How reciprocity works in Besѣda®
Content
Design
Limitations
Beseda is designed to improve politeness and cooperation. Initially I struggled with the ethicality of presenting the communicator with the option to reciprocate using risky actions - actions which can be disrespectful or otherwise pose a risk to the relationship.
With respect to the confidentiality of the participants, Beseda Duo does NOT interpret the content of what is being said. This has important consequences because context has a major significance in the interpretation of actions.
Requirements
Capture the important aspects of the relational context.
The system should measure the outcome not the performance of the delivery. The subtelty is that the outcome perceived by the interlocutor has implications for the reaction. The outcome does not need to be objectively measured - the interlocutor can provide feedback about it.
To provide the psychological safety for the listener to be honest when they select their perception of the outcome of the action. Because the listener knows that the classification of the outcome is private, s/he selects with clarity which results in proper suggestions.
Research
It is fundamental to how the human mind operates that it attributes meaning to the actions performed by others based on the available information or lackthereof - on assumptions. The Theory of Mind specifically elaborates such assumptions across two dimentions - comprehension and prediction and organises them into orders of recursiveness. For example second order is about what one person percieves about another person. Most uses of this recursiveness end at the third order.
The linguist Paul Grice formulated four cooperative principles. Grice did point out exceptions to the principles which may be unintentional or intentional. If the principle is broken intentionally then the very act of breaking has some hidden, implied meaning - an implicature. For some cultures it is the responsibility of the speaker if that implicature is clear, for other cultures the responsibility is on the listener.
The Principle of (Im)politeness Reciprocity (PIR) by Culpeper & Tantucci is:
to match the percieved or anticipated (im)politeness of other participants, thereby maintaining a balance of payments.
Context, specifically power, is very imporant to the determination of the balance. The authors give an example with a student - teacher relationship whereby there is often formal mismatching which ultimately is a relative match.
Similar to the Gricean exceptions to the principles, mismatching the PIR leads to implicatures.
A source which is more relevant and practical to my goals is the Impact Message Inventory (IMI) - Circumplex. However it is focused on the communicator and not on the interlocutor. That is on the roadmap.
Analysis
There are differences between what a communicator indends to say, how they deliver the message and what the interlocutor comprehends. There is a causal link between that subjective comprehension of the effects and the decision of the interlocutor how to proceed with the conversation.
A bilateral balance of payments reminds me of the theory of motivation which is based on incentives - people behave in ways to gain rewards and avoid losses. Being polite is rewarding because it puts pressure on the interlocutor to reciprocate (a social norm which can be passively agressively abused). Being polite also avoids losing face, respect and the relationship.
Because one of my requirements is to measure the outcomes, the existing circumplexes are not relevant. I need to make my own especially since it should be interactive.
As a side note, the Theory of Mind should be named the Hypothesis of Mind to be accurate and that is how I’m going to be refering to it henceforth.
Justice system
Although judges and the justice system as a whole endorse objectivity as the ideal method to reach fairness, subjectivity remains very important.
For example, determining the intentionality is an important effort especially for criminal justice. The difference between an intentional and unintnetional criminal act is reflected in the sentence conditions. But how to prove that there is or there is no intention? While I was studying criminal law I found the following idea insightful: an intention to achieve some result often requires actions to avoid another result from materialising.
Another example is establishing whether there had been consent or not - for human subject research, for sexual assault cases. However there is no universal definition of consent and when it occurs.
Subjectivity is also imporant for the process. Picture the following phenomena: even when the outcome of a court decision is unfavourable, the judged person can nevertheless be satisfied with the fairness of the procedure which led to that decision. The opposite phenomena also occurs: being satisfied with the judgment but not satisfied with the process which lead to it. The subjectivity is an important factor for justice because it affects the compliance of parties with the decisions.
Implementation
Captured the context by asking the participants prior to each conversation event via a form.
Developed an interactive compass which has eight directions see the user manual below for the compass. I defined the following custom classification labels:
- Control
- Pressured - high negative
- Guided - high positive
- Supportеd - low positive
- Neglected - low negative
- Connection
- Appreciated - close positive
- Line crossed - close negative
- Predisposed - far positive
- Alienated - far negative
While I was researching and developing the feature it became clear that the guardrails compensate for what may seem unethical to suggest.
In fact, the current implementation satisfies the design principle that the complexity of the system should originate from the interaction of its components as opposed to the aggregate complexity of the components.
Because of the limitation of not processing the semantics of the conversation, it is not possible to give very exact suggestions for the reciprocal actions. I worked around this limitation by offering 12 actions. This is four times less options than the entire catalogue of speech actions which is available in the V.I.C.T.O.R.I.A. communication framework. Which should make the decision how to proceed easier and the flow of the conversation smoother.
User manual
After important moves made by you or your interlocutor you are presented with the following compass:
This SVG is available under the Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND
The compass assits you in two ways currently: i) having clarity about your perceptions, ii) alleviating the burden of your decision by offering a narrower amount of choices (you are free to ignore the suggestions and chose from the entire catalogue).
The vertical axis is about control - high means that the interlocutor is being assertive, low means that the interlocutor is giving you more options. You may either welcome (left side) or challenge (right side) that control.
The horizontal axis is about connection - close and far. The elements above the horison are positive, those below it are negative.
What is not shown on this web page is what the output of Beseda is after you confirm your choices. You are presented with a table of 12 buttons which represent speech actions.
Roadmap
Even though reciprocity is about incentives, the compass measures other motivations - arousal and attachment. Further exploration of these motivations is planned in the future.
The context is going to be taken into account inside the logic which outputs the recirpocal suggestions.
The compass is going to be used for dynamically measuring the rapport between the participants in the event. This means that the matching or mismatching between the intention and the outcome would be used to classify the behaviour of the speaker in addition to the current outcome for the interlocutor. Of course, the feedback should still be private in order to allow sincerity.
Changelog
- Jan 3 2025 The compass is no longer applicable after every delivery. It is most relevant when genres cross.