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Figure 16.2.
Large Display Technology Studies
(a) “The Watcher”
(b) The HDTV Camera
(c) “The Watched”
second-by-second level so that analyses can determine whether physiological benefits accrued
immediately following an eye gaze onto the plasma screen, and (d) social-cognitive data (based
on a fifty-minute interview with each subject at the conclusion of the experimental condition wherein
they garnered each subject's reasoned perspective on the experience). Data analysis is in progress.
However, preliminary results are showing the following trends. First, participants looked at the
plasma screen just as frequently as they looked out the real window, and more frequently than they
stared at the blank wall. In this sense, the plasma-display window was functioning like a real win-
dow. But, when participants gazed for thirty seconds or more, the real window provided greater
physiological recovery from low-level stress than the plasma-display window.
From the standpoint of illustrating Value Sensitive Design, we would like to emphasize five
ideas.
Multiple Empirical Methods
Under the rubric of empirical investigations, Value Sensitive Design supports and encourages
multiple empirical methods to be used in concert to address the question at hand. As noted above,
for example, this study employed physiological data (heart rate), two types of performance data (on
cognitive and creativity tasks), behavioral data (eye gaze), and reasoning data (the social-cognitive
interview). From a value-oriented perspective, multiple psychological measures increase the
veracity of most accounts of technology in use.
Direct and Indirect Stakeholders
In their initial conceptual investigation of the values implicated in this study, Kahn et al. sought to
identify not only direct but also indirect stakeholders affected by such display technology. At that
early point, it became clear to the researchers that an important class of indirect stakeholders (and
their respective values) needed to be included: namely, the individuals who, by virtue of walking
through the fountain scene, unknowingly had their images displayed on the large display in the
“inside” office (Figure 16.2c). In other words, if this application of projection technology were to
come into widespread use (as Web cams and surveillance cameras have begun to) then it would
potentially encroach on the privacy of individuals in public spaces—an issue that has been receiving
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