Personification: Crossover between… 1
RUNNING HEAD: Personification in Computer Mediated Communication
Personification: Crossover between Metaphor and Fictional Character in Computer Mediated Communication
Johan F. Hoorn
Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Author’s address:
Vrije Universiteit, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Computer Science, Section Information Management &
Software Engineering, Subsection Human Computer Interaction, Multimedia & Culture
[email protected]
Word count (body of text): 9,903
Word count (including everything): 11,851
Personification: Crossover between… 2
Abstract
This contribution defines the psychological processing of the artistic, cultural, and communication aspects
of agents in information interfaces and characters in media entertainment (i.e. video games) as a new research topic
in communication studies and computer science. It offers a theory of what personifications such as (intelligent)
adaptive navigation assistants for Web environments can achieve, cognitively and emotionally: Personifications can
be user-friendly, be motivating, and suggest ideas but only if their behavior is task-relevant. The personification
should not only be more-or-less pertinent to the interface goals or story line but also be adaptive to changes in tasks,
personal and business goals, and work processes as these change over time. This paper offers a multiple-meanings
theory of metaphoric communication (i.e. personifications) and a general communication model for human-agent
interactions. Although a theoretical exploration, it offers methods for empirical verification, blending technical tools
from EEG-measurement labs, reaction-time recordings, and structured questionnaires.
Personification: Crossover between… 3
Personification: Crossover between Metaphor and Fictional Character in Computer Mediated Communication
Communication between humans and computers sometimes seems a battle zone of tragic heroes (us) against
invincible mechwarriors (them). Whenever emotion and intelligence meet technical rigidity, a communication
vacuum emerges in which the end-user becomes the ‘end-looser,’ suffocating in the absence of human-centered
feedback. Designers of computer systems and communication interfaces develop embedded agents as the utmost
user-friendly software application. For example, agents supposedly help performing tasks, help achieving (business)
goals, and facilitate work processes. One of the most important functions of agents is to emulate face-to-face
multimodal communication between the system and the user. Personified multimodal communication would be
richer and easier to comprehend than unimodal communication such as text. Personified interfaces can provide backchannel feedback to users in a more natural and less obtrusive manner than interface widgets such as dialog boxes
(cf. Mayer, 1997; 2001; Mayer, Heiser, & Lonn, 2001; Mayer, & Moreno, 1998). Although it is widely admitted that
integrating human interpretation is paramount in interface design, yet agent theory mainly “… is concerned with the
question of what an agent is, and the use of mathematical formalisms for representing and reasoning about the
properties of agents.” (Wooldridge & Jennings, 1995). Although that may be a bit of an overstatement (see Paiva,
Machado, & Prada, 2001; Machado, Paiva, & Prada, 2001), there is a need for sophisticated theory that values the
“artistic nature of the problem.” (Reilly, 1996). Reilly states that “one of the key steps in creating quality interactive
drama is the ability to create quality interactive characters (or believable agents). Two important aspects of such
characters will be that they appear emotional and that they can engage in social interactions.”
As much as designers look into the technical requirements of agents (software architecture, rendering), they
are less focused on the user requirements, i.e. the prerequisites of human communication. Inspection of the World
Wide Web, for example, shows us Eliza-style chatterbots that rely on pattern-matching techniques to simulate
intelligent conversational behavior. However, it is much more interesting to understand the agent’s impact on the
user’s cognition. If this is well understood, then it remains an engineering challenge how to program them
accordingly. The question is whether agents as compared to dialog are the ultimate solution to all possible
applications for which one might use computers. Probably not (cf. Craig, Gholson, & Driscoll, 2002). Yet, agents are
extremely interesting communication devices. In occupying the crossroads of art, culture, psychology,
communication, and technique, they have the potential to become many-sided, and therefore, mature communication
partners. It is worthwhile investigating for which applications they are suited. To get there, we need a revision of the
computer system-centered approach. We need to treat intelligent assistants as cultural products (i.e. as fictional
characters that sometimes crossover with metaphors), subjected to psychological processes of perception and
(emotional) experience. Certain agents serve as metaphors for abstract ideas of, for instance, help and guidance, and
therefore, they are personifications. If we can establish a general theoretical framework for communication through
agents, empirical tests may follow that can decide on the specific requirements for particular application domains.
The present paper takes up the first part by developing a new theory of human-agent communication. It
wants to follow up on the work of Laurel (1991, p. 356), who states that:
An interface agent can be defined as a character, enacted by the computer, who acts on behalf of the user in
a virtual (computer-based) environment. Interface agents draw their strength from the naturalness of the
living-organism metaphor in terms of both cognitive accessibility and communication style (p. 356).
To explain and improve the supposed strength of agent communication, integration should take place
between theory of processing fictional characters and theory of processing metaphors. This kind of theory is urgent
and still wanting. It is becoming very relevant to software developers. Agents, avatars, bots, virtual and electronic
creatures and icons inhabit the new generation of software in video games, active worlds and search engines on the
World Wide Web. Our screens – and our lives (vide the rage for “tamagotchis”) – are becoming peopled by these
electronic pets and guides. It is important to consider how they are perceived and experienced because that is the
way developers can make them both attractive and user-friendly. Content providers such as publishers, media broadcasters, the entertainment industry, and cultural institutions are now preparing for distributing content online. A
wealth of choices awaits the user. Any means that facilitates selection, classification, inspection, and manipulation of
the huge supply and the retrieval and actual use of items will be welcome. With the increasing exposure to
television, film, and digital media, emotional education and competence is acquired more and more via fictional
characters (Buck, 1999). In the future, this topic will become increasingly important with the growth of, for example,
multimedia performances, education through virtual reality, and ‘meeting’ people on the Internet (De Kerckhove
1991; 1995; 1997). Museums, cultural archives, publishing houses, and broadcasting companies employ multimedia
devices (CD-ROM, Internet, and the World Wide Web) to bring culture to a larger audience. Therefore, it is
necessary to investigate how graphic design and visualization techniques can improve the transfer of cultural
information by multimedia. The issue is also pertinent to child psychologists and to media critics. It might even
Personification: Crossover between… 4
throw much needed new blood in the world of literary criticism as its theory takes some of its cues from the ancient
tradition of biblical exegesis: Indeed personification is the more accessible term for classical antiquity’s “allegory.”
To what end and under what conditions can agents be put to use in communication interfaces (cf.
Rickenberg & Reeves, 2000)? Are personifications appreciated differently from literal equivalents, other metaphors,
or other fictional characters? Regarding cognition and emotion, is a personification differently processed from other
types of metaphors and differently from other types of fictional characters? Is communication through personification more effective than via literal instruction, other metaphors, or other fictional characters? The theoretical aim of
this article is to arrive at an interdisciplinary integration of literary theories on metaphor and fictional characters to
help research into human-agent interaction with a communication model in which the cognitive psychology of users
is described while processing personifications. Theory development should be facilitated by tests on the integrated
model with various types of stimuli and real users. The results may support the practical aim, which is to promote
better understanding of the relation between system usability and acceptance and to develop guidelines, models, and
methods by which designers may be able to provide better human-oriented communication of computer systems.
