Full Book Blog: Living With Complexity

Summary
The first chapter serves as an introduction to complexity. Norman differentiates between things being complex (state of the world, the tasks we do and the tools we use) and the idea of things being complicated (the psychological state of a person attempting to understand, use or interact with something in the world). He discusses keys to coping with complexity, he brings up how some complicated systems occur as a result of poor design and he provides several examples of how we like complexity in certain instances (like when we already know a lot about the topic or where complexity truly seems appropriate). He also mentions that one way to measure complexity is by the amount of time it takes to learn and master a task (10,000 hours).

In chapter 2 Norman brings up the idea of the conceptual model (the underlying belief structure held by a person about how something works), and how it helps to simplify the complexities of different systems. Norman discusses “featuritis,” adding more and more features, and explains how complexity is in the mind of the beholder. He also discuses how simpler looking does not always equate to simpler to use and how users tend to prefer an intermediate level of complexity.

mitpress.mit.edu

In chapter 3 Norman discusses how things get more complicated as the number of items increases. He provides remembering passwords as an example, and explains how we cope by putting the information in the world (pasting the passwords to the monitor or under the keyboard). He discusses the “scaling problem,” something that works well with only a few cases, but often fails as the number grows. He mentions how in an ideal world we would not need signs and how too much information makes things complicated. He concludes by discussing the benefits of forcing functions and provides examples through a discussion on toilet paper.

Chapter 4 focuses on social signifiers, indicators in the environment that allow people to navigate in otherwise complex and confusing environments. These signifiers are referred to as “perceived affordances” by some. Norman also discusses culture as another source of complexity and uses salt and pepper shakers as an example. Norman writes about the importance of signifiers and how they provide valuable cues as to the nature of the world and how people should act.

Discussion
Norman provides a lot of good examples throughout all the chapters that we read. He really digs down deep when explaining what complexity is, what causes it and the different types of complexity. I think one of the funniest to read was the one on toilet paper since he was so serious about it. I also thought it was interesting to read about how it takes 10,000 hours of work to be an expert.

Something I thought of while reading chapter 3 was how once when I was driving in a construction area, there was a sign on the left side of the road that read, “Left lane closed,” but on the right side of the road read a sign, “Right lane closed.” There were only two lanes and the cars were bumper-to-bumper. While I’m sure there would still be traffic regardless, I think things would have ran more smoothly if the signs had been accurate. Only the people who put the signs up knew which one was correct. (I think the left lane was the lane that was truly closed.)

Full Book Blog: Why We Make Mistakes

Summary
The Introduction introduces the ideas that are to be explored throughout the book. The author begins by describing mistakes and explains how much of the world around us is designed in such a way as to expect us to see things clearer and remember things better than we actually do. The author also defines “mistake” and outlines some of the topics to be discussed in the book: similar mistakes that happen, what a person can do to make fewer errors and understanding the role of context.

whywemakemistakes.com

Chapter 1 focuses on vision and how we don’t always see as much as we think we do. The author, Joseph T. Hallinan, gives several examples through movie mistakes and the door experiment, an experiment in which a person asking for directions switches places with another person passing through and helping carry a door. The author also explains the beer-in-the-refrigerator problem and how people have a quitting threshold when searching for something.

The second chapter continues the discussion of the first chapter, but doesn’t spend as much of the chapter on vision. The focus is on how the meanings we pick up on in what we see/hear are more important than the actual details of a scene. As in the first chapter, Hallinan gives many examples such as slip-of-the-tongue errors, recalling part of something (like a name) but not all of it and how we forget passwords and hiding places. At the end of the chapter Hallinan relates the discussion to crime and the process of identifying suspects.

Chapter 3 focuses on how we consider things. Hallinan begins with an example about people running for election and how voters make quick decisions based off of how competent a candidate looks. He gave another example of how people drinking wine rated the $90 wine as tasting the best when it was the same as the $10 wine – their brains even showed more evidence of being happy with the more expensive wine. Price is not the only thing that plays a part in this. The color of objects and a person’s memory of regret also play a role in people’s choices and consequently their mistakes. The author states that all of these examples are given to help readers better understand sources of mistakes.

Chapter 4 discusses how we tend to remember our actions with rose-colored glasses. When remembering things that we do and say, we tend to make ourselves sound better than we actually were/are. Hallinan presents several examples: students remembering their grades as being better than they were and remembering good grades more than the bad grades, the Watergate scandal and how John Dean remembered the events entirely differently than how they really went down (proven through tape recordings) and how gamblers remember their wins and how losses are near-wins in their eyes.

