Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

There are times when I feel that the latest hits in movies or TV shows are just trying to recycle the same ‘formula’ for success. You take what worked before in another movie and try to do the same thing again, either in another setting or just a do another remake of a hit movie. However, till date at least there was some element of human ‘innovation’ involved. If it is up to the Researchers from the Spanish universities of Granada and Cádiz this will no longer be the case. They have created an AI which will use machine learning and AI to ‘assist film scriptwriters produce storylines with the best chance of box-office success‘.

Be prepared to get the 400th reimagining of a pirate story, or a space opera or love story because the AI will predict success and because it will use existing tropes to figure out what is successful there will be a lot fewer movies/shows that push the boundaries. So, movies like the Matrix, ‘Inception’, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or The Blair Witch Project etc will become more and more rare because the studios would be unwilling to risk putting in money into movies that are not a sure hit.

There are a lot of things that Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can do, but artistry and innovation is not one of them.

The full Paper is available here: The Simpsons did it: Exploring the film trope space and its large scale structure

– Suramya

Violence in media is something that has become a cornerstone of the belief amongst some people as to how the society nowadays is more decadent and violent than what it was a few decades ago. One of the reasoning people give is that the amount of violence on TV and in media is increasing because people are getting desensitized to it and want more. Most of the research into this phenomenon agrees that there are both short-term and long term impacts of watching violence in Media. For example, we have a study that uni-vocally claims that there are significant short-term effects of violent media in adults and long-term effects in children after exposure to violent media. (Bushman & Huesmann, 2006)

Media violence scholars have identified several basic psychological processes involved. Short-term effects are those that occur immediately after exposure. The main ways that media violence exposure increases aggression in the short term are:

• Direct imitation of the observed behavior
• Observational learning of attitudes, beliefs and expected benefits of aggression
• Increased excitation
• Priming of aggression-related ways of thinking and feeling

Basically, the more normalized a particular behavior becomes the more people will think and act in that way. For example, in a lot on Indian movies there is a theme of the boy falling in love with a girl who does not love them back. The hero then proceeds to stalk, harass the girl who then falls in love with him and they live happily ever after. There have been a few instances where college kids tried the same approach in real life not realizing that this is not appropriate behavior. In essence, for at least a brief period after viewing or playing violent media, the exposed person thinks in more aggressive ways, feels more aggressive, perceives that others are hostile towards him or her and sees aggressive solutions as being more acceptable and beneficial.

The short-term effects typically dissipate quickly. However, with repeated exposure to violent media, these short-term lessons are learned in a more permanent way and the person comes to lean towards more aggressive solutions to conflict. There also is growing evidence that repeated exposure to blood, gore and other aspects of extremely violent media can lead to emotional desensitization to the pain and suffering of others. If a person is already mentally leaning towards violent behavior or socially maladjusted, they will get more influenced by the violent depictions on screen and be tempted to try it out in real life. However, in other people it has been found that watching violence on screen or in video games acts as a sort of pressure release and allows them to channel the anger and hurt in a way that does not harm actual people.

Habituation is a form of non-associative learning in which response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus. Basically, it means that if someone is exposed to a stimulus (like violence in media) repeatedly there is a decrease in their response to the stimulus. For example, if a new sound like a loud is happening next to you it will draw your attention initially and be very distracting but if it keeps happening then a person becomes accustomed to the sound and pay less attention to the noise reducing their response to it. I have seen it happen with people living next to airports, over a period of time they do not even notice the sounds of the planes landing even though visitors to their house comment on it.

Cultivation theory on the other hand suggests that people who are exposed to media regularly over a prolonged period of time will start to perceive the world as presented in the media they consume. For example, if someone is constantly consuming far-right videos and talking points about how the immigrants in the US are the cause of most of the country’s problems and how they are violent and lazy they will start thinking this is real and behave accordingly in the real world as well. There have been documented cases of people attacking immigrants in the US because they believed that their way of life is under threat from them. The fact that this may or may not be true does not come into the picture as they are conditioned to believe in this ‘fact’.

