The Modified Imitation Game: A Method for Measuring Interactional Expertise

The study of the sociology of scientific knowledge distinguishes between contributory and interactional experts. Contributory experts have practical expertise—they can “walk the walk.” Interactional experts have internalized the tacit components of expertise—they can “talk the talk” but are not able to reliably “walk the walk.” Interactional expertise permits effective communication between contributory experts and others (e.g., laypeople), which in turn facilitates working jointly toward shared goals. Interactional expertise is attained through long-term immersion into the expert community in question. To assess interactional expertise, researchers developed the imitation game—a variant of the Turing test—to test whether a person, or a particular group, possesses interactional expertise of another. The imitation game, which has been used mainly in sociology to study the social nature of knowledge, may also be a useful tool for researchers who focus on cognitive aspects of expertise. In this paper, we introduce a modified version of the imitation game and apply it to examine interactional expertise in the context of blindness. Specifically, we examined blind and sighted individuals’ ability to imitate each other in a street-crossing scenario. In Phase I, blind and sighted individuals provided verbal reports of their thought processes associated with crossing a street—once while imitating the other group (i.e., as a pretender) and once responding genuinely (i.e., as a non-pretender). In Phase II, transcriptions of the reports were judged as either genuine or imitated responses by a different set of blind and sighted participants, who also provided the reasoning for their decisions. The judges comprised blind individuals, sighted orientation-and-mobility specialists, and sighted individuals with infrequent socialization with blind individuals. Decision data were analyzed using probit mixed models for signal-detection-theory indices. Reasoning data were analyzed using natural-language-processing (NLP) techniques. The results revealed evidence that interactional expertise (i.e., relevant tacit knowledge) can be acquired by immersion in the group that possesses and produces the expert knowledge. The modified imitation game can be a useful research tool for measuring interactional expertise within a community of practice and evaluating practitioners’ understanding of true experts.

FRI0030 MORE THAN HALF OF NEWLY DIAGNOSED RA PATIENTS ARE NOT CONVINCED OF THE NECESSITY OF RA MEDICINES: ASSOCIATIONS WITH RA CHARACTERISTICS, SYMPTOMS, AND FUNCTION IN THE CANADIAN EARLY ARTHRITIS COHORT (CATCH)

Background:

Although DMARDs are essential for early aggressive control of RA to reduce symptoms and disability, medication adherence is variable. Beliefs about the necessity of medications and safety concerns predict adherence and are modifiable.

Objectives:

To examine associations among RA medication necessity beliefs and concerns, sociodemographics, RA characteristics, symptom level and function in newly diagnosed RA patients.

Methods:

Baseline data were analyzed from participants in the Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort (CATCH) who enrolled between 2017-2020 and completed the Beliefs about Medicine Questionnaire (BMQ) and PROMIS-29. All met ACR1987 or 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria and had active RA at enrollment. BMQ Necessity (N) and Concerns (C) scores were classified ashigh(≥20) orlow(<20) and categorized into: Accepting (↑N ↓C); Ambivalent (↑N↑C); Sceptical (↓N↑C); and 4) Indifferent (↓N↓C). Groups were compared using ANOVA and chi-square tests.

Results:

The 362 patients were mostly white (83%) women (66%) with a mean (SD) age of 56 (15), symptom duration of 6 (3) months, and 32% were obese (BMI≥30). More than half (56%) were DMARD-naive or minimally exposed. Mean N and C scores were similar between men and women; 54% were classified asIndifferent, 31%Accepting, 9%Ambivalent,and 6%Sceptical.

As compared to those classified asAccepting, moreIndifferent participantssmoked, had a healthy weight, lower TJCs, and trend for lower CDAI (Table). Groups were similar by sociodemographics, symptom duration, and DMARD/steroid use, except fewerIndifferentpatients received MTX.Indifferentpatients had statistically and meaningfully lower patient global, depression, anxiety, fatigue and pain interference, and higher function and participation scores (Table).

Conclusion:

Many new RA patients had low medication necessity beliefs and concerns, and only 31% had high necessity beliefs and low concerns around diagnosis. Lifestyle and lower CDAI, TJCs, symptoms and functional impacts were associated with RA medication indifference. Identifying medication indifference can prompt discussions about medication beliefs/concerns to facilitate shared decision-making and adherence.