In chapter 5 Hallinan explores the idea of multitasking and how we don’t actually do it. He discusses how multitasking slows us down, can cause us to forget what we are doing and creates a need for downtime, the time it takes to refocus on a task. The author provides examples of a pilot, a bus driver and drivers in general who do other tasks (like texting, talking on the phone or fiddling with a GPS) while driving. He explores in depth the car and the many distractions being created to “aid” us distract us and how drivers need downtime when switching between tasks while driving.

In chapter 6 Hallinan discusses framing, how we look at something. He uses examples such as buying a certain wine depending on the music being played, the location of information regarding a company in a newspaper and the time that we make decisions (immediate or future) can affect our decisions. Hallinan also writes about multiple-unit pricing and the impact it has on shoppers. In seeing the tag, “4 for $2,” the number, 4, acts as an anchor that makes the shopper more likely to buy four of the item rather than just one or two. He relates this same idea to selling a house.

In chapter 7 Hallinan begins by showing us some examples of how we skim material and how this ability to skim comes with a trade-off: details are overlooked. He discusses how we skim when we read by only reading the first few letters of a work and assuming the rest, how a rookie piano player once noticed an error that had gone unnoticed for years and how a thirteen-year-old boy corrected NASA on their estimation regarding an asteroid.

Hallinan also discusses the importance of the context we are in when recognizing and remembering information. Hallinan demonstrates this with several examples: reading a description of doing the laundry before and after we know the context and a study in which people memorized words above and under water.

Chapter 8 focuses on a person’s desire to keep things organized even in memory. Hallinan begins with several examples to demonstrate this: people drawing the Seine River straighter than it actually is and stating where Reno, Nevada is in relation to San Diego, California. Hallinan further explains the idea of tidy memories through his discussion on how we like to organize information into a hierarchy. Hallinan also explains that who the person is will affect how he or she remembers things. In other words, people rationalize memories and change them, as shown in the study where people were asked to recall a folktale. When telling stories, people are also known to leave out details or make them up depending on the purpose of the story. These added or omitted details sometimes cause the person to remember the event differently.

Chapter 9 seemed to be a compare and contrast of men and women. Hallinan discusses the relationship between overconfidence and perceived risk. He also discusses how women seem to have less confidence than men in several areas. Examples he give includes getting lost while driving, selling back lottery tickets and fixing bugs in a spreadsheet. Hallinan relates some of these differences back to how boys tend to tinker more than girls, and boys tend to explore further out than girls.

Chapter 10 focuses on how people tend to believe they are above average. In other words, people tend to be overconfident. Hallinan sites many examples of this: golfing, paying for the gym on a yearly or monthly basis rather than day-to-day and credit card rates. Hallinan then discusses calibration, the difference between a person’s actual and perceived abilities. He discusses that calibration tends to be poor, but weather forecasts are well calibrated. The power of feedback is also discussed (feedback is poor when it comes to gym memberships). Hallinan also notes that as a task gets harder, people tend to be even more overconfident. The reason described for this is that people are overloaded with information and believe all the information actually makes them more likely to be right.

In chapter 11, Hallinan discusses how even professionals have difficulty in knowing how good or bad they are at something. He also discusses how experts become experts by practicing, starting at a young age and creating a library of specialized knowledge within the mind. Hallinan also presents information on a study of cognitive maps and mice, discusses how do-it-yourselfers hurt themselves with nail guns and how people prefer to do things without manuals in part because of how long the manuals can be. He then points out how people tend to do something in the first way they learned it – referred to as functional fixity – and backs up the idea with a task involving jars of water. Hallinan concludes by saying we should think outside the box though we usually do not when we already have learned a certain way to complete a task.

In chapter 12, Hallinan discusses constraints and affordances. He defines constraints as “simple mental aids that keep us on the right track by limiting our alternatives.” He defines affordances as “clues to how a thing can be used.” He discusses the technique by which different organizations name things and gives two examples: prescription drug names and identifiers that pilots use. He also discusses the importance of finding the root cause and knowing where to look (the culture of the place where we work) when searching for the source of an error. In discussing pilots and doctors, Hallinan also explains the effect that attitude has on errors.

