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Perceived Access to Self-relevant Information Mediates Judgments of Privacy Violations in Neuromonitoring and Other Monitoring Technologies

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Abstract

Advances in technology are bringing greater insight into the mind, raising a host of privacy concerns. However, the basic psychological mechanisms underlying the perception of privacy violations are poorly understood. Here, we explore the relation between the perception of privacy violations and access to information related to one’s “self.” In two studies using demographically diverse samples, we find that privacy violations resulting from various monitoring technologies are mediated by the extent to which the monitoring is thought to provide access to self-relevant information, and generally neuromonitoring did not rate among the more invasive monitoring types. However, brain monitoring was judged to be more of a privacy violation when described as providing access to self-relevant information than when no such access was possible, and control participants did not judge the invasiveness of neuromonitoring any differently than those told it provided no access to self-relevant information.

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Notes

  1. A principal axis factor analysis extracted a single factor, accounting for 63.71 % of the overall variability in the nine items. The resulting composite factor score represents a single measure of the extent to which participants believe that a monitoring type provides access to self-related information.

  2. We were able to track timing data for Experiment 2 therefore participants who completed the experiment in fewer than 240 s (a pre-determined minimum time cutoff based on pilot testing) were excluded from our analysis.

  3. Prior to our manipulation participants were administered a brief pretest measure of preconceived notions about the capabilities of current neuromonitoring technology. A box-plot of this pretest suggested that participants were less likely to believe that neuromoniting technology has the capability to monitor self-related information--such as likes or dislikes--than they were to believe physiological information--such as signs of disease--could be monitored. (A repeated-measures ANOVA on these pretest items is not particularly useful as the large sample size resulted in nearly every item being significantly different from every other item.)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, MC3051, Tempe, AZ, 85287-3051, USA

    D. A. Baker & N. J. Schweitzer

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Evan F. Risko

Authors
  1. D. A. Baker
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  2. N. J. Schweitzer
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  3. Evan F. Risko
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to D. A. Baker.

Appendix A

Appendix A

List of 15 possible monitoring types from Experiment 1

As part of a study, researchers have developed a system for monitoring…

  1. 1.

    a person’s heart activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the person’s heart rate.

  2. 2.

    a person’s blink activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the person’s blink rate.

  3. 3.

    a person’s internet activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the person’s internet usage.

  4. 4.

    a person’s head orientation in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the direction a person’s head is facing.

  5. 5.

    a person’s spending activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the person’s purchase history.

  6. 6.

    a person’s movement in a way that would provide them with a constant record of how a person is moving their body.

  7. 7.

    a person’s gaze orientation in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the direction a person’s eyes are facing.

  8. 8.

    a person’s gaze orientation in a way that would provide them with a constant visual record of what the person is looking at.

  9. 9.

    a person’s written communication in a way that would provide them with a constant record of anything the person’s writes or types.

  10. 10.

    a person’s respiratory activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the person’s breathing rate.

  11. 11.

    a person’s body orientation in a way that would provide them with a constant record of the direction a person’s body is facing.

  12. 12.

    a person’s brain activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of which areas of the brain are active.

  13. 13.

    a person’s speech in a way that would provide them with a constant record of anything the person’s says aloud.

  14. 14.

    a person’s geographical position in a way that would provide them with a constant record of where a person is physically located.

  15. 15.

    a person’s muscle activity in a way that would provide them with a constant record of which muscles a person is using.

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Baker, D.A., Schweitzer, N.J. & Risko, E.F. Perceived Access to Self-relevant Information Mediates Judgments of Privacy Violations in Neuromonitoring and Other Monitoring Technologies. Neuroethics 7, 43–50 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-013-9181-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-013-9181-0

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