The Empirical Potential of Live Streaming Beyond Cognitive Psychology
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Theoretical Contribution The empirical potential of Live Streaming beyond cognitive psychology Alexander Nicolai Wendt1 1Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Germany Empirical methods of self-description, think aloud pro- in a single frame and a single audio track to the audi- tocols and introspection have been extensively criticized ence, who can choose whether or not to interact with or neglected in behaviorist and cognitivist psychology. the streamer via written real time group chat (Barasch Their methodological value has been fundamentally ques- & Berger, 2014; Franquet i Calvet, Villa Montoya, & tioned since there apparently is no sufficient proof for Bergillos García, 2013; Ko, Chang, & Chu, 2013). their validity. However, the major arguments against self- Despite offering great variety of possible contents description can be critically reviewed by theoretical psy- and contexts in initiating the usage of Live Stream- chology. This way, these methods’ empirical value can be redeemed. Furthermore, self-descriptive methods can ing in psychology, its most pertinent format seems to be updated by the use of contemporary media technol- be the submission of stationary single streamers that ogy. In order to support the promising perspectives for maintain a single content for a sufficiently long du- future empirical research in the field of cognitive psychol- ration of time, especially video games. Video games ogy, Live Streaming is proposed as a viable data source. are structurally characterized by their similarity to es- Introducing this new paradigm, this paper presents some tablished paradigms of experimental psychology, e. g., of the formal constituents and accessible contents of Live problem solving tasks and dynamic decision making. Streaming, and relates them to established forms of em- To investigate dynamic decision making, empirical pirical research. By its structure and established usage, psychology employs situation simulation in virtual en- Live Streaming bears remarkable resemblances to the tra- vironments that are structurally equivalent to video ditional methods of self-description, yet it also adds fruit- games. E. g., Güss, Tuason and Orduña (2015) in- ful new features of use. On the basis of its qualities, the possible benefits that appear to be feasible in comparison vestigate the possibility to observe strategies, tactics with the traditional methods of self-description are elab- and errors by the use of a digital microworld. They orated, such as Live Streaming’s ecological validity. Ulti- state that “complex and dynamic computersimulated mately, controversial theoretical concepts, such as those problem scenarios” (p. 3) serve the investigation of the in phenomenology and cultural-historical psychology, are fields of complex problem solving and dynamic deci- adopted to sketch further potential benefits of the utility sion making. Another example is the study concerning of Live Streaming in current psychology debates. the influence of personality on dynamic decision mak- ing by Nicholson and O’Hare (2014). Just as Güss et Keywords: Live Streaming, think aloud protocol, introspection, al. (2015), they found there research on the use of cognitive psychology, phenomenology computer simulations that contain an interface which is conceptually analogous to video games. This diver- sity of research displays that computer simulations can ive Streaming is a multimedia technology which be used for cognitive sciences in various ways. L originates in the advances of the Web 2.0 (Li & However, Live Streaming offers a more elaborated Yin, 2007). It is constituted by user-created digital opportunity to study the participants’ behavior than video streams that are transmitted via hosting plat- the research based on computer simulations provides forms, such as prominently twitch.tv. Unlike Video- so far because the material obtained by Live Stream- on-Demand formats, Live Streaming is submitted in ing enables a more detailed opportunity of observation real time (Karat et al., 2002). The immense require- and a fruitful analogy to the methodology of think ment of bandwidth capacity did not allow for the re- aloud protocols since they observe individuals in their liable usage of the format for mass audiences before behavior, attending to singular tasks in a compara- the second decade of the twenty-first century. As a ble manner (Funke & Spering, 2006). Yet, there are result, the technology of Live Streaming has to be re- incremental discrepancies between both data sources, garded as completely up-to-date in 2017. Its formal Live Streaming and think aloud protocols, that indi- compounds consist of video and audio recordings of cate an advantage of using data