Smiley research project

[rdos]

I've started a new research project to try to figure out if smileys are interpreted in the same way by Aspies and NTs. I'm already done with phase I in this project were 20 different smileys were presented in Aspie-quiz, and people could give their own interpretations of them. About 190-200 people rated them last week.

The evaluation has been put-up in a wikipedia at my site: http://wiki.rdos.net/wiki/Smiley_test.

What I could use is some help to reduce the number of alternatives. I'm sure there are several explanations that are so similar that they should be merged into one. Anybody can register an acount at the wikipedia and merge entries. This should be done in two ways:

1. Merging entries under "unusual", and moving them to common, and adding (2) after the entry to indicate 2 answers.
2. Merging entries under "common", and marking them with the sum of the answers.

The goal is to have similar number of alternatives for each smiley in phase II, but right now some smileys have many different answers and some have a few very common. People may also add suggestions about which answers to use under "use".

[Sophist]

I've started a new research project to try to figure out if smileys are interpreted in the same way by Aspies and NTs. I'm already done with phase I in this project were 20 different smileys were presented in Aspie-quiz, and people could give their own interpretations of them. About 190-200 people rated them last week.

The evaluation has been put-up in a wikipedia at my site: http://wiki.rdos.net/wiki/Smiley_test.

What I could use is some help to reduce the number of alternatives. I'm sure there are several explanations that are so similar that they should be merged into one. Anybody can register an acount at the wikipedia and merge entries. This should be done in two ways:

1. Merging entries under "unusual", and moving them to common, and adding (2) after the entry to indicate 2 answers.
2. Merging entries under "common", and marking them with the sum of the answers.

The goal is to have similar number of alternatives for each smiley in phase II, but right now some smileys have many different answers and some have a few very common. People may also add suggestions about which answers to use under "use".

One confound I would consider would be how commonly these emotis are used and how many people are familiar with their titles. For instance, smiley 1 is usually called "confused" in BBCode, but I personally don't think it looks confused but more disgruntled or frustrated. But I would wonder how many people would answer simply by the common title of the emoticon rather than what they REALLY think it looks like.

Would be work, but could benefit you to create a new set of smilies to prevent people from just answering from rote memory.

[rdos]

One confound I would consider would be how commonly these emotis are used and how many people are familiar with their titles. For instance, smiley 1 is usually called "confused" in BBCode, but I personally don't think it looks confused but more disgruntled or frustrated. But I would wonder how many people would answer simply by the common title of the emoticon rather than what they REALLY think it looks like.

Yes, I know. However, I plan to use something rather smart in phase II. I will let people rate ALL alternatives instead of just selecting the standard interpretation. That way, there might be very little difference in people's judgements of the standard answer, but they will more likely rate the other alternatives as how they naturally react to them. Because of this method, I cannot let everyone rate every smiley though. That would potentially mean doing 300 ratings, and few people would do this. Instead, I'll probably let everybody rate one random smiley only. It will take longer to get results, but 150 people per day means 7-8 ratings per smiley and day if I let everybody do this before the quiz.

[rdos]

I've now selected 12 options for each smiley. It was hard to achieve on some of them, but I finally succeeded. Next, I'll put this in Aspie-quiz before the questionary. Then I'll let it run for a month or two.

[Sophist]

But what about people who can't decide what it looks like but also know the official title? That's what I've often done if I can't figure out what the smiley is, I take guidance from the title itself.

[rdos]

But what about people who can't decide what it looks like but also know the official title?

At least there is no way to get it's title in Aspie-quiz (the smileys only have a number). Also, part of the instructions say that people should not rate based on what they know about the smiley, but how the naturally interpret it.

That's what I've often done if I can't figure out what the smiley is, I take guidance from the title itself.

So do I, and if the meaning doesn't match what I intend, I won't use it. That's why I only use a few of the standard smileys as many are not described in a way that matches what I would want to use them for.

Anyway, phase II is now running in Aspie-quiz, and I expect it to run for a month or so. Just before the questions a single, random smiley appears, with 12 different interpretations (which are presented in random order) to score on a 1-5 scale. There is also an "?" alternative for people that don't have an idea about the smiley/don't understand the interpretation, and it is checked by default.