Digital assistants:Losing face
数字助理：丢脸
Hints appeared as the written form of the word in question, accompanied by a computer-shaped icon. For half of participants this icon had a humanlike face, and the hint was placed inside a speech bubble originating from that face, thus anthropomorphising the presentation to some degree. For the other half the icon lacked a face and there was no speech bubble. After the final set of words had been displayed, participants were asked to agree or disagree with follow-up statements about their experience, such as “it was embarrassing to receive help during the task”, and “others might think I am incompetent because I received help during the task”. This time, they quantified their feelings on a seven-point scale, with higher scores representing greater feelings of unease.
提示用书写的方式出现在问题中，同时还伴有计算机形状的图标。对半数的参与者这个图标是人脸形状的，提示是出现在人脸图标所引出的气泡中，这就使得这个提示出现的方式更加人格化。另外一半的参与者没有人脸同时也没有气泡。在所有的单词都展示过后，参与者要用同意或者不同意的方式来回答诸如下列的问题“在测试过程中接受帮助让人难堪”以及“其他人可能因为我使用了帮助而认为我不行”。这次参与者使用七分制的评价表格，分数越高意味着越不舒服。
The researchers found that participants who believed intelligence to be unchangeable felt more embarrassed and more incompetent after the tests. Specifically, those whose level of belief that this is true was more than one standard deviation above the mean score on the six-point scale for perceptions of intelligence flexibility (in other words, the top sixth of the sample), averaged 3.2 when measured for feelings of shame and embarrassment if the computer icons they had seen giving the hints had had faces and speech bubbles, but only 2.7 if not. In contrast, people who strongly believed that intelligence could be changed over time (the bottom sixth of the sample) felt the same level of discomfort (around 2.5) whether or not the icons had been anthropomorphised.
研究人员发现，那些认为智力不可改变的参与者在试验过后感觉自身更加羞愧和无能。尤其是那些确信这一观点的并关于智力可变性的六分制测试中所得到的标准分比平均分高一分的参与者（换句话说，所有参与者的前六分之一），在关于使用带有电脑图标和气泡的提示是否会感到羞愧的测试中得分为 3.2 ，而其他人则是 2.7 。相比较之下，那些强烈相信智力随时间可变的参与者（所有参与者的后六分之一），不论提示是否人格化对于这种不舒服感的感觉都处于同一水平（大约 2.5）。
A second experiment, in which a different set of participants were allowed to ask for help rather than having it thrust upon them at random had similar results. Dr Park therefore concludes that some people do, indeed, seem to wish to avoid losing face by seeking help from an icon that has, well, a face. And that in turn suggests there are circumstances when the relentless pseudo-humanisation of machine-human interactions could usefully be curbed.
第二项试验，另一组不同的参与者允许寻求帮助而不是完全依赖其自身也得到了类似的结果。Dr Park 据此认为某些人群确实是通过向有“脸”的图标寻求帮助来避免丢脸。这就反过来说明在某些场景下，持续性的伪人性化人际互动可能受到有效的抑制。
