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>One main reason why no direct replication has been conducted before now, is that the proposed underlying psychological basis for the CASA Theory suggested that

>One main reason why no direct replication has been conducted before now, is that the proposed underlying psychological basis for the CASA Theory suggested that a short period of time (e.g., 30 years) should have no influence on the effect. Specifically, the original authors postulated that the reason we respond to social computers as if they have an awareness is because our brains are not evolving at the same rate as technology; our brains are still adapted to our early ancestors’ environment4. I find this hypothesis... shockingly naive, bordering on psuedoscientific. Brains are there to learn behaviors faster than evolution can. Neuroplasticity (as well as just the general experience of being human) means that brains can un- and re-learn things as needed rather than being stuck with the same static behaviors that, say, a plant might have. No surprise the CASA theory got falsified, and good on the researchers for doing the necessary falsification work.

amelius 3y ago
Perhaps they were talking about test subjects that haven't yet been exposed to computers.
- mrdatawolf 3y ago
  "Nass and Reeves make a point of stating in their methodology that all the participants 'have extensive experience with computers … they were all daily users, and many even did their own programming'"
KMnO4 3y ago
My goodness, how did that pass peer review? Postulating that evolution is strictly the result natural selection (ie our ancestral chain is solely responsible for what we are capable of doing) is such an archaic view. We don’t have to “randomly mutate and wait for the inferior genes to drop out of the gene pool” to see human adaption, and there are a plethora of counterexamples to remove any doubt.
patcon 3y ago
I say this with utmost respect (and a little bit of devil's advocacy heh :) -- I might suggest your critique is a little too self-assured. Disclaimer: Not a neuroscientist, but a biochemist *shrug* We recognize faces easily due to deep wiring. Some linguistic behavior is deeply rooted as well, e.g., our ability to be immersed in written or visual narratives of experiences that are not our own ("aesthetic illusion") is an evolved extension of "play". Both of these are related to deep brain structures, not just culture. (Though HOW we play is certainly also in the realm of culture.) Lots of conclusions about brains can be rooted in there being really foundational neural structures that can't simply be rewired by culture. Just because culture exists, it doesn't mean that conclusions rooted in biology are irrational. And assuming the effect was reproduced over many cultures (which perhaps it was not) then it would be fair to assume it was rooted in some deeper system. tldr- I feel you are falling for hindsight bias. Respectfully, I suggest we're all best-served to navigate this world by cultivating a healthy dose of humility, and I say that more for all the self-assured readers upvoting you for making a dunk. I'm guessing the truth is somewhere in between :)
- acomar 3y ago
  except no such neural structure has ever been found. humans have been using tools for longer than we've been human -- without solid evidence that this tool is interpreted as a social actor, based on real neuroscience, this kind of claim rooted in an evolutionary argument is psuedoscience. people have been making arguments from evolution to say all kinds of nonsense things since Darwin (like justifying racial hierachies). which neural structure is posited to cause us to humanize our tools? if anything, the historical evidence points in the opposite direction -- that people objectify far more than they humanize, even when the cost is measured in hundreds, thousands, or millions of lives. that's merely an observation, not a hypothesis or a claim about what people will do or about what they are capable of doing. we ought to humanize more often.
  - danaris 3y ago
    "We haven't yet found a specific neural structure for recognizing faces" is far from evidence that no such structure exists. Our understanding of the brain still has massive gaps in it, and I can testify from my own experience working for a psychology & neuroscience department (which includes one person particularly specializing in perception, from the very basic "light hitting the optic nerve" stage all the way to object categorization and recognition) that we still have a lot to learn in this area specifically. It may very well be that there isn't a brain structure dedicated to this, and that would be fascinating, too! But to denigrate the people doing their best to understand this stuff 30 years ago as "pseudoscientific" just because they made an assumption about how plastic the brain was without our benefit of 20/20 hindsight is very much uncalled-for.
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
> Brains are there to learn behaviors faster than evolution can. Reflexes whether innate, enforced, or purely learned are basically impossible to modify without either conscious attention or a lot of training. I presume the CASA proponents were arguing that these social responses are akin to social reflexes. Plants "learn" too. https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study-shows-plants-can-learn-from-experience-69794 https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study-shows-p... The mechanistic hypothesis being: > Plants may lack brains and neural tissues but they do possess a sophisticated calcium-based signaling network in their cells similar to animals’ memory processes.
- fredgrott 3y ago
  It is not just that as plant cell signaling is how animals got neurotransmitters through evolution. In fact many plants have neurotransmitter analogs due their signaling needs through evolution.

