colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (05/13/85)
["Who invited those Daleks?"]
Has anybody been following the ARPA ai.digests lately? I just tuned in,
and some contributors have apparently been upsetting people by applying
a faddish theory of emotions to rapes.
I missed the dawn of that discussion and should like to know what is
going on. Somebody has made the remarkable assertion that anxiety
(in general?) is caused by "cognitive dissonance," which I presume
is A.I.ese (Minskyese?) for learning that one of your beliefs is false.
This may indeed be the only thing that causes some scientists anxiety :-)
but it hardly applies to people in general, either the rule or the
exception. I'm being to suspect that A.I. researchers are getting
nowhere studying emotions because they don't have any. ...
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonelsophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (05/16/85)
> Has anybody been following the ARPA ai.digests lately? I just tuned in, > and some contributors have apparently been upsetting people by applying > a faddish theory of emotions to rapes. > > I missed the dawn of that discussion and should like to know what is > going on. Somebody has made the remarkable assertion that anxiety > (in general?) is caused by "cognitive dissonance," which I presume > is A.I.ese (Minskyese?) for learning that one of your beliefs is false. The discussion started because someone posted the story of "Polly Nomial" to the AI list digest and the moderator accepted it. For people who are not aware of this, polly nomial is a "cute" story about rape described in mathematical puns. Why anybody finds this funny is beyond me, but there are apparently still people who do. Then somebody went on to propose that the reason women are upset after rape is that during the rape, they get attached to their rapists who abandon them afterwards, and are thus upset over the loss of this attachment rather than over the actual violation. The idea is so offensive of course that its author had to use pseudo-scientific language to make it sound more authoritative and palatable. Fortunately, people noticed and reacted to it. So an alternate theory, that of "cognitive dissonance" was proposed (I believe by Minsky, although it is apparently a popular theory of victim psychology in psychology crowds judging from the fact that it was presented in Psychology Today recently) and discussed in authoritative pseudo-learned language again until one woman who had either been raped herself or was working in a rape center (sorry I can't remember which) finally stood up and explained the matters to those gentlemen who proceeded to congratulate her on her marvelous insight. > This may indeed be the only thing that causes some scientists anxiety :-) > but it hardly applies to people in general, either the rule or the > exception. I'm being to suspect that A.I. researchers are getting > nowhere studying emotions because they don't have any. ... > -- > Col. G. L. Sicherman > ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel Well said. -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie
mim@ihnp3.UUCP (M. K. Fenlon) (05/17/85)
> ["Who invited those Daleks?"] > > Has anybody been following the ARPA ai.digests lately? I just tuned in, > and some contributors have apparently been upsetting people by applying > a faddish theory of emotions to rapes. > > I missed the dawn of that discussion and should like to know what is > going on. Somebody has made the remarkable assertion that anxiety > (in general?) is caused by "cognitive dissonance," which I presume > is A.I.ese (Minskyese?) for learning that one of your beliefs is false. > > This may indeed be the only thing that causes some scientists anxiety :-) > but it hardly applies to people in general, either the rule or the > exception. I'm being to suspect that A.I. researchers are getting > nowhere studying emotions because they don't have any. ... > -- > Col. G. L. Sicherman > ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel The term cognitive dissonance refers to the behavior of making reasons for something when it does not fit into ones prior cognitive field. The term was first used by Festinger and can be found in social psychology research. The application of the term to individual cases is likely poor. But why is rape being discussed under ai? I have little time to keep up with topics on the net, but it would be nice to see more correlation between subject and content of news groups. If someone has a well designed and implemented research study from the field of psychology that has implications for ai, then it fits in the topic group otherwise put it elsewhere. MK Fenlon
ogasawar@noscvax.UUCP (Todd H. Ogasawara) (05/17/85)
> I missed the dawn of that discussion and should like to know what is > going on. Somebody has made the remarkable assertion that anxiety > (in general?) is caused by "cognitive dissonance," which I presume ******************** > is A.I.ese (Minskyese?) for learning that one of your beliefs is false. Cognitive dissonance was a "big thing" in Social Psychology in the 1960's. It was the pet theory of Leon Festinger. The basic idea is that almost any decision has positive and negative aspects to it. For instance, if you purchase a new car, you might be happy because it is a "nice shiny new car." On the other hand, you might also worry that you just spent a lot of $$$ to purchase the car. These two opposing "feelings" would, according to theory, cause dissonance which must be resolved by the system. The theory says that you would vacillate between the two "feelings" until some equilibrium is neared. More related to the topic at hand. If you are presented with "facts" that are in opposition to your beliefs, then a dissonant situation would occur. There are several ways to try to predict the resulting equilibrium (whether you stay with your current belief and reject the facts, discard your beliefs and accept the new facts, or shift in some direction - including believing even more fervently in your current belief). It was an interesting idea that never got very far after a couple of years of research. Todd Ogasawara, Computer Sciences Corp. NOSC-Hawaii Laboratories UUCPmail: {akgua,allegra,decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!noscvax!ogasawar MILNET: OGASAWAR@NOSC
