, physical objects, signs and semiotic systems. Having been internalized (the term common both for J.Piaget and L.Vygotsky), the signs and the methods of handling the material objects form the higher psychological processes. Thus, the individual psychic activity is actually a transformed joint (usually child-adult) activity. As a result, external and internal (mental) activities have the same origin and the same structure, as it is stressed by A.N.Leontiev and by many other Vygotsky’s followers.

  7. Theoretical background (continued) Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) originate from highly developed semiotic (sign) systems that mediate and remediate[1]almost every human practical or theoretical activity. Thus research in the field is apt to the paradigm of Vygotskian approach in psychology. The Internet and the WWW are probably the leading social technologies within the ICT field. Research of the Internet/WWW usage patterns is “traditional” within the Vygotskian approach in the Russian psychology. [1]For remediation, see: Cole, M. (1996). Cultural Psychology: Once and Future Discipline. Cambridge, MA and London: the Belknap Press of Harvard U Press.

  8. Theoretical background (continued) Computers and the ICT, being primarily semiotic instruments, are externalizedtools, and mediate and/or remediate human psychic activity. Unlike the developmental psychology approach, externalization and notinternalization is of primary interest for anyone doing research of the Internet-mediated forms of cognitive, communicative, or entertaining activities. Progress in technologies means that we should pay much more interest in processes of externalization.

  9. CURRENT STATUSOF THE CYBERPSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN RUSSIA

  10. The Russian segment of the Internet audience includes residents of diverse countries – post-Soviets & born abroad. In the 20th century there were at least four periods of massive migration from Russia. SpyLog (www.spylog.ru) tracker: approximately 45-50% of navigations are made from outside Russia. For example, Global Internet Statistics (by Language) estimates the number of Americans who regularly access the Russian segment of the Internet is over 100,000. The Russian segment includes: Little Russia in San Antonio, Texas (http://mars.uthsca.edu/Russian), as well as other US/Israeli/Ukrainian/Australian sites, blogs, etc.

  11. Reasons for Joining the Russian Internet Community (aka RuNet): Several ethnic_language_segments, presented on the Internet, may be called ‘points of attraction’. These are languages other than English. The Russian segment of the Internet is a ‘PoA’. Method: discussions (F2F or mediated, but not formal interviews) with non-Russian residents (N=67), held between 1994 and 2001.

  12. Reasons for Joining the Russian Internet community: cont’d • Lack/shortage of attractive web content in ethnic languages • Poor command of official languages of post-Soviet states by ethnic Russians, residing outside Russia • Poor literacy skills in their mother-tongues of non-Russians in the post-Soviet states: they got formal education in Russian. • Use of Arabic or Latin alphabets in some post-Soviet states, instead of a modified Cyrillics. A peculiar sociolinguistic situation: different generations speaking the same language might soon have no common written language. • Less populated countries: few forums, sites, blogs in ethnic languages; more diverse views and more valuable information may be found abroad. Residents of post-Soviet states are better in Russian than in English.

  13. Reasons for Joining the Russian Internet community: cont’d • Nostalgia towards older times: chatting from abroad to people someone used to know earlier, or to new chatters; share hobbies 7. Media in some post-Soviet states are even less independent compared to the Russian media: residents of these countries get access to less censured news 8. Politically-minded people keep group discussions; they blame the communist regime, and/or the modern regimes 9. Creative people from outside Russia present their artworks to a wider audience compared to what is available in theirstates 10. Russian Internet experts are often advanced. Non-Russians subscribe to the Russian language newsgroups, surf reviews published on Russian web-sites, discuss technical issues. 11. Speakers of Russian residing outside the former USSR feel themselves ‘missionaries’: consult in web-related issues, provide information (folk or avant-garde music, etc.).

  14. Actual Research Areas in ‘Social’ Sciences • Philosophy • Political Science • Education • Culture & Gender Research • Linguistics, Literary & Art Critics • Sociology • Applied Statistics • Economics • Psychology

  15. Culture and Gender Research • Research on web cultures in post-Soviet & post-communist states • Digital divide & inequality of access to the Web • Role of non-residents in the Russian web culture • Web-related shift in culture identities • Gender identities on the web • Gender attitudes toward the Internet use • Gender differences in the web use, etc.

  16. Psychology (projects) • Identity transformations • Internet addiction • Gender issues on the Internet • Attitudes towards hacking, and motivation of hackers • Flow in online gaming (comparative study: samples of Russian, French, US & Chinese gamers) • IT-Giftedness • Psychology of Cyberethics

  17. Cyberpsychology is neighbouring: • Clinical psychology, with themes: • Internet addiction, Internet abuse, etc. • Internet/computer anxiety • Treatment of stresses, PTSD, phobias using virtual reality systems • Treatment & rehabilitation of diseases (autism, post-stroke, ADHD, etc.)

