From: gavand01@ulkyvx.bitnet
Subject: Re: Emotion sensors/finding non-standard interfaces
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1991 00:54:43 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville



In article <1991Oct18.193407.18772@milton.u.washington.edu>, billon@chopin.
udel.edu (John Billon) writes:

>In article <1991Oct15.145902.4436@milton.u.washington.edu> A.R.Diller@cs.bham.
>ac.uk (Antoni Diller) writes:
>
>>In article <1991Oct10.194622.9368@milton.u.washington.edu> billon@chopin.
>>udel.edu (John Billon) writes:
>
>>>the 'average'person. A program using standard methods of statistical ai
>>>could concievably manipulate the emotions of the user, if it was so 
>>>designed.
>
>>>It could concievably have a beneficial or damaging effect. This is just an
>>>extension of interface technology, but I think a very interesting one that
>>>could really use further study.
>
>>The thought that occurs to me is that if you begin sensing tension, etc.,
>>then you are well on the way to setting up a biofeedback loop to ALTER
>>your emotions and not just monitor them.  The computer monitor may then
>>take effect of the monitoring and feedback effect to ease your tension
>>or whatever.  Hence, the computer wouldn't only be more sensitive than
>>the ordinary person, but would also be aware of waht effect the things it was
>>doing have on you.
>
>        What I see as perhaps more interesting is not changing your emotions,
>but  chnging the way you respond to stimuli....
>.... [stuff deleted]


And what I find most interesting in this direction of thinking (which gets to
the heart of my most central concerns) is setting up an interactive dynamic
between participant and machine that could prove valuable in at least the
following respects:

        (1) We could cut out philosophizing about and second guessing WHAT
MIGHT BE the case in human perception and cognition and find out WHAT IS the
case.  The early physical sciences rapidly developed once researchers exploited
existing instruments to intervene in nature to see how it responds under
circumstances that were previously unobservable, often previously nonexistent.

        (2) By learning what is the case about human perception, we would learn
better hardware and software approaches for the technology to trick it into
perceiving virtual worlds.

        (3) It would facilitate breaking down our old, now dysfunctional,
dualistic thinking patterns of body vs. environment, mind vs. body, stimulus
vs. response, etc.  Sensory psychologists, neurophysiologists, sociobiologists,
and other disciplines have demonstrated conclusively that (a) for humans, there
is no world except that experienced through those processes given to us and
which make us what we are, and (b) we cannot trace a given experience to its
origins in a unique fashion.  This does mean that feedback loops exist in the
natural state of perception by which emotions can never be merely monitored;
they are always altered in any interaction.  The origin of experience is not
constructed at the perceiver's whim, for that establishes the starting point
inside; nor can reality be understood as a given (in VR, by a world designer)
which we perceive, because that assumes outside as a starting point.
Nonetheless, the essential round of activities can be charted in all its
formality and materiality.

All it would take is a team approach of cross-functional specialists to do it.
Present technology is sufficient.  I spent nearly a quarter of century to
develop a model and the procedures for carrying out such a probing into our
natures and the proactive strategies for dealing with the obvious ethical
issues.  But the model and the procedures must be communicated on a high level
at first, because both the medium and the message must be revamped before
understood.  Also, to implement, specialists in several fields would be
necessary because the model cuts across disiplines as presently organized.
All along the way, I have verified various aspects of the model with
appropriate specialists, but to handle implementation, they would have be
involved.

But humans hold to the vested interests in their status quo, so I do not expect
any results from sharing my life with you.  And I have a credibility problem:
who the hell does he think he is, and if he is so special what is he doing in
Kentucky, which everyone knows is no hotbed of intellectual activity . . . . .
(Is it true they don't wear shoes in Kentucky?)

Gary Van Den Heuvel
University of Louisville