For instance, scholars who examine this phenomenon in face to face interactions make reference to the encoding and decoding process. That is, the manner in which internal states and volitions are represented nonverbally, and the means by which observers make sense of such behavior. On a practical level, MUDs simplify these processes drastically. Encoding is accomplished by typing, decoding by reading. While slightly downturning the corners of the mouth may be interpreted alternately as a frown, a smirk, or nausea in physically copresent situations, MUD conversants must choose to either type "frown", "smirk", or "emote feels nauseous".
One might suspect that this leads to relationships in which nonverbal behavior is never accidentally displayed or misinterpreted, a socially utopian scenario bereft of misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Unfortunately, this is not so. In the first place, a simple textual "frown" certainly has a less complex meaning than the frown that we see in person, the subtle frown which is accompanied by the slightly raised eyebrows, the welling tears, the closed posture, and the lowered head.
There is another source of ambiguous information portrayal on MUDs, that which stems from idiosyncracies of the preprogrammed "feelings". For example, on Paradox II, there exist numerous optional adverbs that one may attach to an enacted feeling command. As described elsewhere (chapter 3, "Occulesics and facial expressions"), the "ehelp" command accesses the entire array of the adverbs for a given feeling, which may then be abbreviated to the first distinct letter(s) of the adverb. A brief transcript illustrates:
>ehelp wave **wave (frantically, byebye, hello, goodnight, farewell) >wave g You wave goodnight.The idiosyncracy mentioned above occurs when one isn't careful to use the distinct letter(s) of the desired adverb. For example, one may type "wave f", assuming that this will produce "[your name] waves farewell.". However, a closer look at the array of available adverbs reveals that "wave f" will actually insert the adverb "frantically", a potentially undesirable result. (The solution, of course, is to type "wave fa" when one wishes to wave farewell.) Other examples of this idiosyncracy abound, especially with feeling commands which have a longer list of available adverbs (such as "smile", with its eleven available adverbs), or those which were simply programmed carelessly. For example, a frequently enacted feeling command is "raise", which, when directed at another user, produces the output, "You raise an eyebrow at John." A related command is "lower", which, when directed at another user, produces "You lower John's eyebrows.", while the intention was clearly to produce "You lower your eyebrows at John."; this error has since been repaired.
Patterson (1990) makes reference to three types of information provided by nonverbal behavior: emotional reactions, interpersonal affect, and personality characteristics. Each of these types will be briefly reviewed in light of MUDs below.
Emotional reactions are difficult to conceal in face to face interactions. On MUDs, however, the primarily intentional nature of nonverbal behavior makes the concealment (or deceptive portrayal) of emotional reactions a few mere keystrokes away. In the words of one user, "There's nothing easier than to simply type "smile" [to feign interest] when someone blathers on about nothing for a while,".
Nonverbal behavior can also indicate certain personality attributes to observers. Frequent, animated gestures can indicate a dramatic personality, while a closed posture and soft voice may signify a more reserved nature. While the means by which such information is provided and interpreted are different on MUDs, the personality characteristics are still discernible. For instance, some users attach a "smiley" (q.v.) after all or nearly all of their utterances, portraying a congenial, jovial personality (which, incidentally, also makes it easier to make harsh statements, as the smiley softens the blow). Naturally, these perceived characteristics may not correspond to the characteristics of the person as they interact in face to face relationships, and may be more appropriately discussed in the next section, "Presenting identities and social control".
Interpersonal affect refers to that information which people endeavor to use to answer personal ponderings such as "How much does she like me?". Many of the correlates of face to face behaviors that people use to resolve such questions can be used in MUD environments as well. For instance, mutual gaze (see chapter 4,"Expressing intimacy"), and touch frequency and type (see chapter 3, "Haptics") are used by MUDders in the same ways as one might use such information in a face to face interaction to ascertain how much one is liked (or despised).
Patterson (1990) makes note of one final way in which nonverbal behavior may provide information, which is encapsulated by facial feedback theory. Under this theory, one's nonverbal behaviors prove to be self-informative about one's internal states. In other words, when John realizes that he is smiling as he speaks with Mary, he may then conclude that he feels positively towards her (to use Patterson's example). If true at all when applied to MUDs, it is only so in a limited sense. That is, one may be smiling while sitting at the keyboard, and then decide to type "smile".
While the forms that nonverbal communication must take in text based MUDs are different (as described in chapter 3), information is still provided, as evidenced by the examples above. Though less information is actually available, this function is nevertheless effectively and meaningfully enacted in MUD environments.
Besides the simple solution of short utterances, there is rarely an explicit attempt to regulate MUD interaction. Rather, multiple threads of meaning develop, rendering some utterances irrelevant, breaking up others into multiple topics, and generally complicating things. MUDders become quite adept at maintaining these multiple threads, and it is not uncommon to be involved in as many as five conversations at once.