Agents as Fictional Characters
Consider a merely voice-based information service that is accessed via a telephone line. There, the user may
well believe that s/he is talking to a real or virtual person. This situation resembles the ambiguity of perceiving
mediated people such as reporters and journalists (see Konijn and Hoorn, 2003, this conference). If the user is in the
illusion of talking to a real person, the psychology of interpersonal communication applies. This situation falls out of
the scope of the present paper. However, if the user/receiver is somehow aware that this conversation is with a
machine, then the agent/sender is much the same like a character in a realistic theater piece or motion picture. The
computer system offers a representation of a real conversation like the mediated journalist who is merely the
representation of the real person. Therefore, the voice agent can be considered a character that is represented
realistically but is yet fictional. This example stands for various types of agents such as “embodied conversational
agents,” “life-like characters,” and “virtual humans.” They share the common approach in computer science to
capitalize on (hyper)realistic rendering with neglect of other factors that evidently contribute to the receiver/user’s
involvement and appreciation (Konijn and Hoorn, 2003; also Hoorn, Konijn, & Van der Veer, 2002).
Figure 1. Herman the Bug, the animated pedagogical agent, teaches on plant growth.
Animation agents like Herman the Bug (Elliot, Rickel, & Lester, 1997; Rickel & Johnson, 1998; Figure 1)
are typical for fictional characters that are rendered unrealistically. This is not necessarily negative because fantasy
and magical features may stimulate the imagination and increase fun, especially with children. This type of character
is easier recognized as fictional but the theory to be presented in this paper pretends to account for all.
Not only will certain agents be recognized as fictional, in many cases they will be relied on as teachers,
guides, darlings, and servants. The roles agents play reflect the abstract function they have for performing the user’s
tasks. As soon as this role or abstract function is recognized, the agent not only is a fictional character but can
become a metaphor (e.g., a harbor pilot representing a software navigation facility). Agents that are fictional
characters as well as metaphors for an abstraction correspond to the (artistic) device of personification (see below).
Thus, a theory of communicating with agents should allow for realistic and unrealistic representation and integrate it
with the metaphoric aspects of (certain) fictional characters. In conclusion, the theory of fictional characters should
Personification: Crossover between… 5
be generic for all types of user-interface agents, animated agents, embodied characters, helper agents, tutor agents
(e.g., Anderson, Corbett, Koedinger, & Pelletier, 1995), virtual product presenters (Figure 7), and automated news
readers (Apple, 1990) as long as the receiver/user does not qualify them as real people (cf. Reeves & Nass, 1996).
The theory of personification is valid for those agents that moreover have a metaphoric twist.
Interaction Context
An approach most suited for describing the interaction context of a user (group) in communication with a
computer system is Groupware Task Analysis or GTA (Van der Veer & Van Welie, 2000). Figure 2 depicts an
ontology of the task world of a user. In GTA, agents can be users as well as software components (also other than
the puppets on our screens). In our case, however, the second meaning of agent does coincide with the puppets on
our screens. Users and agents perform tasks like searching, navigating, and exchanging information. They use
objects such as databases and hardware devices to perform those tasks. The roles agent and user play often is of
sender and receiver, of supply and demand, of helper and helped, respectively. However, these roles may switch
during the process when for instance the agent needs more information or the user interferes with an agent’s task.
This is called interaction. All this action and interaction serves to an end, which is the goal of the user, for instance,
to find information, to be entertained, to reach a business goal (cf. Marketing Information Systems), or to streamline
a work process (e.g., tips and suggestions by Microsoft’s Clippit).
Software
User
Figure 2. The task world of the user (Van der Veer & Van Welie, 2000).
External and internal events may induce the need for new tasks, for setting new goals, and inventing new
work processes. By pressure from the market, for instance, a digital library can develop into an e-commerce
company. The change in business model from an educational to a commercial company has an impact on the
business goals that are set and the business processes that should help achieving those goals. Offering high quality
content and keeping an exhaustive stock may be of interest to an educational institution but may be cost-intensive in
the eyes of a commercial service. This changes the user’s requirements of a computer system or software application,
in our case, the software agents. A library would want an agent to immediately point out new works that might be of
personal interest to the user or improve the user’s comprehension of a scientific problem. Commercial industries,
however, would hope that an animated agent attracts more traffic on their pages because it is fun to interact with a
somehow life-like entity. They hope for ease of communication because the agents to a certain extent emulate
human-human communication.
Yet, Dehn and Van Mulken (2000) provide a survey on empirical work in the area and found that an
animated agent does not necessary improve a user’s comprehension or recall of information. The added value has
more to do with motivational aspects, e.g., learners maybe willing to spent more time with the learning application
when an agent is present, or may feel less anxious in a comprehension test conducted by a synthetic tutor. Whatever
the effect of an agent may be, the central issue is that the goals of the user are satisfied by the agent and that the work
Personification: Crossover between… 6
process towards those goals is facilitated. That is, the agent should be relevant to the task at hand (be it information
or entertainment seeking, communication, or composition) and should support rather than impede the work process
(raising positive instead of negative valence) (cf. Frijda, 1986, p. 494, p. 463, p. 455). Commercial systems such as
Microsoft’s BOB and Clippit, kiosks such as the Postal Buddy and the anthropomorphic bank teller machines, or the
recent Ananova news reader have failed because they either gave irrelevant information or slowed down computer
processing and therefore, transaction time.
Having said this, what is considered relevant and what has positive valence depends on different classes of
users (old vs. young), usage in different tasks, and different user personalities (e.g., internal vs. external locus).
However, these are empirical questions that cannot be answered if not an overall theory of perceiving and
experiencing agents is devised first.
Agents as Cultural Products
Agents should be conceived of as cultural products. For example, Islamic users may not appreciate an
animation agent because of religious restrictions on depicting humans (Marcus, 1993). Agents are liable to
conventions of how mediated persons and fictional characters should behave. They follow cultural scripts (the
butler) and coded behavior such as politeness. In this way, agents tune in to the user’s tendency to treat computers as
social entities, maintaining gender stereotypes and social rules and rites (Reeves &
Nass, 1996). Agents are often based on existing literary or historic models.
Arthurian sagas model the world of fantasy games and inspired the Merlin character
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/imedia/agent/). Genie has his roots in Saladin.
Agents parody cultural key figures (Einstein, Shakespeare, Figure 3). Role-playing
games often are indebted to literature (e.g., American McGee’s Alice, Figure 5).
Comics are translated into films, which are translated into games (e.g., X-Men) and
vice versa.
Communication interface designers often look at (artistic) film to improve the story telling. For example,
FitzGerald, Buie, & Cuales (1998) wonder whether “the grammar of visual storytelling presented in film offer a
standard that we can borrow.” FitzGerald et al. (1998) refer to, for instance, Boorstin (1995) and Katz (1991) to
make their claim that ‘video offers nuance of emotion and that no other media can carry this sort of information so
vividly.’
