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above. In fact, they may also ascribe a variety of mental states amongst
these various personality traits and features. But where does this
idea that users ascribe mental states towards technical systems come
from? In literature, there are numerous examples of people's implicit
tendencies to treat technical systems like entities with intentions and
to form close and emotional relations with them: Weizenbaum (1996)
reported that persons interacted with ELIZA—a relatively simple
program which simulates a Rogerian psychotherapist—by ascribing
background knowledge, insights, and logical reasoning to it. Further,
the owners of a Tamagochi ascribed feelings of longing to this virtual
pet when they left it alone for a time and even expressed guilt in
response (Wilks, 2005). The female owner of an Aibo (a robotic dog)
reports that she prefers the robot to a living dog, because it will
not betray her or annoy her by dying suddenly (Turkle, 2006), and
the speaking doll Primo Puel has been found to reduce loneliness
and feelings of insecurity in an elderly Japanese woman. People
apply a variety of social rules and expectations from human-human
communication to computers, e.g., they overemphasize human social
categories (e.g., by applying gender stereotypes to computers). For
an overview on these studies, Nass and Moon (2000), who explain
these phenomena in relation to Langer's (1989) concept of “mindless
behavior”.
2.1 Dennett's intentional stance as a possible
explanation of ascriptions by users
The works by Daniel C. Dennett (1971, 1987) offer a philosophical
framework of such ascriptions by users. He explains three stances
which people can adopt towards both biological and non-biological
systems (like computers).
1.
Physical stance:
In the physical stance, explanations and predictions
are based upon the real physical state of the system, as well as
upon knowledge of the laws of nature. In order to predict, for
example, the moves of a chess computer at this particular stance,
you would have to follow the effects of the input energies on
their way through the computer. In addition, you would have to
know all the critical variables within the physical condition of the
computer, which are very complex and would need enormous
calculations. This stance is commonly adopted towards 'simple'
systems, especially for predicting malfunctions. As an example,
you can predict that water in a pot will start boiling if the pot is
placed on a hob long enough; moreover, you can predict that the
water will not start boiling if the plug of the hob is not placed in
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