amelius 3y ago

Perhaps they were talking about test subjects that haven't yet been exposed to computers.

mrdatawolf 3y ago
"Nass and Reeves make a point of stating in their methodology that all the participants 'have extensive experience with computers … they were all daily users, and many even did their own programming'"

KMnO4 3y ago

My goodness, how did that pass peer review? Postulating that evolution is strictly the result natural selection (ie our ancestral chain is solely responsible for what we are capable of doing) is such an archaic view. We don’t have to “randomly mutate and wait for the inferior genes to drop out of the gene pool” to see human adaption, and there are a plethora of counterexamples to remove any doubt.

patcon 3y ago

I say this with utmost respect (and a little bit of devil's advocacy heh :) -- I might suggest your critique is a little too self-assured. Disclaimer: Not a neuroscientist, but a biochemist *shrug* We recognize faces easily due to deep wiring. Some linguistic behavior is deeply rooted as well, e.g., our ability to be immersed in written or visual narratives of experiences that are not our own ("aesthetic illusion") is an evolved extension of "play". Both of these are related to deep brain structures, not just culture. (Though HOW we play is certainly also in the realm of culture.) Lots of conclusions about brains can be rooted in there being really foundational neural structures that can't simply be rewired by culture. Just because culture exists, it doesn't mean that conclusions rooted in biology are irrational. And assuming the effect was reproduced over many cultures (which perhaps it was not) then it would be fair to assume it was rooted in some deeper system. tldr- I feel you are falling for hindsight bias. Respectfully, I suggest we're all best-served to navigate this world by cultivating a healthy dose of humility, and I say that more for all the self-assured readers upvoting you for making a dunk. I'm guessing the truth is somewhere in between :)

acomar 3y ago
except no such neural structure has ever been found. humans have been using tools for longer than we've been human -- without solid evidence that this tool is interpreted as a social actor, based on real neuroscience, this kind of claim rooted in an evolutionary argument is psuedoscience. people have been making arguments from evolution to say all kinds of nonsense things since Darwin (like justifying racial hierachies). which neural structure is posited to cause us to humanize our tools? if anything, the historical evidence points in the opposite direction -- that people objectify far more than they humanize, even when the cost is measured in hundreds, thousands, or millions of lives. that's merely an observation, not a hypothesis or a claim about what people will do or about what they are capable of doing. we ought to humanize more often.
- danaris 3y ago
  "We haven't yet found a specific neural structure for recognizing faces" is far from evidence that no such structure exists. Our understanding of the brain still has massive gaps in it, and I can testify from my own experience working for a psychology & neuroscience department (which includes one person particularly specializing in perception, from the very basic "light hitting the optic nerve" stage all the way to object categorization and recognition) that we still have a lot to learn in this area specifically. It may very well be that there isn't a brain structure dedicated to this, and that would be fascinating, too! But to denigrate the people doing their best to understand this stuff 30 years ago as "pseudoscientific" just because they made an assumption about how plastic the brain was without our benefit of 20/20 hindsight is very much uncalled-for.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

> Brains are there to learn behaviors faster than evolution can. Reflexes whether innate, enforced, or purely learned are basically impossible to modify without either conscious attention or a lot of training. I presume the CASA proponents were arguing that these social responses are akin to social reflexes. Plants "learn" too. https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study-shows-plants-can-learn-from-experience-69794 https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study-shows-p... The mechanistic hypothesis being: > Plants may lack brains and neural tissues but they do possess a sophisticated calcium-based signaling network in their cells similar to animals’ memory processes.

fredgrott 3y ago
It is not just that as plant cell signaling is how animals got neurotransmitters through evolution. In fact many plants have neurotransmitter analogs due their signaling needs through evolution.