However, there are times that interactions simply must be regulated. For instance, when one participant in a conversation doubles or triples the typing speed of the other, it can become difficult for the slower typist to produce relevant remarks at all. In these situations, a few conventions were observed. To yield a turn, users occasionally emoted "listens." (which produces the output "[your name] listens."), in order to designate the end of their turn. In another case, a dyad used the simple utterance "go" in order to let the other know that they were done speaking.
Even these conventions work poorly however, when there is a relatively large group in a room all attempting to speak at once. In such situations, creative solutions can be created such as the microphone example described earlier (see Chapter 3, "Proxemics").
So, while some attributes of MUD environments make regulating interaction difficult, others make it less crucial to do so at all, at least in the sense that conversants regulate interactions in face to face talk. Without doubt, MUD turn regulation requires some exposure and practice before it feels natural (or even comprehensible) to new users, but once the idiosyncracies of the environment become intuitive, interaction can be lively, organized, and multi-threaded.
For instance, behaviors related to posture (such as the forward lean, postural openness, and body orientation) are less meaningful in MUD environments because these behaviors (which are concurrent with speech in face to face conversations) would have to be enacted separately from utterances. In this sense, such behaviors could be termed ambient, and in the intentional domains that are MUDs, the ambient must generally be made explicit. This, combined with the fact that distances within a MUD room are of indeterminate import (see chapter 3, "Olfactics, proxemics, and environmental cues") makes the postural cues less than crucial to expressing intimacy.
What MUD users use frequently to express intimacy are the preprogrammed "feelings" available on most MUDs. The fact that these commands can be directed at another user corresponds to the significance of gaze as an affect intensifier. For example, to merely smile (i.e., to type "smile", so that others in the room see the output "[your name] smiles.") implies no occulesic phenomena whatsoever, while smiling at someone implies virtual eye contact, a comingling of experience, which can serve to either enhance or negate intimacy; in short, the implied eye contact of directed MUD feeling commands can act as an affect intensifier, just as can be found in face to face interactions. For example, "Imhotep smiles." is less intimate than "Imhotep smiles at you.", the latter implying the directed gaze. Likewise, "Aarchon glares." is not as threatening as "Aarchon glares at you."
One of the most celebrated ways of expressing intimacy in virtual environments, including MUDs, is MUDsex (also called cybersex, Tinysex, and MUDscrumping). This phenomenon involves two (or more) participants typing explicit depictions of intimate actions, as well as comments and reactions to such actions. Popular media have predictably seized upon this facet of virtual environments, portraying it alternately as the ultimate in safe sex, alarmingly deviant behavior, or a questionable substitute for real life intimacy (c.f. Turkle, 1996, Stryker, 1996, Rigdon, 1995). While any one of these depictions may contain a kernel of truth in a given situation, it can at least be generalized that MUDsex can have emotional results analogous to actual sex, ranging from relationship enhancement, to lust and excitement, jealousy and betrayal, and the feelings of violation that can result from MUDrape. Different users consider these behaviors as having varying degrees of consequence, ranging from the brash (e.g., "Hell, I'd rather rape on a MUD, where nobody gets hurt"), to the cautious (e.g., "The experiences and emotions are often real. The tricky part is knowing how seriously each party is taking it"), to full reification (e.g., "The Internet is as much real life as anything else. They may just be words on the screen, but there are real people behind those words and they can be hurt just as badly in VR [virtual reality, i.e., MUDs] as RL [real life]").
When intimacy is expressed and accepted (validated) on MUDs, romances can develop. As in the physical world, these romances are characterized by spending large amounts of time together and increased mutual gaze (as described above)and touching. Gifts may be exchanged, promises made, and even weddings take place. An example of such a wedding can be found in Appendix 6.
As explained in Chapter 1, the death of one's character can be of varying consequence on adventure MUDs. As a general rule, it is something to be avoided, as it most often represents a setback of many hours of character development and experience. As such, MUDders share a common bond in their avoidance of death, and generally extend sympathies when someone is slain. On Paradox II, when someone dies, a message is sent to all other users, a fact which provoked the following flurry of friendly remarks:
With regards to the appropriateness of the expression of intimacy in MUD environments, the social mores will vary slightly from MUD to MUD, but always roughly parallel "real life". For instance, just as it is inappropriate to grope or kiss a complete stranger with no prompting, so too is it the case on MUDs. In general, MUDs were found to be somewhat "looser" than mainstream Western society; a hug might be appropriate after a just few minutes of MUD interaction, for example. Most MUDs (including the ones specifically studied) have a stringent harassment policy to deal with users who insist on inappropriately expressing their affection.