In chapter 13 Hallinan begins with an example of two people who moved to L.A. and then ended up moving back to Wisconsin. He uses this example to show how people mispredict how they will feel about important life decisions in the future because they focus on relatively minor factors. He uses the same idea of misprediction to explain why gift cards are great for the company but not so great for the consumer.

In the Conclusion Hallinan gives some advice on how the readers can apply the ideas presented in this book to their lives. Some of the things he recommends we keep in mind are:

1. Think small
2. Calibration can be taught
3. Creating a written record helps a person fend off the rose-colored-glasses of hindsight bias
4. In some cases it will be important to look for and even expect failure
5. Don’t be set in your ways
6. Slow down
7. Be aware of the anecdote (he references NutriSystem here)
8. Get plenty of sleep
9. Be happy

Hallinan concludes by discussing how money does not eliminate mistakes and is not the currency of life.

Discussion
I really enjoyed this book and how the author presents so many examples to back up his claims. I especially liked the Conclusion, because Hallinan does a great job of summarizing his ideas without going overboard. It’s short and concise but effective. Some of the discussion in class was about how while this information is great, it is difficult to apply it to our lives to help prevent mistakes. While I still think this is true, I like how he gives some advice on how we can try to prevent the mistakes. I also think this book will be beneficial in helping us better understand mistakes we make, and as a Computer Scientist, I think this book will help us design better systems that prevent users from making certain expected mistakes.

Full Blog: Media Equation

Reference Information
Part 1
Title: Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers
Authors: Clifford Nass, Youngme Moon
Presentation Venue: Journal of Social Issues; Volume 56, Issue 1, Spring 2000, pp. 81-103.

Part 2
Title: Computers are social actors
Authors: Clifford Nass, Jonathan Steuer, Ellen R. Tauber
Presentation Venue: CHI ’95: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: celebrating interdependence; April 24, 1995; Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Part 3
Title: Can computer personalities be human personalities?
Authors: Clifford Nass, Youngme Moon, B. J. Fogg, Byron Reeves, Chris Dryer
Presentation Venue: CHI ’95: Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems; 1995; Denver, Colorado, USA.

Summary
In Part 1, The paper discusses how people tend to apply social rules to computers and have certain expectations of their computers. In one set of experiments they show how users tend to apply social categories to computers. In this experiment they had users be tutored, tested and evaluated with a computer with either a male or female voice output. Results show that people found the male voice friendlier. They also examined ethnicity through interactive video manipulation.

In another set of experiments they show how people tend to act polite towards their computers. They had a computer ask about its own performance. Then the researchers had a different computer ask about the first computer’s performance. Then the researchers asked the same questions through a questionnaire. Responses about the computer were found to be more positive when it was the one doing the questions rather than when a second computer asked the questions or a questionnaire provided the questions. They also tested reciprocity – working harder to help a computer that has helped you in the past – and reciprocal self-disclosure – having the computer tell a bit about itself, asking a personal question and then getting an intimate response.

In a third set of experiments they show how people value information provided by a computer when it is identified as a “specialist” rather than when it is identified as a “generalist.” They used televisions with news shows and entertainment shows. All of these experiments help to show how people react mindlessly to computers by applying social interactions between people to how they interact with their computers.

They then explore alternative explanations for their findings. They discuss anthropomorphism, the act of believing something is essentially human. They also discuss how some believe people aren’t reacting to the computer but to the programmer. They then discuss the methods of their experiments.

In Part 2, paper further explores the ideas in the first and sites that the reason that people act the way they do with computers has to do with how commonplace and easy it is to generate such responses. The paper describes five experiments in which they test whether a person will be polite to the computer, whether a person will apply the notion of ‘self’ and ‘other’ to the computer, how a person distinguishes between ‘self’ and ‘other,’ whether or not they will apply gender stereotypes to computers and why people act the way they do with computers. The findings were similar to the findings described in the paper in part 1 of this book reading assignment. Something to note from the fifth study was that they found that users did not see the computer as a medium for social interaction with the programmer.

source: yourscrapbookingtips.com

The researchers conclude by saying that the computer-human relationship is a social one. They also note that effort to make interfaces with realistic faces and personalities may not be needed since even the basic computer encourages a fundamentally social relationship with the user.

In Part 3, the paper explores the idea of creating a personality for a computer, the minimum set of cues needed to make the personality and how powerful the effects of the personality are on the user. They focus on making a computer seem dominant and then submissive, assuring that the personality trait is noted and seeing how the trait makes the user react. They also test to see how much a user prefers the computer based on how similar they are when it comes to the trait of dominance/submissiveness.