sidney@linus.UUCP (Sidney Markowitz) (05/17/85)
In article <602@mnetor.UUCP> sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) writes: > >Then somebody went on to propose that the reason women are upset after rape >is that during the rape, they get attached to their rapists who abandon them >afterwards, and are thus upset over the loss of this attachment rather than >over the actual violation. The idea is so offensive of course that its author >had to use pseudo-scientific language to make it sound more authoritative and >palatable. Fortunately, people noticed and reacted to it. So an alternate >theory, that of "cognitive dissonance" was proposed (I believe by Minsky, >although it is apparently a popular theory of victim psychology in psychology That's not quite the way I read it. (The originals are in the AIList Digest.) Minsky presented his theory (expressed in terms of underlying mechanisms) as to why the experience of rape is so powerful, devestating, long-lasting, emotionally charged, etc. One thing he didn't mention is that his theory is within the context of his "Society of Mind" model of intelligence, wherein the mind is considered as being made up of a network of independent interacting agents, each of which is to a greater or lesser degree less "intelligent" then the whole. The piece he posted is extracted from a discussion of emotion, in which he conjectures that the mental agents concerned with emotion are associated with long term goals. Those goals and plans that have to exist over long time periods are protected from being changed arbitrarily by being handled by agents that are slow to change and are less accessible to "conscious" introspection. Those are characteristics of aspects of psychology we call "personality" and "emotion". Minsky certainly wasn't arguing for anything that would minimize or trivialize the trauma of rape. He simply addressed the question of what is the underlying mechanism that leads to the trauma being so powerful and long-lasting, and what is the normal function of this mechanism. He speculated that there exist mental mechanisms to promote long-term bonding to mate and children. Some of the agents involved in these mechanisms would have characteristics related to deep emotional involvement and slowness to change. Some of the agents would be linked to agents involved in sexual activity. He suggested that this "attachment mechanism" might be *affected* by the experience of rape. Note that he did not say that a woman becomes attached to the rapist -- He said that a powerful mechanism designed to trigger long-term emotional bonding to family may be *affected* by the experience of rape in such a way that the trauma is experienced in a deep emotional fashion that is slow to change. Of course rape is horrible, evil, inexcusable and all those other things -- Even more so then other forms of violence, if the psychological effects are so profound. The phrase "cognitive dissonance" appeared a bit later -- I think it was used by someone attempting to explain Minsky's theory. "Cognitive dissonance" refers to a phenomena that occurs when one's perceptions contradict one's beliefs. Under some circumstances it can be quite disturbing, and the result can often be distortion of the perceptions to match the beliefs, along with an underlying emotional stress. To say that a woman who was raped experiences an attachment to the rapist along with cognitive dissonance about the attachment, is just plain silly -- And, yes, there are people who say that, just like there are people who try to put the rape victim on trial instead of the rapist. And those people deserve any and all invective that is thrown their way. However, reading the original postings I find that the term "cognitive dissonance" was used incorrectly in an otherwise correct explanation of Minsky's ideas. Some people then focused on this incorrect use of "cognitive dissonance" and the word "attachment" in "attachment mechanism" and interpreted what had been said as being the silly theory of woman-attached-to-the-rapist-and-feeling-guilty. Try reading the original AIList Digest postings with this interpretation and see if it fits the words any better. -- Sidney Markowitz ARPA: sidney@mitre-bedford UUCP: ...{allegra,decvax,genrad,ihnp4,philabs,security,utzoo}!linus!sidney
db@cstvax.UUCP (Dave Berry) (05/25/85)
In article <731@gloria.UUCP> colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes: >Has anybody been following the ARPA ai.digests lately? I just tuned in, >and some contributors have apparently been upsetting people by applying >a faddish theory of emotions to rapes. Somebody has made the remarkable >assertion that anxiety is caused by "cognitive dissonance," which I presume >is A.I.ese (Minskyese?) for learning that one of your beliefs is false. >I'm being to suspect that A.I. researchers are getting >nowhere studying emotions because they don't have any. ... It is Minsky at the root of this. He posted an article from his new book (with one chapter per page) which rabbited on about this sort of thing, apparently with very little to back it up. The question is, if Minsky develops an artificial intelligence, will he treat it with the same contempt he treats human intelligence ? -- Dave Berry. CS postgrad, Univ. of Edinburgh ...mcvax!ukc!{hwcs,kcl-cs}!cstvax!db