Agents can be anchored in conventional metaphors such as ‘understanding is light’ (The Genius carries a
light bulb, Figure 3) and ‘computing is doing magic.’ Duncker (2002) argues that Maori people have difficulty
accessing information, because the Western library metaphor misfits their tribal knowledge repositories. Also Preece
et al. (1994, pp. 141-149) acknowledge the role of metaphor in intuitively understanding interfaces (e.g., “the
windows metaphor”).
Figure 3. Office Assistants follow the traditional story line of the butler: Polite greetings, asking how to be of
service, a modest tip or suggestion, and humble retreat after assistance.
In the remainder, I sketch a model of agents with a clear embodiment (Dix, Finlay, Abowd, & Beale, 1998,
p. 157) as cultural products that are emotionally and socially perceived and experienced by human observers quite
the same as in theater, books, film, and other media. The aspect of culture is most strongly denoted by the factor
norm (see section Personifications are Fictional Characters). There the social and traditional values of an observer
(group norm) are compared with the subjective norm while engaging in agent communication. The approach I will
Personification: Crossover between… 7
advance goes back so far in the grounding of historical consciousness (e.g., gods personifying human qualities) but
also brings to bear the scientific rigor of the neurosciences, based on empirical data and leading to verifiable
applications.
Theory of Personification
When in Act IV of The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare, 1610-11) (Appendix), Time declares to “please some,
try all” and to spread “both joy and terror of good and bad,” he suggests that he may bring happiness and sorrow in
view of a positive or negative prospect but ultimately leaves no one untouched. Time does not only do so because he
is the ruler of our futures but also because he is a personification. A personification is a fictional character or
narrative agent who is the embodiment (objectification, substantialization) of conceptual entities such as classes,
ideas, faculties of the mind, thoughts and feelings, speech acts, values, or fields of knowledge (philosophy, religion)
(Paxson, 1994). Rhetorical tradition understands personification loosely as the giving of a human face or identity to
something not human, usually abstract, such as Truth, Folly or Time (Paxson 1994, p. 1, also Figure 4).
Figure 4. Pierre Mignard (1694). Time Clipping Cupid’s Wings. Oil on canvas, France.
Navigating the World Wide Web, the unsuspecting surfer on the electronic highway may meet the virtual
wizard Merlin, an animation agent who controls the confusing world of cyberspace with incomprehensible tricks.
Such fictional characters are metaphors for security, knowledge, and guidance, abstract concepts that have the
features of living creatures in a more-or-less realistic way. Therefore, they are personifications who supposedly
make abstraction come within cognitive reach for the computer user and may even call out affective relationships
with what actually is a complex of electronic switches. Does personification really help to better understand the use
of a computer system (cf. FitzGerald et al.)? Does personification really have the cognitive significance of the
“master trope” as Paxson (1994, chaps. 1-2) supposes? When Merlin stirs his caldron to express ‘processing,’ looks
into a crystal ball to indicate ‘searching,’ and when in the process of explaining concepts on plant growth, Herman
the Bug performs a host of activities such as walking, flying, shrinking, expanding, swimming, fishing, bungee
jumping, teleporting, and acrobatics (Lester et al., 1997), does this improve information transfer better than other
means of communication (Shneiderman, 1998, pp. 380-384)? Or does personification merely teases out more
appreciation ‘because it is fun’ without stimulating communication? Van Driel, Hoorn, Oosterveld, & Vorst (1998)
indicate that appreciation for a cultural product is highest when the ratio, emotion, and fantasy of observers are
stimulated in equal proportions. It should be found out whether personification covers these three domains. In
stimulating the fantasy more than a literal statement, personification seems to acquire less automatic cognitive
elaboration. It does so, while gaining more affective satisfaction than a ‘plain’ metaphor, because it is a fictional
character. Although it seems likely that personification is a strong candidate for evoking high appreciation, it is
questionable whether high appreciation is necessary and sufficient for optimal communication (Shneiderman, 1998,
pp. 380-384).
Personification is a fictional character that is used as a metaphor for an abstraction. In assembling a theory
on personification for computer mediated communication, models of human-agent interaction should synthesize the
processing of fictional characters with the processing of metaphors. At face value, it seems that the metaphoric
aspect is additional to the more comprehensive process of perceiving and experiencing fictional characters. This
suggests that firstly, the personification is processed as fictional character, and while going through the epistemic
module (see below), secondly as metaphor for an abstraction.
Personification: Crossover between… 8
There are many variants of particularly graphical embodiments with simplistic 2D faces at the one end, all
kinds of video-based and more or less photo realistic 2D or 3D graphical representations in between, and
entertainment robots with physical anthropomorphic embodiments on the other end. Empirical works by, for
instance, McBreen, Shade, Jack, & Wyard (2000) suggest that form and style of embodiment have an impact on user
appreciation of agents. Next, I discuss the factors of form (aesthetics), style (realistic or not), and affect (relevancevalence) that are pertinent to involvement with and appreciation for fictional characters followed by a discussion on
metaphor processing.
Personifications are Fictional Characters
Although the user may feel interacting with a real person, in fact all embodied agents are fictional
characters. Against Reeves and Nass’s (1996) position of the computer as a real person, one may argue whether
users actually think there is another person or just apply the same social and communication rules to the computer
because the computer roughly fakes human interaction? Sometimes people talk to their pen or pat their car on the
dashboard as a form of self expression but that does not mean they mix up fiction with reality (Hoorn, Konijn, &
Van der Veer, 2002). Although FitzGerald et al. avow that “… creating audience empathy with the agent through
manifestations of personality can create motivation in the student learner that would not otherwise exist,” most
agents do not really emotionally absorb the user but remain quite empty puppets (Bonito, Burgoon, & Bengtsson,
1999). Much of what an agent should offer depends on the task at hand. I will start describing a theory of engaging
agents for entertainment, evolve through education, information, and I will end with work process efficiency.
In the best tradition of role-playing games, characters for entertainment are multi-sided, have contradictory
features, and cope with exciting situations. If agents should entertain and motivate, they perhaps should be designed
as characters of a computer game. Would not it be exciting to discover that our animated pedagogical agent is a
dark-haired, gothic girl of about 18 years old, with a bloody apron covered with symbols and tied together with a
skull on her back (Alice, American McGee, Figure 5)? To date, agents are boring, slick good guys serving as
obedient slaves. Much of the distance they evoke, comes from their stupidity in executing tasks. Konijn and Hoorn
(2003), however, show that characters that should entertain raise distance that is based, for instance, on ethical
badness. This distance, however, is evaluated positively and contributes to the overall appreciation for the character.
Figure 5. Alice, but not in Wonderland (left panel). Konoko, brutal force and youthful innocence (right panel)
(http://www.3dactionplanet.com/oni/images/konoko_rogue.jpg). Two models for more motivating types of agents?
People like role-playing games because they want to escape from daily life and identify or have empathy
with an incredible hero. If agents should have an entertaining side, we perhaps might want them to be empathetic.
