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Benevolent deception: "The placebo button effect" » English to Slovenian » Entry by Mojca Piskernik


Source text in English

Translation by Mojca Piskernik (#25046)

Over the course of many years, without making any great fuss about it, the authorities in New York disabled most of the control buttons that once operated pedestrian-crossing lights in the city. Computerised timers, they had decided, almost always worked better. By 2004, fewer than 750 of 3,250 such buttons remained functional. The city government did not, however, take the disabled buttons away—beckoning countless fingers to futile pressing.

Initially, the buttons survived because of the cost of removing them. But it turned out that even inoperative buttons serve a purpose. Pedestrians who press a button are less likely to cross before the green man appears, says Tal Oron-Gilad of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. Having studied behaviour at crossings, she notes that people more readily obey a system which purports to heed their input.

Inoperative buttons produce placebo effects of this sort because people like an impression of control over systems they are using, says Eytan Adar, an expert on human-computer interaction at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr Adar notes that his students commonly design software with a clickable “save” button that has no role other than to reassure those users who are unaware that their keystrokes are saved automatically anyway. Think of it, he says, as a touch of benevolent deception to counter the inherent coldness of the machine world.

That is one view. But, at road crossings at least, placebo buttons may also have a darker side. Ralf Risser, head of FACTUM, a Viennese institute that studies psychological factors in traffic systems, reckons that pedestrians’ awareness of their existence, and consequent resentment at the deception, now outweighs the benefits.
Upravni organi v New Yorku že vrsto let tako rekoč neopazno deaktivirajo kontrolne gumbe, s katerimi so pešci v mestu nekoč upravljali delovanje semaforskih luči na prehodih za pešce. Prišli so do ugotovitve, da so računalniško vodene programske ure skoraj vedno bolj učinkovite. Leta 2004 je delovalo le še manj kot 750 od 3.250 tovrstnih gumbov. Vendar pa mestna uprava deaktiviranih gumbov ni odstranila. Ti mimoidoče vabijo, da nanje pritiskajo – a brez učinka.

Na samem začetku so gumbi ostajali zato, ker bi bilo njihovo odstranjevanje predrago. Vendar se je sčasoma izkazalo, da tudi nedelujoči gumbi služijo nekemu namenu. “Manj verjetno je, da bodo pešci, ki te gumbe pritiskajo, cesto prečkali, preden se prižge zelena luč”, pravi Tal Oron-Gilad z univerze Ben-Gurion v Negevu v Izraelu, ki proučuje vedenje ljudi na prehodih za pešce in ugotavlja, da se ljudje lažje in hitreje podredijo sistemu, v katerem imajo vsaj navidezen vpliv.

Nedelujoči gumbi imajo tak placebo učinek zato, ker imamo ljudje radi občutek, da nadzorujemo sisteme, ki jih uporabljamo, pravi Eytan Adar, strokovnjak za komunikacijo med človekom in računalnikom na univerzi v Michiganu v mestu Ann Arbor. Dr. Adar izpostavlja, da njegovi študenti običajno načrtujejo programsko opremo, kjer se pojavlja interaktiven gumb »Shrani«, katerega edini namen je pomiriti tiste uporabnike, ki se ne zavedajo dejstva, da se njihovi pritiski na tipkovnico tako ali tako samodejno shranjujejo. Predstavljajte si, da gre za nedolžno prevaro, s katero vsaj malo omilimo hladnost, značilno za svet avtomatov, še dodaja.

To je le en pogled na zadevo. Ti gumbi pa imajo lahko vsaj na križiščih tudi svojo temnejšo plat. Ralf Risser, vodja inštituta FACTUM na Dunaju, ki proučuje psihološke dejavnike v prometnih sistemih, meni, da dobre plati ne odtehtajo dejstva, da se pešci zavedajo prisotnosti gumbov, in njihovega gneva, ko odkrijejo, da gre za prevaro.


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