Tech4Change
HCI: Reducing Biases and Stigma Through Technology
creator : Zandra belmonte
About Me
This website is a response to the world of technology. Technology is imbedded into our way of living and will not be gone anytime soon. Among this new age, researchers and users have come across psychological consequences. Needless to say, we are not doomed. People are imperfect, as we know, and people are creating AI, media, and all other forms of tech. In this creation process, we can leave a fragment of our way of thinking behind. We are filled with judgments and biases, most of which we are unaware of on a conscious level. It is worrisome, but with this knowledge, we can further develop technology to battle this problem and others to arise. This website will provide you with resources such as scholarly articles, fun platforms, professional platforms, and websites that are actively finding ways to reduce stigmas and biases within ourselves and technology. There is hope for improvement in humanity and human computer interacton.
Article Title
Raising Awareness of Stereotyping Through Collaborative Digital Storytelling: Design for Change with and for Children
Digital Storytelling
Key Takeaways:
- Representation and Awareness are important for minority groups who may not have a large role in media and are fighting negative stereotypes.
- Perspective taking allows users to imagine themselves as the underrepresented character. Ultimately, challenging biases and opening the mind.
- Facilitates discussions and creates a space where one is comfortable to share their own stories
- Companies can use storytelling to reduce stigma of products (ex: lingerie) click “AND MORE”
article title
Designing a Digital StoryTelling Platform to Detect Gender Stereotypes
Make your own digital story
Plotagon
Share your story!
ZeroReasonsWhy
COMIC MAKER
Destigmatize lingerie
Spotlight
Article: Raising Awareness of Stereotyping Through Collaborative Digital Storytelling: Design for Change with and for Children
Background: Gender representation in literature and media have a powerful influence on ideas of gender status. Gender through stereotypes effects how children perceive themselves and their aspirations. Storytelling has a unique capacity to endorse sympathetic imagination and envision the perspective of others.
Study: Group of students, ages 11-12, were prompted with a series of activities. Fairytale market- children present and can exchange their sketched characters. Children collaborated with digital tool to create a storyline with intro, conflict. resolution, conclusion. They were told to play the “what if “game; Trompe l'oeil, where they switched the gender of character and reflected on changes to the story. Last, there was empathetic reflection induced by detail in character emotion and role in plot.
Results: Kids engaged in the stereotypes learned through media and books. Making children reflect on the impact of characters’ gender on their agency in the story, unveils the influential role of gender stereotypes. The agency lens demonstrated to be key to changing children’s perception of a character’s role in the story and it can have an actual impact on the perception of their own identity.
In both articles, they used Role, Embodiment, Personality, Agency, and Emotion as an evaluation method. It became especially useful in targeting stereotypes in storytelling but also implemented in developing more useful stories.
Role: examines a character's primary function in the narrative, such as Protagonist, Antagonist, Antagonist Helper, or Protagonist Helper.
Embodiment: centers on the physical representation of characters, encompassing both visual and textual elements, like feminine traits such as cuteness or masculine attributes like aggressive posture.
Personality: delves into a character's demeanor and values. For instance, female characters may be depicted as socially adept, while male characters might exhibit active traits.
Agency: assesses a character's capacity to impact the story's progression, gauged by their level of involvement and influence on events.
Emotion: focuses on the feelings directed towards the characters in the story
Article
Using Intersectional Representation & Embodied Identification in Standard Video Game Play to Reduce Societal Biases
Games
Key Takeaways:
- Video game diversity representation is just as important as other forms of media
- Collaborative experiences can increase empathy and understanding of different social groups
- Confronting one’s biases and even defeating them metaphorically in a game can be a foundation for change
- Virtual reality can amplify empathy and allow user to take on new
perspectives
Article & Video
Reducing Mental Health Stigma Through Identification With Video Game Avatars With Mental Illness
Watch me
Game
LoveItToBits
Video and Article
How Virtual Reality is Deactivating Unconcious Bias
Game Spotlight
The study recruited 198 participants from a university in the Southeastern U.S. They were divided into groups: one played a video game depicting mental illness, while the other watched recordings of the game. The game, "Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice," was used for its portrayal of mental health issues created alongside psychiatrists.
Dependent measures gauged stigma against mental illness via stereotyping and desire for social distance .Mediating factors included transportation and identification, measured through narrative engagement and player identification scales. Control variables accounted for perceived game difficulty and personal contact with mental health issues.
Stigma against mental illness was assessed using adapted scales, while transportation and identification were measured through narrative engagement and player identification scales. Control variables included perceived game difficulty and personal contact with mental health issues.
Playing the video game increased participants' sense of being immersed in the story world (transportation). This deep engagement led to a stronger connection with the main character, reducing the desire for social distance from individuals with mental illness. Importantly, the measurement of social distance didn't focus on a specific diagnosis, suggesting that playing as a character with mental illness positively impacted overall perceptions of mental health. However, identifying with the character did not change held stereotypes about mental illness, contrary to expectations. Further exploration is needed to understand how stereotyping might be affected apart from violence-related perceptions.
Article
The role of AI in mitigating bias to enhance diversity and inclusion
platform and article
AI Model to Detect Biases
AI and Testing Biases
Key Takeaways:
- Humans are filled with unconsious biases that may be passed on to AI
- Organizations can use AI to idenitfy biases in AI (tech on tech solutions)
- Ai can reduce hiring biases by taking out humans from the process; therefore, removing the possibility of bias.
- Online test or the IAT can
uncover the implicit biases
we are unaware about and
through this knowledge
can challenge them.
Ted Talk
Combat Systematic Racism
Online test
Probe your Tech
The goal of this idea is to approach how to minimize cognitive biases such as availability heuristic, anchoring heuristic, framing effects, and blind obedience.
An AI system can provide personalized and evidence-based recommendations to clinicians and patients in real time, overcoming cognitive biases. It considers various patient data, including complaints, physical findings, co-morbid conditions, medications, allergies, and lab tests. By comparing this data to a large clinical database, the system can identify patterns, predict outcomes, create a differential diagnosis, suggest further testing, and propose a treatment plan. This automated approach avoids the cognitive biases that currently affect healthcare delivery.
Technology can reinforce stigma and biases
But don’t forget....
"The findings suggest that digital data systems reinforce gender bias and act as a vehicle for social violence towards marginalized communities."
Key Takeaways:
- Media consumers are more likely to blame an individual for the illness.
- There’s an overgeneralization of what symptoms should look like.
- It is oversimplified and inaccurately portrayed in media.
- There’s direct impact of media on individual user (ex: self-diagnosing)
Online test
IAT (Implicit Association Test)
test Your Biases