The main difference between the personality traits shown in the computers was the style of communication. The dominant computer used strong language and displayed a high confidence level. The submissive computer made suggestions, asked questions and showed a low confidence level. Their findings show that people did perceive the dominant computer as more dominant than the submissive computer and that people preferred to work with a computer that was similar to them in terms of dominance and submissiveness. When the personalities were similar between computer and user, the user reported the interaction as being more satisfying.

The researchers conclude by saying that it is easier than expected to manipulate a personality even in its simplest form and that these findings also imply that humans respond socially to computers.

Discussion
In Part 1, I really enjoyed reading about the reciprocal self-disclosure experiment. It was hilarious to read, “This computer has been configured to run at speeds up to 266 MHz. But 90% of computer users don’t use applications that require these speeds. So this computer rarely gets used to its full potential. What has been your biggest disappointment in life?” Since people were found to give more intimate answers to a computer that did this, I wonder if anyone has a done a study on the physiological benefits of computers. I really enjoyed reading about these studies and how mindless we really can be when it comes to interacting with computers.

I thought the paper in Part 2 was a good paper to read after the one in part 1. It further explored the studies in part 1 and strengthened their findings. I also agree with the conclusions they drew. It is simple to interact with a computer the way we do with people. However, there are still major differences between the interactions. While people might be more polite to a computer’s “face” than when they are away from the computer, I cannot see people becoming attached to their computers or developing relationships that when lost would cause major distress. The computer is still a tool. It’s just easy and feels natural to interact with it in a more human way, at least in some instances.

Before reading the paper in Part 3, I hadn’t given much thought about a computer’s perceived personality and the impact it could have on the user. It was neat to read about how even a simple trait like dominance and submission could have such a profound impact on the user. As the researchers note, these findings also back the findings described in the other two papers about how people respond socially to a computer.

Full Book Blog: Things that Make Us Smart

Full Blog on the chapters we read: 1-4

Summary
The first chapter discusses how technology should be more centered on the human. He discusses how technology can aid people but can also make them dumb and enslave them. He writes of how technology that is designed to aid people more often confuses people and interferes with thought processes. He differentiates between hard (sciences that rely on accurate measurements) and soft (sciences that relies on observation and classification) sciences. He also discusses two types of cognition: experiential (a state in which people react effortlessly and quickly to events) and reflective (a state in which thought and decision making takes place).

In chapter 2 Norman begins by discussing museums and how little they teach their visitors. He revisits experiential and reflective cognition and discusses how technology needs to strike a balance between the two rather than forcing users to one extreme or the other. Norman also defines three types of learning: accretion (the accumulation of facts), tuning (the practicing of a skill and the transition from novice to expert) and restructuring (the hard part of learning where one forms the right conceptual model). The first two are experiential modes and the third is reflective. He also defines optimal flow, the peak experience where the mind is fully involved, and how important it is to learning.

Chapter 3 deals with external aids (two of the most important being paper and pencil) and how they make us smart. Norman discusses cognitive artifacts and how they help people keep track of complex events. He defines two ingredients for a representational system: the represented world and the representing world. He uses different examples such as tic-tac-toe, getting flight information, representing numbers and filling medical prescriptions to discuss how the way a person represents something makes the task related to the representation easier or harder to do.

In chapter 4 Norman continues his discussion about artifacts and things to consider when fitting the artifact to the person. He differentiates between surface artifacts (what we see is all there is) and internal artifacts (part of the information is represented internally). He uses three puzzles (The Tower of Hanoi, Oranges and Coffee) in which the problems are the same but to a person seem different due to how much or how little information is present in the environment. Norman then discusses different ways to represent information and how the best way depends on the information and the task to be performed with the graphic. He also mentions how technology has affordances and uses voice-messaging systems as an example of a technology that in some instances forces a medium into usage that violates the affordances and gets in the way.

Discussion
While I complained about Norman’s tendency to be long-winded in my discussions for the first two chapters, he does make some interesting points. However, I feel that DOET is the best of Norman’s books. Norman gives a lot of great/interesting examples in chapters 3 and 4 that got me really thinking about how something is represented and how much or how little thought is needed depending on the design.

