| NSF Org: |
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 21, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | September 21, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1514192 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Paul Huth
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | September 15, 2015 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2020 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $595,197.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $595,197.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
5000 FORBES AVE PITTSBURGH PA US 15213-3890 (412)268-8746 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
5000 Forbes Av Pittsburgh PA US 15213-3890 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
Human beings have evolved to detect and react to threats in their physical environment, and have developed perceptual systems selected to assess these physical stimuli for current, material risks. In cyberspace, the same stimuli are often absent, subdued, or deliberately manipulated by malicious third parties. Hence, security and privacy concerns that would normally be activated in the offline world may remain muted, and defense behaviors may be hampered. While it is not possible to directly test such conjecture, it is possible to test the impact that "visceral" stimuli in the physical world (that is, physical, sensorial cues processed non-consciously rather than with conscious awareness) have on security and privacy behavior in cyberspace. We use a stream of human subjects experiments to investigate the impact of three sets of stimuli over security behavior and privacy behavior in cyberspace: 1) sensorial stimuli (such as auditory, visual, or olfactory cues of the physical proximity of other human beings); 2) surveillance stimuli (such as cues that one is being observed); and 3) environmental stimuli (such as inherent characteristics of the physical environment in which a subject is located). Security behavior is operationalized in terms of individuals? ability to recognize and react to cyber attacks. Privacy behavior is operationalized in terms of individuals? propensity to disclose personal or sensitive information.
The goals of the experiments are twofold. From a positive perspective, the goal is to understand whether privacy and security decision making online is made harder by the absence of sensorial stimuli that humans have evolved to use to detect and react to threats in the physical world. From a normative perspective, the goal is to examine whether physical stimuli can be used to ameliorate security and privacy behavior in cyberspace. For instance: Can stimuli indicating physical proximity to others trigger changes in security and privacy behavior in cyberspace? If so, can the same stimuli be leveraged and exploited to design privacy and security interventions aimed at helping end users? Findings from this research may inform the work of security and privacy technologists, providing insights that go beyond the technical security of hardware and software infrastructure, and that help revisit the strategies and assumptions underlying those systems. Finally, by exposing conditions under which technology alone may not guarantee cybersecurity, this research can actively inform the work of policy makers.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The primary goal of this project was to explore the influence that various types of “stimuli,” including some processed unconsciously, can have over security and privacy behavior in cyberspace. Understanding the role of both offline and online stimuli on online privacy and security choices is especially important in today’s ever-increasing mediated world, where individuals use stylized and visually complex communication technology to interact with each other. Several empirical studies under this project sought to investigate factors that may significantly affect, and in some cases even disrupt user behavior and affect user welfare in cyberspace.
As an example, one of the experiments conducted under this project focused on the impact that “offline”, physical, sensorial stimuli (such as seeing, hearing, and detecting the presence of others) may have on cyberspace behavior. The experiment found that individuals do in fact react, online, to offline sensorial cues indicating the presence of others, even when those cues do not carry relevant information about potential consequences associated with privacy choices - and thus, from a normative perspective, may not be expected to influence privacy concerns and resulting behaviors. Vice versa, the absence of certain sensorial cues, in cyberspace, can in fact alter – and in some cases even impair - privacy (as well as security) decision making in a digital age.
Over the years, studies under this project tackled an array of stimuli and their impact of privacy behavior and other online behaviors under different sub-streams of research, including stimuli associated with social media interruptions, stimuli linked to emotional reactions, and targeted (or “personalized”) stimuli.
Last Modified: 10/13/2020
Modified by: Alessandro Acquisti
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