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Benevolent deception: "The placebo button effect" » English to Serbian » Entry by Melita Zonic Dâmaso


Source text in English

Translation by Melita Zonic Dâmaso (#25397)

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.
Tokom mnogo godina, ne dižući oko toga preveliku buku, vlasti u Njujorku su deaktivirale većinu kontrolnih dugmića kojima se nekad upravljalo svetlima na pešačkim prelazima u gradu. Kompjuterizovani tajmeri gotovo uvek bolje obavljaju posao, odlučiše oni. Do 2004. godine, od 3250 takvih dugmića ostalo je manje od 750 onih koji rade. Gradske vlasti, međutim, nisu uklonile deaktivirane dugmiće – mameći bezbroj prstiju da ih uzalud pritiskaju.

U početku, dugmići su opstali zato što je bilo skupo ukloniti ih. Međutim, ispostavilo se da i dugmići koji ne rade imaju neku svrhu. Pešaci koji pritisnu dugme ređe će preći ulicu pre nego što se na semaforu pojavi zeleni čovečuljak, tvrdi Tal Oron-Gilad sa Ben Gurion Univerziteta u Negevu, Izrael. Pošto je proučavala ponašanje na pešačkim prelazima, ona kaže da su ljudi spremniji da poslušaju sistem koji tvrdi da uzima njihovo mišljenje u obzir.

Dugmići koji ne rade izazivaju ovu vrstu placebo dejstava zato što ljudi vole da imaju utisak da kontrolišu sisteme koje koriste, kaže Ejtan Adar, stručnjak za interakciju ljudi i kompjutera sa Univerziteta u Mičigenu, En Arbor. Doktor Adar kaže da njegovi studenti redovno dizajniraju softver koji sadrži dugme „sačuvaj” na koje može da se klikne, a koje nema nikakvu drugu namenu osim da učini spokojnim korisnike koji nisu svesni da se svaki njihov otkucaj na tastaturi ionako automatski čuva. Gledajte na to, kaže on, kao na dašak dobronamerne obmane koji treba da ublaži hladnoću svojstvenu svetu mašina.

To je jedan način gledanja na stvari. Međutim, makar na pešačkim prelazima, placebo dugmići mogu imati i tamniju stranu. Ralf Riser, direktor FACTUM-a, instituta u Beču na kojem se proučavaju psihološki faktori u saobraćajnim sistemima, smatra da činjenica da pešaci znaju da takvi dugmići postoje kao i nezadovoljstvo koje ta varka izaziva, sada donosi više štete nego koristi.


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