Signals, Truth and Design
Event details
| Date | 22.06.2009 |
| Hour | 11:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Judith Donath, MIT Media Laboratory, MA, USA |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Much of what we want to know about other people is not directly perceivable. Instead, we rely on signals, which are perceivable features or actions that indicate the presence of hidden qualities. Yet not all signals are reliable. What keeps signals honest? And why are some signals more reliable than others? Signaling theory provides a framework for understanding these dynamics. Among other things, it shows how the cost of many seemingly extravagant displays is not wasteful expenditure, but useful for ensuring the reliability of the display as a signal. In this talk I will show how signaling theory can be used for the design and analysis of social technologies. It is especially well suited for this domain, for in mediated interactions there are few qualities that can be directly observed: everything is signal.
Prof. Donath's homepage
Practical information
- General public
- Free