Expert on Cognition, Signaling and Social Engagement
Program Titles
- How signaling theory can be used for the design and analysis of social technologies
- Why are some signals more reliable than others?
- Signaling theory provides a framework for understanding these dynamics
- Sociable media designer theorist artist
- Faces in the interface
- Expressing identity
- Understanding how people will behave
- What other aspects of identity can be modelled?
- Visualizing conversations
Judith Donath’s work focuses on the social side of computing, synthesizing knowledge from fields such as graphic design, urban studies and cognitive science to build innovative interfaces for the online communities, virtual identities and computer-mediated collaborations that have emerged with the convergence of computing and communication.
Judith Donath on various aspects of the Internet and its social impact, such as Internet society and community, interfaces, virtual identity issues, and other forms of collaboration that have become manifest with the advent of connected computing.
Judith Donath’s work focuses on the social side of computing, synthesizing knowledge from fields such as graphic design, urban studies and cognitive science to build innovative interfaces for online communities and virtual identities.
She is known internationally for pioneering research in social visualization, interface design, and computer mediated interaction.
She created several of the early social applications for the web, including the first postcard service (“The Electric Postcard”), the first interactive juried art show (“Portraits in Cyberspace”) and an early large-scale web event (“A Day in the Life of Cyberspace”).
Her work has been exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston and in several New York galleries; she was the director of “Id/Entity”, a collaborative exhibit of installations examining how science and technology’ are transforming portraiture.
Her current research focuses on creating expressive visualizations of social interactions and on building experimental environments that mix real and virtual experiences.
She has a book in progress about how we signal identity in both mediated and face-to-face interctions.
Professor Donath received her doctoral and master’s degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT, her bachelor’s degree in History from Yale University, and has worked professionally as a designer and builder of educational software and experimental media.
Much of what we want to know about others is not directly perceivable – are you a nice person? ..did you really like the cake I baked? ..would you be a good employee, spouse, president?
We rely instead on signals, which are perceivable features or actions that indicate the presence of those hidden qualities.
Yet not all signals are reliable. It is beneficial for the con-man to seem nice, for the guest to seem to like the burnt cake, for the unsuitable suitor to seem as attractive as possible. While these deceptions benefit the deceiver, they may be quite costly for the recipient.
What keeps signals honest — and why are some signals more reliable than others?
Signaling theory provides a framework for understanding these dynamics.
She introduces signaling theory and show how it can be used for the design and analysis of social technologies.
It is especially well suited for in mediated interactions there are few qualities that can be directly observed: everything is signal.
Signals, cues, and meaning
Deception
Individual identity and reputation
Impression formation
Analysis and applications:
Fashion
Gifts
Social Networks
Real and virtual faces
The not-quite-human
Books by Judith Donath
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