Most MUD users agree that relationship development seems to proceed very quickly on MUDs. The various preprogrammed "feelings" (such as "smile", "hug", "massage", etc.) are certainly effective tools in expressing intimacy, but it is MUDders' frequent and spirited use of such commands as well as the hyperpersonal phenomena (q.v.) inherent in text-based environments that create this situation.
In the social theaters that are MUDs, every action that produces output presents an image or identity. On MUDs that stress role playing, this even more true. Consider the following comment from a MUDder who frequents a MUD which is based in modern times:
For instance, each MUD user has a unique set of conversational habits. Some users observed included a "smiley" after every utterance. Others "spoke" with atrocious grammar and spelling, while others use perfect English. One user consistently included emoted action as part of his utterances (e.g., "Manty says: What's up? grin", or "Manty says: I don't think so smirk"). All of these nuances vary in their level of intentionality, but they do present a certain image to observers.
One colorful character on Paradox II actually aliased (as per the UNIX alias command, MUDs allow users to create "shortcut keys" for long commands) a special emote in order to present a certain image. This character was of the ogre race (generally thought of as big and dumb) and belonged to a social group known as The Barbarian Horde. In order to present himself to others within such a context, he would frequently enact his aliased command which produced the following output for others in the room: Vail picks a louse from his loins and brings it to his lips. This emoted action, produced solely for the benefit of other users presents at least two images simultaneously. Within the MUD, it reinforces the character "Vail" as a grunting, uncouth Barbarian. On a broader level, it says something about the person at the keyboard as well; it might lead an observer to believe that he (in this case, the author knows that the person behind Vail is male) enjoys a degree of role-playing and has a rich (and perhaps twisted) imagination.
With regards to social control, that is, the deliberate use of nonverbal behavior to influence someone, naturally there are ways in which this can be accomplished on MUDs, many of which have direct correlates in face to face interaction. Some characters may ply others with gifts of valuable items in the hopes of future returns, for instance. Threats may accomplish the same goal, as well. Formal requests may be phrased in less casual language (with the requisite grammar, punctuation, and spelling, of course), in order to inject some dignity and decorum into the interaction, as well as showing some respect for one's conversational partner (of particular use when speaking to a MUD superior).
These various examples, explanations, and conjectures show that interpersonal nonverbal behavior can indeed be managed on MUDs for such goals as image portrayal, social control, and impression management. Indeed, when it comes to intentional depiction of a certain mood or disposition, it seems that it is much easier to seem genuine on MUDs. A related feature involves the fact that when gender is self-selected, many people are tempted to "gender-swap", a phenomenon which will be treated in Chapter 5. So, while intentional depictions of specific emotions may be more easily represented on MUDs, the poignancy, subtlety, and delicate negotiations which are a part of face to face interaction may be blunted in text based environments, due to the restricted "bandwidth" of text.
Affect management means adjustments in nonverbal behavior which can modify, intensify, or dampen the experience of emotion. This includes wringing one's hands when nervous as well as jumping up and down when excited. These behaviors are generally thought of as unintentional, unconscious adaptors. Hence, when applied to MUDs, the term cannot mean the same thing, due to the intentional nature of MUD behavior. This is not to say that MUDders don't choose to represent behaviors describable as affect management. For instance, the "feeling" command "blush" can be enacted when a user wishes to portray embarrassment. The bride at a MUD wedding was observed "checking herself in a mirror", clearly an attempt to represent nervous vanity. Likewise, one of the most popular commands used to represent happiness is the "bounce" command, which produces the output "[your name] bounces around the room happily".
So, in order to further approximate human interaction in a text based environment, and, in the process, further reify the community of users, MUDders choose to represent behaviors which are almost universally unintentional in "real life".
Common examples of "facilitating service and task goals" are the behaviors that one engages in with one's doctor or dentist, including intimate touch and close visual scrutiny. Described in this way, one would think that these behaviors would ordinarily only be engaged in with a romantic partner. Clearly, though, it is the nature of the services being delivered, not a personal relationship, which necessitates or allows the behaviors.
Given the fact that adventure MUDs are quite explicit in their status as games, manifestations of this function were scarce. However, a couple of examples were discovered which approximated the service-task function on MUDs.
On adventure MUDs, each character can carry multiple objects (such as swords, shields, food and drink, etc), each of which has weight. If too many heavy objects are carried, the character becomes encumbered, and cannot lift any more. Likewise, no one may give the character any additional items. In these cases, the character will generally drop less valuable items so that they may be given the new item. In other words, in order to accomplish the task of one character giving an item to another, it is sometimes the case that the receiver must drop an item before receiving the new item, which produces output such as "Vail drops an empty tankard".