Disclosure of Interests:

Viviane Ta: None declared, Orit Schieir: None declared, Marie-France Valois: None declared, Glen Hazlewood: None declared, Carol Hitchon Grant/research support from: UCB Canada; Pfizer Canada, Louis Bessette Grant/research support from: AbbVie, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, UCB Pharma, Consultant of: AbbVie, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, UCB Pharma, Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Diane Tin: None declared, Carter Thorne Consultant of: Abbvie, Centocor, Janssen, Lilly, Medexus/Medac, Pfizer, Speakers bureau: Medexus/Medac, Janet Pope Grant/research support from: AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly & Company, Merck, Roche, Seattle Genetics, UCB, Consultant of: AbbVie, Actelion, Amgen, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eicos Sciences, Eli Lilly & Company, Emerald, Gilead Sciences, Inc., Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sandoz, Sanofi, UCB, Speakers bureau: UCB, Gilles Boire Grant/research support from: Merck Canada (Registry of biologices, Improvement of comorbidity surveillance)

Amgen Canada (CATCH, clinical nurse)

Abbvie (CATCH, clinical nurse)

Pfizer (CATCH, Registry of biologics, Clinical nurse)

Hoffman-LaRoche (CATCH)

UCB Canada (CATCH, Clinical nurse)

BMS (CATCH, Clinical nurse, Observational Study Protocol IM101664. SEROPOSITIVITY IN A LARGE CANADIAN OBSERVATIONAL COHORT)

Janssen (CATCH)

Celgene (Clinical nurse)

Eli Lilly (Registry of biologics, Clinical nurse), Consultant of: Eli Lilly, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Speakers bureau: Merck, BMS, Pfizer, Edward Keystone Grant/research support from: AbbVie, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc, Gilead, Janssen Inc, Lilly Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi-Aventis, Consultant of: AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca Pharma, Biotest, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Celltrion, Crescendo Bioscience, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc, Genentech Inc, Gilead, Janssen Inc, Lilly Pharmaceuticals, Merck, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Sandoz, UCB., Speakers bureau: Amgen, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., Janssen Inc., Merck, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi Genzyme, UCB, Vivian Bykerk: None declared, Susan J. Bartlett Consultant of: Pfizer, UCB, Lilly, Novartis, Merck, Janssen, Abbvie, Speakers bureau: Pfizer, UCB, Lilly, Novartis, Merck, Janssen, Abbvie

User Experiences of Social Support From Companion Chatbots in Everyday Contexts: Thematic Analysis

BACKGROUND

Previous research suggests that artificial agents may be a promising source of social support for humans. However, the bulk of this research has been conducted in the context of social support interventions that specifically address stressful situations or health improvements. Little research has examined social support received from artificial agents in everyday contexts.

OBJECTIVE

Considering that social support manifests in not only crises but also everyday situations and that everyday social support forms the basis of support received during more stressful events, we aimed to investigate the types of everyday social support that can be received from artificial agents.

METHODS

In Study 1, we examined publicly available user reviews (N=1854) of Replika, a popular companion chatbot. In Study 2, a sample (n=66) of Replika users provided detailed open-ended responses regarding their experiences of using Replika. We conducted thematic analysis on both datasets to gain insight into the kind of everyday social support that users receive through interactions with Replika.

RESULTS

Replika provides some level of companionship that can help curtail loneliness, provide a "safe space" in which users can discuss any topic without the fear of judgment or retaliation, increase positive affect through uplifting and nurturing messages, and provide helpful information/advice when normal sources of informational support are not available.

CONCLUSIONS

Artificial agents may be a promising source of everyday social support, particularly companionship, emotional, informational, and appraisal support, but not as tangible support. Future studies are needed to determine who might benefit from these types of everyday social support the most and why. These results could potentially be used to help address global health issues or other crises early on in everyday situations before they potentially manifest into larger issues.

Why Women Wear High Heels: Evolution, Lumbar Curvature, and Attractiveness

Despite the widespread use of high-heeled footwear in both developing and modernized societies, we lack an understanding of this behavioral phenomenon at both proximate and distal levels of explanation. The current manuscript advances and tests a novel, evolutionarily anchored hypothesis for why women wear high heels, and provides convergent support for this hypothesis across multiple methods. Using a recently discovered evolved mate preference, we hypothesized that high heels influence women's attractiveness via effects on their lumbar curvature. Independent studies that employed distinct methods, eliminated multiple confounds, and ruled out alternative explanations showed that when women wear high heels, their lumbar curvature increased and they were perceived as more attractive. Closer analysis revealed an even more precise pattern aligning with human evolved psychology: high-heeled footwear increased women's attractiveness only when wearing heels altered their lumbar curvature to be closer to an evolutionarily optimal angle. These findings illustrate how human evolved psychology can contribute to and intersect with aspects of cultural evolution, highlighting that the two are not independent or autonomous processes but rather are deeply intertwined.