One of my favorite discussions was about the analog and digital displays in cars. My car has a digital display for the speedometer, which I really like. It might just be because I’m used to it now, but whenever I drive a car with an analog display, I feel it takes just a little longer for me to check my speed than it does with the digital display. Something else nice about the digital display in my car is its placement. It’s placed above all the other gauges, making me only need to shift my eyes down slightly to glance at the speed.

Full Book Blog: Coming of Age in Samoa

Summary

source: borders.com.au

 Chapter 1 acts as an introduction to the book that gets the reader thinking about how each civilization affects the people within it. Margaret Mead begins by explaining how difficult it is to study the affects of civilization on adolescents since they cannot be studied and controlled like plants and animals.

In chapter 2, Margaret Mead describes a typical day in Samoa. She begins early in the morning, describing the men going to work, young boys fishing and girls giggling. She describes the evening as a lighter time when the Samoans dance and wander through the village together.

Chapter 3 focuses on what the girls learn as they’re growing up. As babies the girls are taken care of by children. They receive a simple education until about the age of five at which point they should, among other things, be housebroken and never address an adult in a standing position. They are then in charge of younger children and learn simple tasks including how to make pin-wheels and break open a coconut. The girls take care of babies and young children until they are strong enough to work on the plantations.

Chapter 4 explains the inner workings of the Samoan household and how the household is actually made up of several households throughout the village. Mead describes the way the different members of the household interact, the role and selection process of the taupo and provides more information on the matai and what they do within the household.

In chapter 5 Mead discusses the different groups of friends a girl has as she ages. She gives several examples of girls who interacted differently with the different groups. Mead also spends a little time discussing the groups of friends the boys have.

Chapter 6 focuses on the role girls play in the community. The organization of young men is called the Aumaga, and the organization of young girls, wives of untitled men and the widows is called the Aualuma. The chapter also discusses the women’s fonos of which there are two kinds: the ones that follow or precede communal work and the ceremonial fonos.

In chapter 7, Mead explains how relationships work between the sexes. Mead explains that there are two types of sex relations besides marriage that are recognized by the community. The first is love affairs between unmarried people and the second is adultery, something that does not always imply a broken marriage in the Samoan culture.

Chapter 8 discusses the important role dance plays in the Samoan culture. Being the single activity that all age groups participate in, dancing emphasizes individuality and can lead to inferiority if one is not a good dancer.

Chapter 9 explores the personality of Samoans and their attitude towards it. The word, musu, means that one is unwilling and obstinate and what Mead finds is that it is treated with “almost superstitious respect.” Once a person demonstrates musu, the Samoan doesn’t question why the person feels that way. They just accept it and move on.

Chapter 10 gives the reader some insight into the average girl. Mead writes about many of the girls individually such as Pele and Tuna.

Chapter 11 focuses on the girls who either deviated from the group with their desire to have more choices than is traditional or who could be classified as delinquents.

Chapter 12 discusses what the older men and women do in the village. Mead discusses the married couple and how choosing whether to live in the husband’s or wife’s family’s house has more effect on the man than it does the woman. Mead also explains how there is little conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law or father-in-law and son-in-law. The elders are due their respect.

Chapter 13 presents a compare and contrast between the Samoan and American youth. Mead discusses the very different social environments between the two cultures.

The final chapter of the book mainly focuses on the education of the youth in America. Mead concludes by explaining how in a civilization where there are so many choices and so many ways of doing things, parents must teach their children how to think, not what to think.

The different appendices describe different information. In Appendix II Mead explains how she went about studying the Samoan girls and what she focused on. Appendix III discusses Samoa and how it was when the book was published. In Appendix V Mead presents some of her findings in the form of tables, lists and descriptions.

Discussion
Overall this was an interesting book. I enjoy learning about other cultures and this was one I’m sure very few people had knowledge of prior to reading the book. However, I’m not sure we needed to read this entire book. Reading a couple of the appendices and maybe four or five chapters at the most probably would have been sufficient to give us a good idea of how an ethnography could be done. I’ve also heard from liberal arts students that they were told this was an example of how not to do an ethnography.

On the plus side, though, every chapter did present interesting information that kept me engaged. As a result of reading this, I might be willing to pick up other ethnography books later down the line to learn about other cultures.

Full Book Blog: Emotional Design

We only read the first three chapters, so here is the full blog on those.

