Exploring the neurochemistry of fairness

First, consider the notion of innate fairness. People who participated in a experimental transaction called the Ultimatum Game (a simple 2-party example of game theory) tended to reject offers they perceive as ‘unfair’ even though doing so results in them receiving less. This reinforces a recurring theme in current economic theory that participants often act fundamentally irrationally (e.g. Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational and other efforts in behavioral economics). One hypothesis drawn from the Ultimatum Game is an underlying evolutionary selection of a shared ‘golden rule,’ given the comparative advantage of group cohesion this might reinforce.

Second, the implications of the neurochemistry itself are more sobering. Even basic negotiation is often based on latent manipulation through psychological leverage; more advanced techniques sometimes exploit physiological factors such as room temperature or sleep deprivation to affect pliability. The casino industry has invested heavily in psychological profiling both in developing comp systems and interior design to lower inhibitions and increase the desire to stay on the gaming floor (high ceilings, rounded walls, indirect lighting, running water)—some examples are given in a short featurette on the DVD for Ocean’s Thirteen. Pushed a little further, you can see some of the same techniques deployed in the fields of law enforcement and the military as interrogation aids, as well as within specialized training such as SERE. In each case, the environment and physical comfort of the targeted participant are manipulated to lower their resistance, gain their trust, or ultimately obtain some concession.

Moving from science to science fiction, you can find ready parallels to controlling serotonin and oxytocin with the Pax used to curb aggression on the Outer Rim planet Miranda in Joss Whedon’s Serenity; the drug Prozium in Equilibrium and Soma in Brave New World; and more obscurely, the hormones produced by alien Powers that activate the ‘god module’ (aka neurotheology) in humans from Walter Jon Williams’ Voice of the Whirlwind. In each, the population is effectively controlled through their own neurochemistry by instilling languor, reducing aggression, suppressing emotion, etc.

Our Local Correspondents: Up and Then Down: Reporting & Essays

The essay covers the safety features and record of elevators, their basic construction, their efficiency of design and energy. Their role in media, even the dearth of elevator poetry, are mentioned (along with a perfectly appropriate use of ‘vertiginous’), with the observation that as a plot device, it serves:

“…to bring characters together, as a kind of artificial enforcement of proximity and conversation. The brevity of the ride suits the need for a stretch of witty or portentous dialogue, for stolen kisses and furtive arguments. For some people, the elevator ride is a social life.”

We learn of the elevator variant of claustrophobia and behavioral elevator therapy. We meet vertical transportation consultants like James Fortune, who engineer a building’s ‘elevatoring’ – its handling of ‘human traffic.’ The science of elevator planning is built on physics of space and psychology of time, plus the probabilities of human behavior. The elevatoring plan of a building must keep wait times at a minimum, while allowing for cultural constraints on human proximity (measured by calculations such as the average ‘body ellipse,’ which vary between Western and Eastern even as they do between urban and rural notions of ‘personal space’) and using as little room as possible to impact the building’s overall architecture. New innovations such as ‘destination dispatch’ pre-program floor routing based on rider pools, but at the cost of the illusion of user control over elevator movement. Meanwhile, fundamental limits such as cable length – any climb higher than 1700 feet and the hoist rope will snap under its own weight – require innovations like sky lobbies to act as transfer points midway up towers that can now scale a mile high.

Outside of the article, Paumgarten also recently appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation where it’s mentioned that his ongoing assignment is to cover ‘journeys’ which at least explains how traveling up and down got coverage.

For my part, the only operator-run elevator still in service I can recall using is at the San Francisco Rasputin’s music store, where the upper floors are only accessible by rattletrap conveyance operated by precisely the kind of adjunct indie clerk you’d expect to work in a SF music store. So instead of only feeling defensive when you check out, you also have to weigh checking out another floor’s genre against the calculated disapproval you may detect in the implicit scoff of their pressing the button.

As for the science, elevatoring has already made a notable appearance in two games – the original SimTower (scheduled for re-release on Nintendo DS!) and its sequel, Yoot Tower. Many of the stated tips for good vertical building design – keeping cafeterias at ground level, adroit use of stairways and escalators – factored into gameplay, and key to success was sufficient elevatoring. Too few, and lines would grow at each floor’s chokepoint, and your sims would rapidly turn red; or your maids wouldn’t be able to clean all the hotel rooms and turn them before the next check-in; or, heaven forfend, your fire escape plan would fall short. Too many ‘vators and you blew your budget for that top floor cathedral. Perhaps all those hours I spent trying to ferry customers from a 40th floor cinema to the 3rd floor gift shops without affecting the hotel clientele has a practical outlet after all.

[Somewhat apropos, I just had a track by concept band Towering Inferno - not to be confused with The Towering Inferno - play while writing this.]

‘Naughty Auties’ battle autism with virtual interaction

When virtual reality (VR) was first demonstrated in the early 90s by early proponents like Jaron Lanier, one of the proposed benefits was for psychological treatment of nervous disorders such as phobias. One of the behavioral treatments for phobias is systemic desensitization, with gradual exposure to the triggering stimulus in a safe environment to re-condition the response. A VR environment can duplicate the phobic stimulus in varying degrees to acclimatize the patient to remaining calm.  A recent study covered in the British Journal of Psychiatry also used VR to observe paranoid spectrum behavior. The use of a VR environment for autism spectrum disorders is a parallel example of systemic sensitization, allowing individuals to practice social interactions and gain confidence in communicating in a protective simulacrum of real life.

Second Life also perhaps represents Lanier’s hope for the future of VR beyond its early roots in static gaming (e.g. BattleTech Centers) and corporate simulations for CAD and oil/gas modeling:

“The main element lacking in video games (compared to what I hope we’ll see in virtual reality) is an expressive power. And so, what I envision is not so much a pre-programmed virtual world that you might play as a game, but rather a virtual world that you can change from the inside; a world that people use as a form of expression, in which they’re creating things together. Just as people make up their own Web pages, they would make up little realities and visit each other’s realities, or co-create them. And I think that level of activity would give rise to really, really wonderful new sorts of human relationships and experiences.”

(Sun interview, The Future of Virtual Reality)