Departmental Colloquium - Dr. Daniel C. Richardson - UCL - Exploring the group mind through mass participation experiments
Date:
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Exploring the group mind through mass participation experiments
Daniel C. Richardson
Department of Experimental Psychology
University College London
During this talk, I will present emerging results and allow audience member to take part in a new experimental paradigm: mass participation games. In our experiments, hundreds of people can play a computer game simultaneously using their smart phones or tablets. We can collect responses from a lecture hall full of people with the precision of a laboratory cubicle.
Audience members will explore the behaviour and decision making of groups. Together they will play video games, resolve disagreements and take difficult decisions. Our eventual goal is to address a range of theoretical questions with experimental manipulations and computer modelling. Do participants play as if they were alone, or as a group? If so, do they represent the group as a single entity, or a collection of other agents? What are the dynamics of these behaviours, with learning across many trials? Lastly, what does it feel like to act in concert, or in competition, with a room full of people?