  18. Cyberpsychology is neighbouring: 2. Social psychology, with themes • New distant communities (incl. social networks): structure, leadership, rituals • GroupThink & quality of discussions • Roles of minorities in new communities • Polylogues as distinct from dialogues • Psychological experiments in virtual communities, etc.

  19. Cyberpsychology is neighbouring: 3. Cognitive psychology, themes: • Use of “external” memory • Attention span when look at monitor • Recognition of objects, including correct eye-tracking • Decision making in groups • Information retrieval using browsers • Construction of hypertexts • Interfaces for disabled, etc.

  20. Cyberpsychology is neighbouring: 4. Educational psychology, with themes • Psychology of distant education • Multimedia learning/teaching programs • Individual vs. group education • Education in groups of different-age students • Etc.

  21. Cyberpsychology is neighbouring: 5. Developmental psychology, themes • Age (including both early & old age) specifics in the usage on Internet • Educational web-applications • Talent & giftedness in computer use • Etc.

  22. Cyberpsychology is neighbouring: 6. Cross-cultural psychology 7. Human-computer interaction 8. Psychophysics 9. Differential and personality psychology 10. Forensic psychology 11. Sport psychology 12. Media psychology 13. Gender psychology, etc.

  23. Positive psychology The concept of FLOW, introduced by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (American, first in Chicago, now in California; originally Hungarian)

  24. Flow Experience Loss of sense of time Concent- ration on the task Balance between skill and task Flow experience Worth of doing for its own sake Objectives become clear Loss of self- conscio- usness High level of control Full satisfaction

  25. Csikszentmihalyi: flow may be expected when and if the available skills balance (tightly match) the task challenges a person chooses, provided that both the challenges and tasks are close to the person’s utmost. Flow is placed at the cutting edge of person's skills, and it is a moving target. An increase of acquired skills leads to an appropriate extension of challenges, in case the precise matching and the concomitant enjoyment has to be saved; reciprocally, any choice of greater challenges demands an update of the available skills.

  26. Main antecedent of flow – precise matching between skills and challenges

  27. Psychology Projects (cont’d) The next slide will be illustrative of the development of computer hackers’ intrinsic motivation, namely the flow motivation. It is illustrated as a balance/counterbalance of the available skills & of task challenges.

  28. Cyberethics Meets Developmental Psychology Open-ended questionson moral judgmentsshow: Adolescents/kids often fail to transfer well-known moral norms to less known, e.g. virtual environments. In the Cyberspace they lack ‘ethical sensitivity’, that is, the ability to distinguish moral/immoral behavior.

  29. What is needed, world-wide: • research of Web-related moral views & judgments of children/adolescents; • education program to be worked out & taught, to update Web-related moral values of K-12 students; • teach globe-wide, *every* language: Cyberspace is global indeed.

  30. References • Voiskounsky A. Current problems of moral research and education in the IT environment. Human Perspectives in the Internet Society: Culture, Psychology and Gender. K.Morgan, C.A.Brebbia, J.Sanchez, A.Voiskounsky (eds.). WIT Press: Southampton, Boston, 2004, pp. 33-41. • Voiskounsky A.E. Virtual Environments: the need of advanced moral education. Ethics of New Information Technology. Proceedings of the 6th Internationаl Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE2005). Ed. by Ph. Brey, F. Grodzinsky, L. Introna. Enshede, the Netherlands: CTIT Publ., 2005, pp. 389-395.

  31. References (cont’d) • Babaeva J.D., Voiskounsky A.E. (2002). IT-Giftedness in Children and Adolescents. Educational Technology & Society, vol. 5(1), 154-162. • Voiskounsky A.E., Smyslova O.V. (2003). Flow-Based Model of Computer Hackers’ Motivation. CyberPsychology & Behavior, Vol. 6, № 3, 171-180. • Voiskounsky A., Smyslova O. (2003). Flow in computer hacking: A model. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, v. 2713.Springer, 176-186.

  32. References (cont’d) • Voiskounsky A.E. (2008). Flow Experience in Cyberspace: Current Studies and Perspectives. Psychological Aspects of Cyberspace: Theory, Research, Applications. (Ed. A. Barak). N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 70-101. • Voiskounsky A.E. (2008). Cyberpsychology and Computer-mediated Communication in Russia: Past, Present and Future. Russian Journal of Communication, V. 1, № 1, 78-94.

  33. References (cont’d) • Arestova, O., Babanin, L., Voiskounsky, A. (1999). Psychological Research of Computer-Mediated Communication in Russia. Behaviour and Information Technology, 18 (2), 141-147. • Voiskounsky A. (1998). Investigation of Relcom Network Users. F.Sudweeks et al. (eds.). Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet. AAAI Press/The MIT Press, 113-126. • Voiskounsky A.E., Babaeva J.D., Smyslova O.V. (2000). Attitudes towards computer hacking in Russia. Cybercrime: Law Enforcement, Security and Surveillance in the Information Age. Ed. by D.Thomas & B.Loader. Routledge, 56-84.

  34. THE END(for today)

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