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Benevolent deception: "The placebo button effect" » English to Malay

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Source text in English

Over the course of many years, without making any great fuss about it, the authorities in New York disabled most of the control buttons that once operated pedestrian-crossing lights in the city. Computerised timers, they had decided, almost always worked better. By 2004, fewer than 750 of 3,250 such buttons remained functional. The city government did not, however, take the disabled buttons away—beckoning countless fingers to futile pressing.

Initially, the buttons survived because of the cost of removing them. But it turned out that even inoperative buttons serve a purpose. Pedestrians who press a button are less likely to cross before the green man appears, says Tal Oron-Gilad of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. Having studied behaviour at crossings, she notes that people more readily obey a system which purports to heed their input.

Inoperative buttons produce placebo effects of this sort because people like an impression of control over systems they are using, says Eytan Adar, an expert on human-computer interaction at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr Adar notes that his students commonly design software with a clickable “save” button that has no role other than to reassure those users who are unaware that their keystrokes are saved automatically anyway. Think of it, he says, as a touch of benevolent deception to counter the inherent coldness of the machine world.

That is one view. But, at road crossings at least, placebo buttons may also have a darker side. Ralf Risser, head of FACTUM, a Viennese institute that studies psychological factors in traffic systems, reckons that pedestrians’ awareness of their existence, and consequent resentment at the deception, now outweighs the benefits.

The winning entry has been announced in this pair.

There were 5 entries submitted in this pair during the submission phase. The winning entry was determined based on finals round voting by peers.

Competition in this pair is now closed.


Entries (5 total) Expand all entries

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Entry #25030 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Malaysian
kalsom akil
kalsom akil
Malaysia
Winner
Voting points1st2nd3rd
245 x41 x22 x1
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Entry #24856 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
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184 x402 x1
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Entry #24934 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
81 x42 x20
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Entry #25379 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Malaysian
Leya Azri
Leya Azri
Malaysia
Voting points1st2nd3rd
502 x21 x1
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Entry #25067 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
201 x20
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