Stage 1-proposal for design project

Research Topic

Reverse psychology

Background

Reverse psychology is a  persuasion technique involving the false advocacy of a belief or behavior  that is opposite to the one desire. This technique make used on the psychological phenomenon of reactance, in which a person has a opposite emotional response in reaction to being persuaded, and thus chooses the option which is being advocated against.

Problem Identification

Most people do not like to be restricted by other people,  they tend to behave opposite to what other people want them to be. To solve this issue, reverse psychology is one of the good method. The problem is how to apply the reverse psychology in interactive installation? How to grab audience's  attention on our installation artwork? And lastly how to trigger the "!" reaction from the audience by using reverse psychology in the artwork?

Aim and Objective

-An attempt to apply reverse psychology into interactive installation art to trigger the To trigger   the shock or"!"reaction from the users.

- To experiment with Human computer Interaction by letting the users interact with the installation with the sense of touch.

Motivation

We want to determine whether reversed psychology can be apply on the users or not . Other than that, we want to know how the user react with this persuasion technique.

Ideation and concept

concept

We decide to used reverse psychology to trigger the shock reaction from the users. Reverse psychology is used with a phase/ sentence that ask users not to interact with the installation is place in the installation. When users perceive the persuasion and  interact with the installation, the installation will trigger an unexpected event . This unexpected event will somehow trigger a shock to the users. Other than that, the whole process of interaction is recorded by a webcam that planted on the location and playback on a monitor screen that place near to the installation with certain delay.

Idea

Webcam and Human Computer interaction will be used in this installation. A monitor with a webcam attach on it and a trigger will be place on the location. Preprogrammed application is running on the machine  and users will see the reflection of themselves on the display. A note with writing " No matter what happen, do not press the button" is placed next to the trigger.

When user press the trigger after perceive the persuasion, an animated object will appear on the display. User might feel interesting and continues to press the trigger and this will increase the  number of animated object that will appear on the screen. After few time of press on the button, it will trigger a black screen. This sudden black screen will cause the shock and panic from the users. The user might think that he/she break the device and intend to run away.

When user leave the installation, he/she  will notice another monitor screen where the whole process of interaction is recorded and playback on the screen. This might trigger another shock from the user before he/she leave the location.

Even if the user do not interact with the installation, the process where he/she pass by will be recorded and display on the screen. This might trigger certain quality of shock from the user when he/she notice the screen.

Precedent Studies ,Analysis and Review
Simple Research on Reverse Psychology

Reverse psychology can be defined as persuade a person to do something that is opposite of what you want him to do or believe, a persuasion technique involving the false advocacy of a belief or behavior contrary to the belief or behavior which is actually being advocated.

This technique relies on the psychological phenomenon of reactance, in which a person has a negative emotional response in reaction to being persuaded, and thus chooses the option which is being advocated against.

Since the ancient times, this technique have been used widely by war strategists, businessmen, leaders and all sorts of people. This prove that this technique can work where the more you want people to do something, the more they don't want to do, and vice versa. By using reverse psychology, we can manipulate somebody to do something by saying or doing the opposite, it is quite a good solution since part of people do not follow what we telling them to do.

Example of artwork that apply reversed psychology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4RxLdbLzI

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=9644

http://www.kongregate.com/games/alexkolozsy/dont-press-the-red-button-part-two

Example of usage and tutorial on webcam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hHedyl7Wls&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUwLwJYeCO4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiXaVtuAPKk&feature=fvwrel

Design approach

This installation will be place on a location that had always have people pass by. One of the suitable location will be the walk path opposite to the DR001 and DR002 in FCM. The interactive artwork will be install at a terminal of the walk path and playback monitor screen will be install in another terminal.  In order to attach the user's attention, 2/3 mirror will be displayed next to the interactive artwork. This can create certain level of contrast and catch users attention. Besides that, we found that people especially female tend to stop and used the mirror to check their appearance when they go through any mirror.  

Top view image showing the set up of the installation in the lacation

Image showing how the installation gonna display