However, notions such as empathy and identification have many meanings. If we really completely identify with the
character, then the user suffers as much pain as the blood and gore that Hana TsuVachel experiences in Fear Effect
2: Retro Helix (Kronos). Game after game, an empathetic player would experience the real terror of detective
Edward Carnby, who finds his friend Charles Fiske being dead in Alone in the Dark 4: The New Nightmare
(DarkWorks). In their theory on Perceiving and Experiencing Fictional Characters (PEFiC), hence, Konijn and
Hoorn (2003) rather speak of a measure of involvement with the character, which co-occurs with a measure of
distance; a healthy distance, which protects the human emotional system against too threatening but also too
desirable situations and characters. Konijn and Hoorn provide evidence on film characters that involvement and
distance are not two mutually excluding experiences. On the contrary, high appreciation for a fictional character
Personification: Crossover between… 9
flows from a ratio between involvement and distance. Such apparent contradictions often are found in game reviews
as well:
Konoko, the girly heroin of the action game Oni has everything to become a new icon in the game world.
Not like Lara Croft because of her spectacular looks but exactly through the combination of youthful
innocence and the brute violence she is capable off. That developer Bungie did not choose for the obvious
way to make her super-sexy only increases the sympathy for this girl. (Bartelson, 2001) (author translation
and italics)
Figure 6 summarizes the PEFiC theory in explicating how involvement and distance transpire and how their
interrelationship determines the appreciation for the character. Relying on cognitive memory theories (Raaijmakers
& Shiffrin, 1981) and similarity studies (e.g., Tversky, 1977), Konijn and Hoorn claim that not only recognition of
the self in the fictional character but also the memory of one’s own vicissitudes, or situations one has seen or heard
off, bring the observer closer to the character. The measure of (inner) resemblance between observer and character,
including their respective situations, partly mediates the measure of involvement. By the same token do the
differences partly mediate distance. Partly, because it is not as simple as counting the similarities and differences. In
the light of their personal goals and concerns, observers determine how relevant particular events concerning and
features of the fictional character are. That Hana is bisexual is probably more important to people with the same
preference than to others. That Masami von Weitsaecker (Ring of Red, KCE Studios) is from Japanese-German
descent leaves everybody indifferent, unless you underwent the attack on Pearl Harbor. Subsequently, the features of
and the events concerning the fictional character are appraised for their ethics (a good hero or a bad villain) (Paiva et
al., 2001), their aesthetics (is she a beauty or an ugly witch), and their epistemic value (how realistic or unrealistic
are they?) (Shapiro & McDonald, 1992; Paiva et al.). Like mediated persons, voice-based information agents remain
in the area of realistic representations. Programmable plush dolls and stuffed animals that control synthetic
characters in animated environments (Umaschi, 1996; Johnson, Wilson, Blumberg, Kline, & Bobick, 1999) recede at
the unrealistic end of the scale. It is easy to imagine that the tennis star Anna Kournikova evokes involvement
because of her attractive looks, but when she is the cover-up of a virus (subject: Here you have ;-o) in an e-mail
attachment (Anna-Kournikova.jpg.vbs), she yields quite as much distance. Likewise, a character like Black Magician
Vivi (Final Fantasy IX, SquareSoft) may or may not be appreciated for her highly imaginative or otherwise
unnatural peculiarities. But that’s not all there is to it. Nobody lives in isolation and no one is so self-willed that s/he
is immune to the opinion of others. Social psychology (e.g., Terry and Hogg, 1996) teaches that people like to
belong to particular groups (e.g., Black versus White Hat hackers) and adhere to the (cultural) norms of those groups
even when they do not agree on them all that much (Grey Hats). The same is valid, of course, for Internet surfers,
game addicts, UNIX gurus, film freaks, art lovers, and other connoisseurs. In the PlayStation camp (Sony), it is not
allowed to positively value the Pokémon characters (Nintendo). As a child psychologist, you must cry out against the
violence of shooter games and yet buy your kid Point Blank 3 (Namco) for Xmas. Thus, the socially accepted
judgment over a character (“Dan & Don are a bunch of aggressive yahoo’s”) may contest with what one silently
thinks (“Dan & Don are my quirky heroes”). Normative behavior of agents (Machado et al., 2001) and social
competence (Prendinger & Ishizuka, 2001), then, should be part of an agent’s design.
All those dimensions of appraisal can lead to a tendency to approach a fictional character (“youthful
innocence” hints at a friend) and a tendency to avoid (“brute violence” hints at a foe). This simultaneous occurrence
of a positive and negative ‘valence’ (that is, ‘ambivalence’) suggests that self-recognition without more does not
necessarily awaken involvement with the character. The lesson learned from this for avatars is that mere resemblance
is insufficient for user involvement. If someone recognizes him or herself in the revenge of Edward Carnby, the
resemblance may lead to involvement but that the trait is negatively appraised leads to that extraordinary
contradictory experience of distance. With the PEFiC-model, it can now be explained why, for example, the wish ‘to
be as cool as Lara Croft’ stirs up mixed emotions, which all too often may confuse young adolescents. The fact that
you are not as cool (the differences) contributes to the experience of distance, whereas the positive appraisal of those
differences leads to involvement.
Leaving the traditional identification and empathy approaches, then, the PEFiC-model gives an integrative
account of how appreciation for fictional characters in literature, film, TV, and other media is a trade-off between the
parallel processes of involvement and distance. Given the relevance and valence (positive-negative) of a situation,
involvement and distance supposedly flow from ethic (good-bad), aesthetic (beautiful-ugly), and epistemic (realisticunrealistic) appraisals of the features of the fictional character, thereby considering the (dis)similarity between the
fictional character and the observer (Figure 6). Konijn and Hoorn (2002) have strong evidence on film characters
that the factors in the PEFiC-model are all necessary to explain appreciation for a character but how those factors
interact is harder to determine.
Personification: Crossover between… 10
ENCODE
COMPARE
Involvement
Features of situation
and Fictional Character
%
Ethics
good
dissimilar
beautiful
irrelevant
realistic
negative valence
Aesthetics
Epistemics
Norm
RESPOND
Appreciation
bad
similar
ugly
relevant
unrealistic
positive valence
%
Distance
Figure 6. Model for perceiving and experiencing fictional characters, including agents. Features that are relevant for
the goals and concerns of the observer evoke emotions. Distinctive features that are appraised positively and
intersecting features that are appraised negatively increase both involvement and distance (see %-sign). If bad
features are appraised positively, an approach tendency may occur, whereas a negative appraisal of good features
may cause an avoidance tendency. The entire process is doubled if the norms of the individual are contrasted with
the norms of the socio-cultural group (“What do the others think of it?”).
PEFiC can be considered an overall model for character engagement in virtual or fictional environments. In
the case of agents, it is the application that matters and makes the difference. Involvement with the character may be
the goal in a game more than in a training environment such as a driving simulator, where keeping your cool
(distance) is more important. In tele-presence involvement probably is more important than in remote-control
scenarios such as long-distance surgery, where a physician should keep his/her mind together. Yet, PEFiC can
account for these different constellations of involvement-distance trade-offs. The main shifts probably can be traced
back in the change of goals for using the application, which will narrow down the relevance of the agent.
The relevance of characters in gaming probably relates to win or loose without many real-life consequences
(except when there is a bet or social reward involved). Appreciation is probably induced by activity and
entertainment. Agents in learning applications will have more dimensions of assessment. Yes, they should be
entertaining to motivate the student but its core relevance lies in clear explanation of principles and mechanisms.