Summary
The first chapter discusses why attractive things work better. Norman explains how emotions help a person make decisions and how happiness increases thought processes and encourages creative thinking. Tying this into to design, attractive design allows for a more enjoyable experience and helps people figure things out. Norman also discusses the three levels of processing: visceral (the automatic layer), behavioral (everyday behavior layer) and reflective (contemplative layer). He then discusses how the three levels interact with each other and how they relate to focus and creativity.

The second chapter discusses how the different levels of processing work within a design and how they work with and against each other. As stated in the chapter, visceral design is about the initial impact of the product, behavioral about the use and experience, and reflective about understanding, reasoning and interpreting. Norman also discusses the importance of memories, how objects evoke memories and how these memories reflect us. He concludes the chapter by discussing the design of products when taking the three levels of processing into account. He discusses the goals of a product, its fashion and how brands are informative.

Chapter 3 discusses the three levels of design. Visceral design focuses on physical features such as look, feel and sound and is about initial reactions. Behavioral design focuses on function, understandability, usability and physical feel with function being the most important. Reflective design focuses on the meaning of the product, the message the product gives and the culture. Norman also presents a case study on the national football league headset and concludes by comparing the process of design by committee and the process of design by the individual.

Discussion
While I enjoyed the ideas presented in the first three chapters, Norman did start to repeat himself, so I’m glad we did not have to read this entire book. The emotional design Norman describes is an important aspect that I think is oftentimes overlooked.

Norman gives plenty of good examples from automobiles to watches to bottled water to help explain the differences between the three levels of design. I enjoyed the part in chapter 3 about how stores will put the most often bought items at the back of the store. I have pondered over this before, but now I’ll probably always be thinking about it when I visit a new store. I also thought the Xbox advertisement was funny in chapter 2, and I enjoyed the way Norman analyzed it.

Full Book Blog: Obedience to Authority

Summary
In chapter 1 Stanley Milgram discusses obedience and sites the Nazi experimentation as an example of obedience gone bad. He discusses the goal of the experiment (to explore adults’ willingness to obey authority and under what circumstances they do and do not obey) and discusses possible explanations for obeying and disobeying.

Image from: Wikipedia

In chapter 2 Milgram writes about how he performed the study. He discusses  how they obtained participants, the location of the experiment, the procedure of the experiment, the learning task involved, the shock generator and instructions provided by the experimenter, the experimenter feedback, the feedback from the subject, the data they focused on and the interview and debriefing of the subject

In chapter 3 Milgram discusses the expected behavior and the predictions made by psychiatrists, college students and middle-class adults with various jobs. They predicted that nearly all subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter and that only a very small percentage would be expected to proceed to the strongest voltage.

In chapter 4 Milgram provides data and information about the effect of the proximity of the victim to the teacher (subject). In Experiment 1 the teacher got no feedback from the victim other than a pounding on the walls at 300 volts. In Experiment 2 vocal protests were used. In Experiment 3 the victim was placed in the same room as the teacher. In Experiment 4 the victim only got shocked when he put his hand on a shock plate. When the victim refused (at 150 volts) the teacher was ordered to force the victim to put his hand on the shock plate.

In chapter 5 Milgram presents the readers with information about several of the subjects. Milgram includes their observations of the subject as the experiment was performed, background information received during an interview after the experiment and information they gave in a survey months after the experiment.

In chapter 6 Milgram describes seven other experiments that he did to see how his results changed. Some of the variations in the experiments include changing the location of the experiment, trying the experiment with a new victim and experimenter, including women in the studies, using a contract, performing the study under a different name and allowing the subject to choose the shock level.

In chapter 7 Milgram provides data and information similar to what was presented in chapter 5 but about the subjects who participated in the experiments described in chapter 6. One of the subjects was from Germany, and at 210 volts she decided to stop. Milgram attributes this to her exposure to Nazi propaganda.

Chapter 8 provides information on six more experiments that Milgram performed. In these experiments he changed the position (whether the subject is giving, receiving or ordering the shock), status (whether the person is presented as an authority or ordinary man) and action (the conduct of the people in their positions) to see how his results would change.

In Chapter 9, Milgram discusses the effect of the group and discusses the difference between conformity and obedience. The main differences described are:
-Obedience to authority occurs within a hierarchy
-Conformity is imitation but obedience is not
-The prescription for actions is explicit in obedience but implicit in conformity
Milgram then describes two experiments performed in a group. In one there are three teachers (one of them being the subject) and the two actors that are teachers rebel. In the other experiment the subject does not do the shocking but performs other acts like asking the questions.