obtained through Live content that usually relates indirectly to the user – Streaming. In this paper, the innovative application of called “streamer” -, e.g. by showing their digital video Corresponding author: Alexander N. Wendt, Department of Psychology, gameplay, or directly containing them, especially us- Heidelberg University, Hauptstr 47-51, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. e- ing webcam recordings. The material is transmitted mail: [email protected] 10.11588/jddm.2017.1.33724 JDDM | 2017 | Volume 3 | Article 1 | 1 Wendt: The empirical potentials of Live Streaming Live Streaming as a data source in experimental psy- as empirical phenomena instead of reliable sources of chology is proposed. This approach will be founded on data. the basis of classical epistemological and methodolog- However, recent comments in psychology question ical debates. the significance of the cognitive paradigm from stand- Recent controversy in experimental psychology has points external to empirical psychology (Hutto, 2008; indicated that the discipline’s current methodologi- Petitmengin & Bitbol, 2009; Zahavi & Gallagher, cal principles cannot guarantee further advances in 2008) as well as internal to the cognitive sciences understanding psychological behavior and experience (Funke, 2014; Jäkel & Schreiber, 2013; Ohlsson, 2012). (Funke, 2014; Jäkel & Schreiber, 2013; Ohlsson, 2012). Subsequently, the critique of self-descriptive methods Within experimental psychology, the currently pre- as developed by cognitive psychology is weakened, and dominant paradigm can be called cognitive psychol- the possibility for the review of previous controver- ogy (Neisser, 2014). Its foundation may be criti- sies within experimental psychology arises. These cir- cized as a “Mechano-Representationalist Approach” cumstances favor not only methodological deliberation (which consists of regarding cognition as informa- about the use of self-descriptive methods, but also dis- tion processing, for example, in computational mod- cussion about psychological theory’s epistemological elling, and indirect realism), and has been questioned foundations. Accordingly, a viewpoint beyond cogni- from external points-of-view, e. g., by phenomenol- tive psychology can advocate the structurally scruti- ogy (Hutto, 2008). Following these critical approaches, nized methods of self-description by considering alter- the methodological exclusion of classical empirical con- native approaches to the objectives of psychology. Yet, cepts – such as introspection or think aloud protocols in order to access this deliberation, a sufficient repre- (Graumann, 1991; Fahrenberg, 2015) – that was rec- sentation of the epistemological status quo is required. ommended by Nisbett and Wilson (1977) may be scru- The epistemological and methodological founda- tinized theoretically. In opposition to the standpoint tions of the debate about self-descriptive methods is of mere positivist methodology, this paper supports characterized by three problems. First, the so-called the re-integration of these classical methods on the ba- subject-object problem. As put by Jaspers (1953, p. sis of a theoretical discussion of the discipline’s princi- 25, translation by the author), “when we regard our- ples. In order to enrich epistemological debates within selves as the object, we become another one for our- psychology, theoretical standpoints from a number of selves while at the same time maintaining to be the other fields are adopted, such as cultural-historical thinking I itself”. The problem’s origin resides within psychology and phenomenology. Crucially, the paper the separation of subject and object made in indirect proposes that the methods’ usability can be enhanced realism. Whilst the dualistic assumption of a separa- by combining them with recent technological develop- tion between the perceiving subject and the perceived ment, namely Live Streaming. object is maintained, the self appears to be urged into a chimerical position of subject and object at the same time. Still, this statically egological conception of con- The epistemological debate sciousness, as it has been established in Cartesian tra- dition, cannot claim an exclusive prevalence. Consider The intuitive relevance of self-descriptive access to here e.g. Gurwitsch (1941), who demonstrates the ex- one’s own or others’ cognition has been palpable istence of various non-egological conceptions of con- throughout the history of both naïve and empirical in- sciousness in the phenomenological province in Husserl terest in behavior and experience. In the early concep- or Sartre. The subject-object problem can only be seen tual stages of empirical psychology, these approaches as a disqualification of self-descriptive methods if the have been most regularly used and initially appeared standpoint of indirect