Here the performance of the agent does have real-life consequences (e.g., pass or fail exams). Appreciation probably
relates to entertainment and easy access to information. In typical scenarios with information agents (e.g., voice mail
navigators), the user may perceive the agent as being a different person. However, as soon as the user realizes to talk
to a machine the relevance of the agent is restricted to the task of providing information about (acoustic) interface
usage. Here agent performance affects real life as well. Missing an important message due to badly designed
navigation may mean the difference between getting a job or not. Equating character involvement in film and
Personification: Crossover between… 11
literature with character involvement in interactive computer-based applications depends upon whether the user’s
activities with the computer naturally entail interacting with or observing the character. For example, it may be that
many users of Microsoft Office might not have much appreciation for Office Assistant regardless of its
“vicissitudes,” simply because they do not need to interact with the Assistant to do what they want, and the Assistant
is simply a distraction. In that case, the user performs the task better than the Assistant or the Assistant merely offers
irrelevant tips and suggestions. The task-relevance of the Assistant, then, is extremely low. The purpose of the
Assistant to facilitate the work process in Office turns into its opposite, slowing down PC processing time and
boosting distance at the cost of involvement.
Personifications are Metaphors
All embodied agents are fictional characters but not all embodied agents are personifications. Broadly
speaking, a metaphor is a non-literal means of communication in which a semantic unit is compared to another unit
of a different semantic class but with the preservation of meaning. ‘Time is duration’ is not a metaphor because both
units belong to the same semantic class. ‘Time is a man’ is a metaphor because the units do not belong to the same
semantic class but the expression remains interpretable. In Figure 7, the tutor agents are realistically rendered
(http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/courses/ICS104/course-notes/metaphors.htm). They are literal or perhaps
tautological representations (‘the teacher is a tutor’). The virtual product presenter also is realistically rendered but
here a metaphor might be interpreted - probably unintended by the sender (‘sales people are dogs’). Max is a mix of
realistic (head) and unrealistic rendering (kinesthetic skeleton) (http://www.techfak.unibielefeld.de/ags/wbski/lehre/digiSA/Methoden_der_KI/WS0102/methki15.pdf). He has no metaphor in him (‘a
conversation partner is a person’). Robby the Robot (Microsoft) is an example of an unrealistically depicted servant
(walking and talking robots do not exist yet). Robby is a metaphor and a true personification because he is the
anthropomorphization of hardware and software (e.g., the search engine) in one and represents an abstraction: ‘Help
is a mechanic man’ (cf. the ‘User Virtual Machine,’ Van der Veer, Tauber, Waern, & Van Muylwijk, 1985). Another
metaphor he carries is that ‘servants are robots,’ that is, stiff and restrained people.
suit
feet
slimy
feet
descriptive figurative
descriptive figurative
descriptive figurative
literal
metaphor
literal
metaphor
unrealistic
realistic
ASSOCIATION
restraine
d
descriptive figurative
COMMUNICATION
REPRESENTATION
Figure 7. Agent typology according to representation style, communication form, and association type. From left to
right: Two tutors, a product presenter dog, the conversational agent Max, and Robby the Robot.
A mainstream assumption in the field is that agents with realistic features evoke more involvement and
appreciation than with unrealistic ones. PEFiC explains, however, that on the epistemic dimension, judgments about
the reality status of the features of a fictional character (realistic-unrealistic) should be separated from their
metaphoric status. Realistic as well as unrealistic representations may evoke literal as well as metaphoric
communications (Figure 7). This means, that unrealistic features (the ‘wings’ of Time) may be highly appreciated or
Personification: Crossover between… 12
require an educational extra when they evoke a figurative association (‘wings’ express ‘speed’). Yet, PEFiC gives no
account of how metaphors that are connected to fictional characters are processed. In other words, to account for
personifications, PEFiC should be extended with a model of metaphor processing.
The Race model of Metaphor Processing (RMP) offers a unifying account of processing metaphoric
communication (Hoorn, 1997). At the basis lies the distinction between descriptive and figurative associations (cf.
Richards, 1965). Descriptive associations of a word such as ‘dog’ are the explanatory features (‘legs,’ ‘tail,’ etc.).
Figurative associations are features with a symbolic or emblematic connotation (‘drooling’ is literal for saliva,
figurative for being overly enthusiastic). Figurative associations may be embedded in the culture but may also be
quite personal. Three empirical findings form the underpinning of the ‘multiple-meanings theory’ that is modeled in
RMP. First, metaphors (cf. the product presenter dog) awake more figurative associations than literal
communications (cf. the animated tutor). Second, the reaction time to judge that a communication is metaphoric is
marginally longer than to judge it is literal. Third, while recording the electroencephalogram (EEG) online, the
energetic effect of the semantic surprise in metaphors is higher than in literal expressions. Van Driel et al. (1998)
found that appreciation for books is highest when the ratio, emotion, and fantasy of readers were equally activated.
Thus, metaphors draw on fantasy more than literal expressions because they activate more figurative associations.
They take only a few milliseconds longer to process, so that the stimulation of fantasy is at the cost of little more
effort. Moreover, the electrocortical effect of semantic surprise occurred early in processing the metaphors (385
msec. after presentation). Deploying a metaphor for information transfer, then, may increase attention and may urge
to use more control processes (ratio). The emotional side of processing a personification may be covered by the fact
that it is also a fictional character. In requiring more control processes (ratio), stimulating fantasy, and establishing
affective relationships, personification probably raises higher appreciation than other communication forms.
To further explore the RMP, Hoorn (2001) suggests a measuring technique that is highly sophisticated for
the literary field and computer science with stimuli that are highly uncommon in psychology. Based on the work by
Coles et al. (1995), Hoorn (2001) explains how the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) in the EEG can be used to
settle an old score in metaphor theory. The LRP is sensitive to the making of “partial errors,” incorrect choices that
are not executed because the user makes the right decision after all. This indicates that a process may be started (to
make the incorrect decision) but is canceled in favor of the process for the correct decision. In the actual correct
decision, this is not visible. In the accompanying LRPs, it is. Authors such as Richards (1965), Henle (1966), and
Black (1979) posit that an expression always is first interpreted literally and if the expression is a metaphor, then figuratively or relational. Thus, metaphors require more cognitive elaboration because they take an extra processing
stage. However, Hoorn (1997, pp. 245, 281) found that literal communications and metaphors evoke parallel
processes of descriptive and figurative information evaluation, with a slight speed advantage for literal
communications. This suggests that literal communications and metaphors are equally difficult to process. Or are
they? Perhaps metaphors raise more partial errors than literal communications, and require more cognitive effort to
readjust the process for the correct decision (‘Robby is a metaphor!’). This can be made visible in the recorded
LRPs, which has the following theoretical value. If personifications are metaphors, and when metaphors are
appreciated better because they require more cognitive elaboration, then processing personifications should raise
more partial errors and evoke more LRP activity than literal agents such as the tutor (Figure 7) or other (fictional)
characters. This higher appreciation, however, could be at the cost of information transfer, exactly because
personification may raise more partial errors and requires more effort.