In chapter 10, the focus of the book changes to analyze the findings described in the first half of the book. Milgram looks deeper into the causes of obedience. In this chapter he defines the agentic state (the condition a person is in when he sees himself as an agent for carrying out another person’s wishes). He refers to this state as the keystone of their analysis.

In chapter 11 Milgram considers forces that impacted the subject before the experiment (the family structure, the institutional setting, and a reward system) and during the experiment (the perception of legitimate authority, the appearance of the authority figure, the lack of any competing authorities, and a visible link between the function of the authority and the commands being given). The agentic state is also further explored and its properties defined.

Chapter 12 focuses on strain and disobedience. Milgram discusses sources of strain, things that help to buffer the strain and how people address the issue of strain through avoidance, denial and subterfuges. He also discusses ways that people “blow off steam” from strain by verbally disagreeing with the authority, physically reacting through trembling and sweating and in some cases being disobedient by refusing to continue.

In chapter 13 Milgram considers a different theory about his experiments, aggression, and why it is erroneous to him. He discusses soldiers and a different experiment done by Buss and Berkowitz to investigate aggression.

In chapter 14 Milgram discusses the different assertions made against the findings of these experiments. The main assertions were:
-People in the study are the typical sort
-The subjects didn’t believe they were administering real shocks
-The findings cannot be applied outside the laboratory setting
Milgram addresses each of these in detail within the chapter.

In the final chapter Milgram relates his findings to the real world and discusses the Vietnam War. He includes a CBS interview with a Vietnam War soldier and relates the obedience in the war to the obedience he discovered in the lab.

Discussion
I had no idea Milgram performed so many experiments. He considered a lot more variables than I knew about. While I did appreciate how thorough he has been in his studies so far, it did get a little old since the results were all similar: people generally obey the authority to the point of “hurting” the learner. I also want to note that he was mainly watching for proof that we obey authority, and while I agree with the overall findings of the study, some of the stuff did start to sound bias. Going by what I’ve been taught, in many studies nowadays, they usually have researchers unrelated to the study perform it to avoid such bias, but that wasn’t an option here. On page 47 Milgram seemed almost to be forcing an answer out of a subject when he says, “He does not seem to grasp the concept. The interviewer simplifies the question. Finally the subject assigns major responsibility to the experimenter.” While I know they were trying to get the subject to discuss responsibility, I don’t know how hard they tried to lead him there.

Still, all the different experiments were interesting and well thought out. I’m curious to know how he decided which subjects to include in chapters 5 and 7.

I enjoyed the second-half of the book more than the first-half. While all his findings in the first half were interesting, I enjoyed reading more about the analysis and the discussion that arose as a result of the findings. I appreciate how thorough the book was. Milgram even included the opposing side and made good points against it. I also appreciated how he related his findings to the real world to give us an idea on a grander scale than just that of the laboratory. I also thought it was interesting that these experiments were repeated in so many other places like in South Africa, Rome and Australia.

Full Book Blog: Opening Skinner’s Box

Summary
The first chapter is mainly devoted to B. F. Skinner, his work, and the impact it had on people. The author, Lauren Slater, discusses Skinner’s early days studying frog reflexes, the days when he worked with variable schedules of reinforcement and his time later on when he took care of his daughters and taught their dog to play hide-and-seek with them.

In the second chapter Lauren Slater discusses Stanley Milgram’s shock experiment and its implications. She begins with a narrative describing what the experiment was like for the subject: how they slowly increased the voltage of a shock they gave each time a person in another room gave a wrong answer and how that person screamed in pain. After the experiment, it was found that 62-65% of people when faced with an authority, would follow orders to the point of delivering a lethal shock to another person.

Chapter 3 discusses David Rosenhan’s test in which he and eight friends when to various mental institutions, got admitted by saying they heard a voice that said “thud” and then acted normal once in the ward. He discusses how the staff attributed all of his normal behaviors to his paranoid schizophrenic diagnosis. Slater then tells of how people reacted to Rosenhan’s article about the matter. She also discusses the still prominent questions in regards to psychiatry and how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders evolved as a result of Rosenhan’s study.

Chapter 4 discusses the bystander effect and the phenomenon of diffusion of responsibility. It tells the story of Kitty Genovese and then explains the studies that followed by Darley and Latane.