Media has a tremendous power to change the public perception and that is why people are worried about the amount of violence being depected in it. Movies like the Joker and similar movies normalize the violent behavior and that is what scares most physiologists.

– Suramya

PS: This essay was originally written for my Social Psychology class. Hence the really more formal writing style.

In research, specifically psychological research there is no unambiguous, right or wrong answer. A study that could psychological or physical discomfort to participants might lead to discoveries that benefit the participants and increase the sum of human participants. Rosenthal and Rosnow (1984) talk about the potential costs of failing to carry out certain research. Historically, many experiments have been conducted with major violations of the ethical considerations. For example, in the famous obedience experiment by Milgram the subjects were convinced that they were delivering painful and possibly life-threatening electrical shocks to another person (Milgram, 1963). Another experiment where ethics were ignored is the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al., 1972). These controversial psychology experiments played a major role in the development of the ethical guidelines and regulations that psychologists must abide by today. These codes are designed to protect the safety, privacy and interests of the participants as well as protecting the psychologists.

When conducting research, the overall benefit should be weighed against the cost of conducting the experiment. There is a lot of debate about the ethical guidelines that should be followed but most researchers and institutions agree that the following key components should be followed during the experiment.

Voluntary Participation

The researchers should ensure that none of the participants in the study/experiment are forced to participate and are willing participants. In the past we have seen prisoners and poor people used in experiments without getting proper approvals.

Informed Consent:

All participants should be told about the procedures and any potential risks of the study. According to the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Code psychologists conducting research should inform the participants about:

• The purpose of the research
• Expected duration and procedures.
• Potential Risks or adverse effects.
• Participants’ rights to decline to participate and to withdraw from the research
• Incentives (if any) for participation.

There is certain research where giving the participants details about the experiment can influence their responses and in these cases the use of deception is allowed. However, this is only in cases where it would be impossible to conduct the research without the deception. It is expected that the participants are debriefed about the purpose of the experiment after it is completed.

Participant Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an essential part of any ethical psychology research. None of the identifying information and individual responses should be shared with anyone outside the study.
The above listed guidelines give some generic standards for research but as each study has unique challenges most colleges and universities have an Institutional Review Board that oversees the research conducted by their faculty members and students. This ensures that the research being done is ethical and does not pose unnecessary risk to the participants.
 
– Suramya

PS: This was originally written as an essay for my Social Psychology class. Hence the really more formal writing style.

I recently saw the news that UK is honoring Alan Turing, Pioneering Computer Scientist And Code-Breaker by putting his image on their new 50 pound note. It made me think that this is something a lot of nations do to honor people who were famous, or contributed in a major way to society or the country issuing the note. Here’s a brief overview of Interesting Famous People on Banknotes around the World. It is a great way to honor people and ensure people know more about them.

That made me think that it would be great if we did the same thing in India. As far as I know none of the currency notes in India have ever had an image of anyone other than Gandhi. I mean, yes he is the father of the nation and we should honor that, but I feel we should also honor some of the other famous people like our Freedom Fighters, Scientists, Artists etc. I would love to see a new note with the photo of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Bhagat Singh, Sarojini Naidu or Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on it. We have so many people who sacrificed their lives for the country, can’t we even put their photo on a note?

Others who should be considered are the world famous scientists like CV Raman, Homi Jehangir Bhabha or Srinivasa Ramanujan. These are Nobel prize winners who changed the world but are hardly known in India. We should also look at famous artists/actors/musicians/poets etc like Rabindranath Tagore etc. Definitely not proposing to put any politician’s photo on the notes because that is a can of worms we don’t need to open. Every political party in India will start screaming if their party’s candidates don’t have their photo on the notes 🙂

I know that stamps that were released to honor a lot of people, but nowadays not many people still send physical letters so the gesture is not as significant as what it used to be. I would still recommend releasing new notes with other people’s photos on them.

If you agree with this, please share on Social media, tag the PMO accounts and media outlets.

– Suramya