Again, the tasks at hand in the interaction context (Figure 2) are decisive. If personifications as metaphors
are appreciated more because they involve more cognitive effort, this raises the question of whether the user’s task
imposes a cognitive load that results in a scarcity of cognitive resources. For example, would air traffic controllers
appreciate an interface in which information necessary for time-critical decisions is presented metaphorically?
Moreover, the account of cognitive processing of metaphor, if true, may depend upon the extent to which the subject
is accustomed to the metaphor. Metaphorical meanings have a tendency through use to turn into literal meanings.
Thus, for example, as Web browser users become accustomed to using “bookmarks” to save links to Web pages, the
new meaning for the term “bookmark” is reinforced and the metaphor of Web as book becomes less salient. This
complicates the problem of how to discriminate literal from metaphoric communication reliably in an experimental
design.
Communication Context
The Director of the Advanced User Interface Design Group at Microsoft, Tandy Trower, posits that
although “there are a number of people who are working on inference engines and other smart technologies, what is
missing out of the picture is how we interact with these [intelligent agents].” (Barker, 2001). Although some work
has been done (e.g., Pollack, 1990; Lester et al.; Bonito et al., 1999; Cassell, 2000), there is no firm theoretical or
Personification: Crossover between… 13
empirical ground to capitalize on the efficacy of personification and to ignore simpler forms such as literal
instructions (dialog boxes), metaphors (windows, bin, desktop), and performed characters (the tutor) (cf.
Shneidermann, 1998, pp. 380-384). Figure 8 is an attempt to model the processing of cultural products (such as
agents) in computer interfaces in which GTA, PEFiC, and RMP can be integrated. The central issue in GTA is that
the agent satisfies the goals of the user, which may be entertainment, education, information, task or work process
facilitation, sales, etc. PEFiC and RMP relate to the psychological processing of communication forms such as
characters and metaphors.
Feedback:
Goal reached?
Agent
Goal: Intended contents
sender = understood
contents user
Communication form:
Literal, metaphor,
mediated person or
fictional character,
personification
User
Message
Goal: Entertainment,
education, information,
process control, etc.
Contents: Information
to realize goal user
Medium:
User-interface,
literary book, theater,
film, TV
Sensory channel:
Visual (writing, image),
acoustic (speech,
sound), touch
Three domains of
the human mind:
Ratio, emotion, fantasy,
encompassing four processes:
Comprehension, motivation,
effort, and interaction
Information
processing
by the user
Figure 8. Outline of a user-centered model of human-agent communication.
Presumably, the following forms of communications mainly activate the subsequent domains of the human
mind:
Communication forms
Literal instructions
Metaphors
Fictional Characters
Personifications
Domains involved
ratio
ratio and fantasy
ratio and emotion
ratio, emotion, and fantasy
Van Driel et al. show empirical evidence that the highest appreciation of literary books was based on equal
activation of the three domains ratio, emotion, and fantasy. I argue that personifications may activate all three
domains of the human mind. Therefore, they are optimal communication devices and yield the highest appreciation
rate. Because information transfer might be more efficient through personifications, the use of personifications to
instruct users on performing a decision task in an interactive environment should ideally lead to more ‘hits’ and
fewer ‘misses’ and faster response times. Nevertheless, certain factors may obstruct such a straightforward outcome.
Personifications probably excite certain information sources more strongly than other forms of communication do:
Information sources of personification
Domains mainly involved
Personification: Crossover between… 14
The fictional character (cf. Konijn & Hoorn, 2002)
The metaphor (cf. Hoorn, 1997)
The message contents (Figure 8)
ratio and emotion
ratio and fantasy
ratio
Because personification is a composite of metaphor and fictional character, more information sources are
processed and more processes are active in more domains, so that personification is harder to process than the other
communication forms. Investing more effort leads to elongated response times and thus to delays in achieving ‘hits,’
which lowers the appreciation. Personifications, then, should raise more ‘hits’ and fewer ‘misses’ in helping to reach
the user’s goals but the speed of achieving ‘hits’ might be low, since the processing of personification takes more
effort. Thus, the appreciation of personifications is the trade-off between the profit of a higher stimulation of the
mind (no boredom) and the costs of investing more effort and getting delayed satisfaction.
As said, a personification is an abstraction represented by a concrete living creature, as in the case of Louis
XIV, who said: “The State, that’s me.” The stimulus materials, therefore, should not consist of abstractions explained
by other abstractions, for example, “The State, that’s the government” (literal), “The State, that’s the hell”
(metaphor) or by concrete but dead objects “The State, that’s a ship” (metaphor). The abstract topic of the
personification in the present proposal is help in achieving the user’s goals. In an interface, help is successful if the
required functionality is provided to reach a certain goal (e.g., increase productivity or finding the proper ecommerce site). The stimulus materials, therefore, should meet the following constraints:
Form of communication
(1)
Literal instruction
(2)
Fictional Character
(3)
Metaphor
(4)
Personification
Manipulation
descriptive, non-human
descriptive, human
figurative, non-human
figurative, human
Examples
help is a manual
help is a tutor
help is a key
help is a wizard
Operationalization of the examples (1) up to (4) for user interfaces:
(1)
Dialog box:
(2)
Animated tutor:
(3)
Dialog box:
(4)
Wizard Merlin:
“Put the cursor on the underscored word (=hyperlink) and connect to the
digital document (=Web page)”
“Put the cursor on the underscored word (=hyperlink) and connect to the
digital document (=Web page)”
“Put the key (=cursor) into the lock (=hyperlink) and open the door
(=connect) to the treasure room (=Web page)”
“Put the key (=cursor) into the lock (=hyperlink) and open the door
(=connect) to the treasure room (=Web page)”
Personifications supposedly are more motivating and more fun (raise higher appreciation) because they
employ more information sources and start more processes in more domains of the mind but they are also harder to
process. Thus, do personifications facilitate computer mediated communication or not? Below the relevant methods
and measuring techniques are elaborated to find things out empirically. I propose three research topics that are
connected to specific methods.
Three research topics
1. processing fictional characters
2. processing metaphors
3. processing message contents
→
→
→
Methods
structured questionnaires
reaction timing, physiological recordings (LRP)
structured questionnaires and reaction timing of
‘hits’ and ‘misses’
The associations of the users obtain the features of the stimuli that are used in the questionnaires,
behavioral, and psychophysiological tests. That Merlin can do magic is more important than that he wares a blue
mantle. Features with high frequencies of mentioning serve, for example, as the subject of items in the scales of the
structured questionnaire
Concerning research topic 1, normal fictional characters are compared with personifications. The theoretical
center is the PEFiC-model (Konijn & Hoorn, 2002). Based on this theory, the main question is whether
personifications activate ratio and emotion better than other fictional characters because the involvement-distance
Personification: Crossover between… 15
conflict they raise feeds the highest appreciation. The complete questionnaire for investigation of fictional characters
is developed and tested as documented in Hoorn and Konijn (2001).