In chapter 5 Slater discusses Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. Slater describes some of Festinger’s experiments including his observation of those who believed a flood would come on December 21, 1954 and an experiment involving having people lie for either $1 or $20. A large portion of the chapter focuses on mother named Linda Santo whose daughter she claims to be a saint that God has chosen to be a victim soul that takes on the pain of others.

Chapter 6 is about Harry Harlow and the research he did with rhesus macaque monkeys to explore the psychology of attachment. Slater begins by telling of Harlow’s younger years and his lack of love growing up. Then Slater discusses the different studies he did.

Chapter 7 explores the work of Bruce Alexander and his studies on rats when researching the effect of one’s social, physical and psychological life on one’s addiction to drugs. After putting sixteen rats in a caged environment and sixteen rats in a “rat park,” Alexander exposed them both to morphine. What Alexander found was that the rats in the rat park chose drinking normal water over the morphine-laced water while the cramped, caged rats preferred the morphine-laced water.

Chapter 8 explores the false memory experiments done by Elizabeth Loftus. With her different studies she was able to implant false memories in her subjects and observe how memories could be changed over time or with some convincing.

Chapter 9 focuses on Eric Kandel’s research with memory. He discovered that the neurons grew stronger when an electrochemical signal reinforced the relationship. He also discovered CREB and the CREB repressor. CREB is a molecule in the brain that “switches on” the genes that produce the proteins that make memories.

The final chapter discusses psychosurgery and Antonio Egas Moniz, the father of psychosurgery. Slater discusses his early research and the results of some of the first surgeries in which he injected alcohol into the brain to destroy nerve tissue.

Discussion
This book was a very enjoyable read. I learned about many of these experiments in one of my psychology classes, but I enjoyed how in depth Slater went into the different experiments. For example, I’d never heard about the rumors regarding Skinner and his daughter being kept in a box or how Harlow actually had some of the cloth surrogate mothers stab the baby monkeys in his later studies.

One of my favorite chapters was chapter 3. It was very interesting to see how easy it was to get admitted to a mental institution back in the day and how easy it still is to get prescription drugs. I also like how in the final chapter, Slater ties this together by saying how doctors who prescribe Prozac are like Moniz because they don’t know exactly how it works but want to help people. I also liked chapter 8, which explored the idea of false memories.

Psychology is such an interesting field that has so much yet to be discovered and fully understood. This was an interesting book that I looked forward to reading each week.

Full Book Blog: Design of Everyday Things

Summary
The book offers many examples of poor and good design. Norman explores the benefits of mapping and the importance of a good conceptual model and making things visible. He also discusses how people blame their inability to make something work on themselves, the environment or some unrelated cause when the real problem is in the design of the object.

Norman also devotes a chapter to discussing how people remember things through their memory and through information presented in the world. He writes about the structure of memory and outlines three main categories to describe how we remember things: memory for arbitrary things, memory for meaningful relationships and memory through explanation.

In the fourth chapter Norman writes about how a user can know how to use different devices and discusses the different kinds of constraints – physical, semantic, logical and cultural – and how they limit the possible operations for a device.

The fifth chapter breaks down human errors into two main categories (slips and mistakes) and how to detect slips. Norman then relates slips to the design process to improve design. In chapter six he discusses the different challenges a designer faces when designing a new product. He discusses how certain negative forces like the demands of time and pressure can work against evolutionary design.

The final chapter discusses seven principles for transforming difficult tasks into simple tasks and the importance of standardizing design when something cannot be designed without difficulties. Norman also writes about how certain things actually need to be designed to be difficult.

In each chapter Norman backs up his claims and explanations with real-world examples and outlines the history of certain designs (like the typewriter and the writing process) in several chapters.

Discussion
Norman did a good job of making abstract ideas about design concrete. While I agreed with what he said, I hadn’t thought as deeply about the subjects as Norman wrote about them. He also gave great examples throughout the book to better prove his points.

Some of the parts I thought were most interesting were:
1) Section about how doors at a school for handicapped children have the latches at the very top of the door to prevent children from going outside alone – from chapter 7.
2) The discussion of the history of the typewriter and the discussion on the faucet designs – chapter 6.
3) Lego motorcycle and how he applies its simple design to the topics discussed in the chapter – chapter 4

I think it might be interesting for Norman to update his book now. Some of the examples he uses are a little out of date, and I’m sure there are a lot more designs he could examine and explain now.