On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:02:22 -0700, Christopher D. Green wrote: >Now here's a social psychology experiment (of sorts)
More like performance art. >that seems to contradict a lot the nasty stuff about (lack of) bystander >intervention. I'm not sure about this. >They put a small robot that could only roll in straight lines on the >"mean streets" of New York City. A point that isn't made on the website is that the robot, though released on public streets, is essentially going around the urban "campus" of NYU. Most of the people shown in the pictures are likely to be NYU college students or students from other colleges. Even the scene on the sidewalk (with DELION Deli sign in the background) is misleading. This is on a stretch of Broadway and to your left is an entire block of NYU buildings (looks like the picture was taken in front of the Tisch School of Arts). This is also an area where NYU students wait for NYU shuttle buses to different parts of the "campus" (e.g., some of the student dorms located more uptown as well as the NYU Medical Center). As for the route taken through Washington Square Park, the western edge that the robot took (heading east on 4th street) it passed by the Catholic Center at NYU, the student union (where some "meanness" occurred recently when a floor was taken over by some "radical" students), and the Bobst Library. The park is also going through extensive renovation (e.g., moving the fountain to align it with Fifth Avenue, new paths and lawns, etc.). Usually, there is a police van/communications center on 4th St, close to where the robot began. In short, these "mean streets" are probably "mean" only if one is a new student to NYU from some other out of town place and is wondering why everyone is doing so much walking instead of driving (Doh!). However, I can think of some locations that would serve as more appropriate "real-life" settings, comparable to the situations that, say, Stanley Milgram used in his studies of whether urbanites would help someone in need. >Out of the top of the robot stuck a >pennant stating its intended destination. As the robot got stuck >(against curbs, in potholes, under benches, etc.) total strangers would >come along, read the pennant, extricate the robot from its predicament, >and point it in the right direction. Apparently, they didn't lose a >single robot. "Total strangers"? Not exactly. Indeed, one wonders what role the perception of fellow students (and possibly faculty) might have had on how people responded. Having the robot roll down a street with two churches on it also may have been a confound. They should have tried this on Wall Street but I'm afraid that the robot would have been "captured" and blown up because of its "perceived threat". >http://www.tweenbots.com/ -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
