Lacking human subjects, researchers torture virtual females for science

Back in the 1960s, the hot new research was Stanley Milgram's tests on human behavior that involved subjects who thought they were administering electrical shocks to female victims for failing to answer test questions correctly. Some participants could hear their "victim" scream in response to the fake shocks being administered, which would sometimes escalate to lethal voltage levels. Turns out, the tests were unethical due to the stress levels and deception involved -- even though nobody was actually getting shocked to death -- but the research was valuable for its insights into human behavior, especially that nasty "yes, I will shock someone to death for misquoting the Gettysburg Address" behavior we hear so much about. Now the experiments have been recreated by Professor Mel Slater of Catalan Polytechnic University, but he's replaced the fake "real" torture victims with real virtual victims. Capiche? Apparently participants in the study ended up acting quite similarly to the original subjects, with sweaty palms, rising heart rates, and a similar quantity of lethal voltage applications. So until such nastiness upon virtual women is deemed unethical, it looks like scientists have a new way to monitor human behavior in extreme conditions. Will no one stand up to defend the ones and zeros?

[Via Medgadget

[Eric Pham @ Dec 29th 2006 6:41PM]

Not to be nitpicky but i think Paul has his experiments all mixed up. Milgram's studies studied obedience to authority and no women were used. There are actually video tapes of the study if you want to see them, theyre kind of funny. There was however a study performed where men shocked women after watching a neutral film or a violent pornographic film to see whether men who watched the latter shocked their victims significantly longer and with a higher intensity. Surprisingly Milgram's study became a model of how to conduct ethical research, that is after the study the deception was revealed, no one was ever in danger, and it standardized debriefing participants.

[Lokheed @ Jan 1st 2007 5:13AM]

Eric is right about Milgram's study(s).

For me, I wonder how they got this past ethics? The original Milgram study was stopped because of the stress levels of the participant, not the confederate. Because the confederate was an actor and they used voice recordings, he really didn't need to do much. So what difference would it make to remove him and put in a program?

Something just doesn't sit right with this story...

[Lokheed @ Jan 1st 2007 5:23AM]

OK read the study (always a good thing) and who cares? The participants saw and knew the "learners" were not real. What a pointless study. I hope when I get my Ph.D, I come up with something better than this...

[Ra D O Hax @ Dec 29th 2006 7:04PM]

this is absolutely ridiculous. How can the experiment be compared? The point of the first experiment was that the people being shocked were actors. This had to be kept from the subjects, because otherwise the whole damn thing breaks down. In this case you *clearly* know you're not actually shocking anyone. Look, if you hand me a gun and tell me to shot someone on the street, I'm not going to do it. But if you tell me to shoot someone in a video game, I won't have a second thought

[Johan S @ Dec 29th 2006 7:10PM]

I hope the outcome/purpose of this is at least we learn techniques for authorities to be aware of what they might do under stress/pressure/excitement and figure out how to let reason prevail and counteract the torture urge over time.

Training plus maybe videoing of all interactions?

[Ray Valdez @ Dec 29th 2006 7:37PM]

The first commenter is very much right. Milgram's obedience to authority experiments were designed to shed some light on certain social phenomena, say for example, why did Nazis following Hitler's orders and commit atrocities? It's also a very important documentation as to the effects of deception in social research, the sponsoring institute was sued by one of the subjects who claimed he was traumatized.

No females were used in any of the experiments.

[Rick @ Dec 29th 2006 7:43PM]

why can't Engadget EVER give a link to sign up for this kinda thing? Sounds sorta fun.

[Sheila @ Dec 29th 2006 7:57PM]

Milgram did use females in a variation of the obedience experiment.

[Samo @ Dec 29th 2006 7:58PM]

I studied Psychology for my A-Levels (UK thing, you study it at 16-17), and this was by far the my most favourite study... The original didn't have a female shockee, though; it was always the same oldish man, and varying degrees of 'stimuli' e.g. shocker was in the other room, or at one point touching the guys hand and feeling a little shock.

I agree with Ra D O Hax, though, in that there can't be comparisions between the two. In VR, you know that there isn't a real pain in your opponent when you frag/shock/kill them online(not physically, anyhow), so you lose the sense of guilt and/or bad doing, that's a reason why games such as BF2 or CoDuty2 are so popular.

Personally, I believe if the study was conducted, I predict that at least 85% of the 'participants' will shock to lethal levels, because they know that they're not shocking a real person, and about 5-10% are too fragile/ sensitive/ scream-ish to do it (I mean I killed gruesomely in Manhunt, but that's not everyones cup of tea).

The last 5-10% is unknown/unpredictable/I have no idea what to predict! :D

[Eric Pham @ Dec 29th 2006 8:35PM]

When milgram first conducted the study nearly all the participants went all the way up the scale to the most painful setting on the shock machine. Milgram actually had to add a condition where the "learner," the actor being shocked, supposedly had a heart ailment. Those that went all the way up the scale dropped to 65% which is still considerably high. The important thing about the experiment was not that the "learner" was screaming in obvious pain but that the "teacher," that is the participant, was being told by an experimentor that he must continue shocking the learner for every wrong answer. So every time the participant stopped and objected the experimentor would say something like "it is imperative that you continue with the experiment." Im actually a 3rd year psychology student so im not pulling this stuff off wikipedia or anything although im sure it has similar information.

[xVariable @ Dec 29th 2006 9:02PM]

The study is considered unethical for the way it messes with people's psyches by manipulating them into participating in sadism, real or simulated.

As far as I'm concerned, if people aren't able to make the right choice when it really matters, they SHOULD be traumatized. Maybe put to death too...

[Adam @ Dec 29th 2006 9:30PM]

Why not just borrow a few from Gitmo or AbuGraib? They're used to being tortured.

[Jason @ Dec 29th 2006 11:01PM]

Yeah, kudos to the first poster. I learned about these experiments in my Sociology class. Milgram, a Jewish-American man, had a hypothesis that Germans were excessively obedient, so Hitler was able to manipulate them into following his fascism. However, the experiment never left US shores, as Milgram was shocked to find out how obedient everyday Americans were when confronted with supposed authority figures. They thought they were shocking the subjects to death, but did so anyway because the mock-up scientists told them everthing was OK.

[Jason @ Dec 29th 2006 11:08PM]

Oh, and I personally don't feel that Milgram's experiments were unethical in any way. They did cause emotional stress, but they also told us a disturbing truth about human nature. I think that the good knowledge gained from such experiments outweighs the "emotional stress" it may inflict on the subjects.

[F @ Dec 30th 2006 9:05AM]

I am sure that Voyager's EMH would find this all to be quite disturbing.

[Magallanes @ Dec 30th 2006 9:12PM]

For the "good of the science"... while some can talk this course of action science, still is sadism, visual in this case but still showing (and allowing to show) the worst of some people.

[JWRIGHT @ Dec 31st 2006 1:01PM]

Wait! Wait! When does the PS3 version come out?

[Greg Thompson @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:07AM]

When the robots learn of this, it's sure to be our doom.

[Ratteler @ Jan 3rd 2007 7:12PM]

Researchers torture virtual females "for science"!
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!