In the test on the metaphor aspects (research topic 2), literal forms of communication are compared with
metaphors. Central are the ‘multiple-meanings theory’ and RMP model of Hoorn (1997). How do descriptive (ratio)
and figurative (fantasy) information interact with each other to arrive at the decision ‘Merlin is a metaphor’? In
Hoorn’s multiple-meanings theory, metaphors evoke more meanings (i.e. descriptive and figurative) than literal
communications, which mostly activate descriptive meanings. Therefore, metaphors should take more time to
process than literal communications. The RT-literature on metaphors, however, shows that no evidence for response
time differences is found. The present proposal suggests that standard RT-procedures are too coarse a measure to
find that users do employ two information sources in metaphors and only one in literal communications. To do so,
Hoorn (2001) developed a complete research design to utilize the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) in the EEG.
In combination with the “partial errors” that users make during a decision task, LRPs can render information on the
processing of the descriptive and figurative information source in metaphors. The test prediction is that processing
times may be equal but that the hesitation to decide whether an expression has descriptive or figurative meaning is
greater in metaphors than in literal communications. Hoorn (2001) proposes to confront users with mixed
presentations of literal and metaphoric communications and that they should decide for ‘literal’ or ‘metaphor’ by
pressing L with the one hand or M with the other hand, respectively. For metaphors, muscle tension should be found
in preparation of erroneously pressing the L-button accompanied by heightened contralateral LRP-activity, after
which the error is not made and the M-button is pressed. For literal communications, such “partial errors” should not
occur. In so doing, it is made feasible that for metaphors users control a descriptive as well as a figurative
information source, whereas this is unnecessary for literal communications. Different from interaction with literal
communications, then, metaphors (and thus personifications) would not only activate the ratio but also stimulate
fantasy.
The next paragraphs concern the processing of the message contents during human-agent interactions
(research topic 3). In the three domains of the human mind (ratio, emotion, and fantasy), four processes are
supposedly involved during user’s goal achievement through agents: Comprehension, motivation, effort, and
interaction (see Figure 8). A questionnaire should be constructed with which each communication form (literal,
fictional character, metaphor, and personification) can be studied (between-subjects design). Items are statements (6
indicative, 6 contra-indicative in a scale) and combine a domain with a process (see Table 1). Users rate on at 6-point
scale (not agree – agree) in how far the item reflects their opinions.
Table 1. Communication model for human-agent interaction tested by a structured questionnaire. The
examples combine domains with processes. The symbol X should be substituted by the respective literal or
metaphoric communications, the fictional characters or personifications (e.g., Merlin).
Domain
Ratio
Emotion
Fantasy
Process
Comprehension
Motivation
Effort
Interaction
Because X made me think,
I got the message
Owing to X, I told myself
to keep learning
Due to X, I had difficulty to
keep everything in mind
The cooperation with X
drew upon my insight
Because X made me smile,
I understood the task
Because X moved me, I
pushed through
That X touched me, cost
me strength
The feedback of X affected
my feelings
Because X made me dream,
I knew what he meant
The magic of X made me
curious to see more tricks
The fiction around X took
my energy
The turn taking of X
aroused my imagination
By performing a confirmative factor analysis on each of the four communication forms and fitting the
model with the questionnaire answers, the correlations between domains and processes can be analyzed. It should
show that personifications evoke the highest comprehension of the message contents, provoke the highest
motivation, cost most effort, but also raise the most interaction, which correlates with the activation of ratio as well
as emotion and fantasy. Metaphors, on the other hand, do not lead to the highest comprehension, provoke less
motivation, cost less effort, and render less interaction than personifications, which correlates with the activation of
only ratio and fantasy and insignificant correlations with emotion. The same is valid for fictional characters, but then
because of the correlation with only ratio and emotion and insignificant correlations with fantasy. Likewise for literal
Personification: Crossover between… 16
communications, which is due to the correlations with merely ratio and the insignificant correlations with emotion
and fantasy.
A forced decision reaction time test for each of the four communication forms can register the speed of
‘hits’ and ‘misses,’ which should indicate the speed with which and the number of times that the user’s goal is
satisfied. The task in this experiment is to follow an instruction that is presented in literal, metaphoric, fictional
character, or personification form. The task is, for example, to “click on the underscored word A and connect to the
digital document” (see for different forms the stimulus materials). In addition, rivaling options are offered
simultaneously (hyperlink B, C, D). The more processes and domains are active, the slower processing gets but also
the fewer mistakes are made (speed-accuracy trade-off). Speed as expressed in milliseconds and error score should
reveal the following:
Millisec.literal < fictional character ≈ metaphor < personification
% errors
literal > fictional character ≈ metaphor > personification
Information transfer via literal communications may be faster but through personifications more accurate.
An additional questionnaire should show whether higher decision speed or lower error-percentage induce a higher
level of satisfaction and appreciation in work process control.
In conclusion, a structured questionnaire study into the model of human-agent interaction should enlighten
whether personifications yield the highest comprehension of the message, evoke most motivation, cost most effort,
and yield most interaction, which should correlate with the activation of ratio, emotion, and fantasy. Additional
reaction time tests can elucidate if information transfer through literal communications is faster and via
personifications slower, so that the latter costs more effort but is also more accurate (more hits of the required goals).
An additional questionnaire should inform about the level of satisfaction and appreciation for the alternatives ‘fast’
(literal communications) versus ‘thorough’ (personification). The height of the appreciation of personifications
(fictional character and metaphor in one) is explained from the special processes that are involved in perceiving and
experiencing fictional characters in combination with metaphors. A structured questionnaire study should reveal if
personifications compared to normal fictional characters activate ratio and emotion the strongest, because they excite
an optimal ‘involvement-distance conflict’ and thus invoke the highest appreciation. With psychophysiological
experiments into the brain potentials in the motor cortex it can be studied if metaphors activate both descriptive and
figurative information sources and if literal communication offers only a descriptive information source. The
prediction is that literal communications only activate the ratio, whereas metaphors (and thus personifications) not
only stimulate the ratio (descriptive) but also fantasy (figurative).
Discussion
At the outposts of what we know about communication, psychology, and the media, I have defined the
processing of the artistic and cultural aspects of personification in communication interfaces and gaming as an area
of possible research and a new topic in computer mediated communication and human-computer interaction. This
has been skirted and alluded-to in various ways (e.g., Reilly, 1996; Paiva et al.; Machado et al.) but for the first time
an integrative account is provided leading to verifiable predictions. Is it especially helpful in some way to have ideas
personified, and perhaps in a later stage, does the value depend on the medium (e.g., interface vs. TV)? This is a
novel question at a time when media are rapidly developing new formats. The leaping ahead of information
technology has a dazzling effect on its users, whether they are novices or experts. Users can easily conjure up
completely new identities and become fictional characters themselves (e.g., http://secretadmirer.com for Valentine’s
wishes). No one can oversee the possibilities and consequences, which leaves many with feelings of insecurity and
incapacity. To keep their products from being appreciated negatively, computer companies develop enrichments of
the graphic interface of applications to humanize, for instance, Web sites. Personifications of abstractions are applied
to help users on their way through electronic wilderness. Is it worthwhile to put money and effort into the
development of such ‘enrichments?’ On a deeper level, do personifications evoke more affect than other metaphors,
because they are fictional characters? What kind of affective relationships (involvement and/or distance) do users
form with such fictional characters? Are users prepared to start up more control processes for understanding the
metaphor behind the animated agent? Does it increase their insight into the underlying abstractions? Do personifications stimulate the fantasy more than literal dialog boxes? How contributes all this to appreciation? These
questions cannot be answered without looking into theories on perception and emotion psychology, literature, TV,
film, and computer mediated interaction. The results may bear not only on communication interface design but also
on a better understanding of how artistic stimuli are experienced and understood.
Personification: Crossover between… 17
There are three novel elements in the proposed theory of personification: The singling-out of personification
for special attention, a theory of the metaphoric character of personification (especially the role of multiple “partial
errors”), and the use of an EEG marker that is said to indicate part of comprehension. The argument about
personification takes the form: We first identify a character and then later take the character to be a personification.
Presumably, third, we settle on a conception of what is personified and why this is a more-or-less suitable
personification. This is said to be the insight that should be incorporated into a theory for design of communication
interfaces. Actually, this argument about personification is just the content or application of the theory of metaphoric
communication that this article offers. My multiple-meanings theory is metaphoric communication triggers more
than literal communication because descriptive as well as figurative information is set free. In personification,
moreover, the communication triggers both the character and the notion that the character stands for something. The
non-metaphoric character would just trigger the character. This theory of personification is a comparatively original
domain of application of theory of metaphoric communication, since most theories are worked out using examples of
metaphors such as “life is a journey.” However, this use of personification is more-or-less just an area of application,
and perhaps the real merit of the proposal lies in the multiple-meanings theory of metaphoric communication.
The argument is that metaphors trigger many partial errors, and more than comparable (control) literal
communications. This hypothesis has several rivals in the field including A. the literal-first/figurative-second orderof-processing theory of Richards and Henle (mentioned and favored by me to some extent), B. a parallel-processing
theory (in the spirit of Gibbs, 1992) and also favored to some extent, and C. a recent salient-meanings-first theory of
Giora (1999). If metaphoric communication often triggers more meanings than control literal communication this
could explain many of the findings in the technical experimental literature and deserves to be distinguished from the
A, B, and C accounts above. The argument that a component of the EEG called the LRP component is sensitive to
the making of “partial errors” (interpretations which are entertained to some extent before a final interpretation is
achieved), is intriguing but a long-shot. This interpretation of the LRP would require a great deal of ground-breaking
work to establish. Any research that assumes this interpretation is therefore standing on highly contentious ground.
But then, what is research for? Nevertheless, I should add that one concern here is that the research would be
proceeding from this LRP interpretation rather than acting as the primary navigator checking and revising it, and so
the ideas will be subject to revision as LRP research reinterprets itself. On the other hand, who does not have to
assume the value of someone else’s research pro tem? The LRP/EEG method should be used in concert with other
methods to test theories of processing and multiple-meanings. They will involve use of reaction-time measures,
controlled presentations, and considerable care over control materials that have “comparable meanings” to
experimental materials. In general, I must caution that each method mentioned in the proposal will give results that
will require considerable interpretation. The materials selected for examination will have a clear impact on the
results and interpretations. Considerable care over the sampling and range of materials is needed (see Hoorn, 2001,
Table 2). Further, the LRP idea about “partial errors” is just a way of testing the theory of metaphoric
communication. In sum, this area of the proposal is actually an area of application of more basic tools.
My theoretical proposal has intra- and interdisciplinary impact as well as practical relevance. Instead of the
two traditional routes to an understanding of the mechanisms of personification, the linguistic-rhetorical and the
philosophical-ontological, the proposed theory intends to fuse the cognitive theory on metaphor processing Hoorn
(1997) with the theory on engaging fictional characters (Konijn & Hoorn, 2002). By placing personification within a
larger context of basic lexical, semantic, and cognitive transfer mechanisms (Paxson, 1994), literary theory on
personification can be understood in a much more precise and enlightening manner than hitherto done. Cognitive
metaphor theory can be extended with a context-dependent model on affective experience. The epistemic dimension
of experiencing fictional characters can be expanded with a full-fledged model on metaphor processing. Tests with
real users would not only uncover new insights for human-agent communication and the arts but also for the
psychology of complex semantic stimuli. The practical relevance lies in the investigation of whether information
transfer by communication interfaces is more successful via metaphor than literal explanation, because fantasy and
ratio are stimulated more optimally. Moreover, are personifications more successful than other metaphors, because
the emotional domain is excited more strongly? The big thing for computer science is whether “users really need
extensive help and explanation facilities?” (Brazier & Van der Veer, 1994) and if they do, what kind? By
investigating the usefulness of agents for communication, the present proposal wants to help clarify that problem. It
provides part of the conditions that favor the use of personifications in interface applications such as search engines
and agents for user generated personal profiling of supplies and with it, a set of mental models for these can be
defined, featuring appropriate personifications. The outcome could be helpful to graphic designers, interface
engineers, and technologists.
Personification: Crossover between… 18
Already, multi-agent systems are one of the key technologies for software development. This requires the
work of researchers from the fields of logic, theoretical computer science, and multi-agent systems in order to
discuss formal techniques for specifying and verifying such systems. However, the human aspect is the domain of
communication studies, psychology, and the arts. If we want to catch up with technological developments and
account for multi-agent communication, then we should start out with thorough theory of that one person in
communication with that one agent. Fictional characters such as animated agents may simultaneously be good and
bad, bring joy and terror, they may please some but put into a metaphor, they try all. In view of the growing impact
of the digital world on education and (cognitive) behavior, therefore, let us keep up with Time “to plant and
o’erwhelm custom” in communication and IT research.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is part of the Innovation Oriented research Program (IOP) for Human-Machine Interaction entitled
Integrating Design of Business Processes and Task Analysis, granted by the Senter Agency of the Dutch Ministry of
Economic Affairs in The Hague, grant Mmi99009. I am deeply indebted to Derrick de Kerckhove of the McLuhan
Program in Culture & Technology, University of Toronto and several anonymous reviewers for their extended
comments, clear suggestions, and thoughtful discussions. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].
Personification: Crossover between… 21
Appendix
William Shakespeare
THE WINTER’S TALE (1610-11)
Act IV
Enter TIME, as Chorus.
Time. I,-that please some, try all; both joy and terror
Of good and bad; that make and unfold error,Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O’er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o’erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient’st order was,
Or what is now received: I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale
Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between. Leontes leaving
The effects of his fond jealousies, so grieving
That he shuts up himself; imagine me,
Gentle observers, that I now may be
In fair Bohemia; and remember well,
I mention’d a son o’ the king’s, which Florizel
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak to Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wondering: what of her ensues,
I list not prophesy; but let Time’s news
Be known when ‘tis brought forth:-a shepherd’s daughter,
And what to her adheres, which follows after,
Is the argument of Time. Of this allow,
If ever you have spent time worse than ere now;
If never, yet that Time himself doth say
He wishes earnestly you never may.
[Exit.