On Paradox II, a social group (called a "guild") exists called the Barbarian Horde. One skill gained by joining the Barbarians is the ability to heal oneself (or another) of injuries through "primitive medicines". These primitive medicines are actually represented as including the ancient practice of bloodletting, necessitating the removal of any worn armors or clothing that the injured might be wearing. In this sense, to be treated by a Barbarian is akin to a modern trip to the doctor.
Another example is to be found in the "rescue" command. This is a combat-specific command which allows two people to do battle with a single foe and take turns being hit by that foe by rescuing each other, thus prolonging the time for which they can survive the current onslaught. When the rescue command is enacted during combat, output is as follows:
While affect management and task-service goal functions may be of different consequence or in scant supply on text based adventure MUDs, they are still of some communicative import. Implications of these differences, especially those arising from issues of intentionality, will be discussed in Chapter 5.
Table of Contents
Regulating Interaction
Regulating interaction is a term that refers to speakers' efforts to construct a reasonably orderly flow of conversation. This is accomplished through an elaborate system of turn taking and yielding behaviors, conveniently consolidated by Patterson (1990). For instance, when a listener is about to attempt to take a turn as speaker, s/he may exhibit some or all of the following behaviors:
As the speaker nears a point in her turn at which she is prepared to relinquish the floor, the following behaviors are common:
On MUDs, almost all of the above is completely impertinent (except perhaps item 4 and 6). This near complete dissimilarity in the way interaction is regulated is due to certain peculiarities of text based environments, adroitly documented by Cherny (1995a), including:
To make up for these peculiarities, MUDders keep their utterances rather short; Cherny (1995a) reports an average range of 5 to 13 words per utterances in conversations on MUDs. This increases the feeling of interactivity for participants, as users' commands consequently produce output more frequently. Keeping utterances short, especially when broken up at strategic points (points at which more information is implied, such as "Well, I think that-"), also lets listeners know that the speaker is not idle and not finished speaking. A final consequence of generally short utterances is that they allow more opportunity for backchannel and repair (Cherny, 1995a).
Expressing Intimacy
Expressing intimacy is the nonverbal function which allows one to enhance (or decrease) levels of involvement, affection, inclusion, depth, and trust in a relationship. Burgoon et. al. (1989) suggest that intimacy can be expressed in behaviors such as decreased conversational distance, forward lean, direct body and facial orientation, postural openness, frequent gesturing, touch, and increased and directed gaze. While some of these behaviors are readily representable (and represented) on MUDs, others are less so, with more stylized actions complementing the array of potentially communicative acts.
>> Paradox II mourns the tragic death of Raptor.
>>[Gossip] Magnafix: ewps
>>[Gossip] Talrion: damn. ;(
>>[Gossip] Xiamin: urk?!!!!!!
>>[Gossip] Dairon: NNNONOOOOO@
>>[Gossip] Bobo: ack
>>[Gossip] Death: nooooooooooooooo
>>[Gossip] Manty: eek
>>[Gossip] Xiamin pounds wall in frustation at raptors death
>>[Gossip] Bobo pounds xiamin in frustration at raptors death
> [Gossip] Talrion kills the fortuneteller for good measure.
[Gossip] Xiamin pounds himself in frustation at raptors death.
In this example, Raptor's death elicited empathy and sympathy from the other users present. The [Gossip] line was used, as it represents a channel of communication to which everyone has access.
Social control and Presenting Identities and Images
While Patterson (1990) treats these two categories as separate functions, it was determined that the distinction is less meaningful in text based environments. In face to face interactions, one exerts social control upon one's conversational partner, and presents identities and images for third party observers. On MUDs, however, due to the occulesic and proxemic phenomena inherent in text based worlds (q.v.), all users present in a room are potential conversants; as such, the distinction of which are conversants and which are third party observers becomes difficult to make.
I once had a cop char[acter] that had just tried to save an MT EMT
[Montana Emergency Medical Technician] from a dog attack and failed
miserably (*the dog was in actuality, a werewolf*). Things went very
badly, and then I got the news that my IC ["in character", i.e.
virtual, not real life] little brother was found murdered in the
sewers, I went to the bar and drank my sorrows away and contemplated
taking out my service pistol and shooting myself. [the role-playing
w]as quite fun for me and the others involved.
TrekMUSE was the only MUD specifically studied which encouraged role playing to the extent revealed by the comment above. However, as soon as one presents oneself as a persona (recall, "that through which the sound comes") on a MUD, one begins playing a role to some degree.
Affect Management and Facilitating Service and Task Goals
These last two nonverbal communicative functions have been combined into a single section for two reasons. The first is that Patterson (1990) is quite explicit about their "speculative" status, and about how "relatively little" empirical research exists for either. Second, neither function is particularly salient to MUD phenomena, for reasons of intentionality in the former case, and the explicit purpose of adventure MUDs in the latter, i.e., gaming.
You jump in front of [your friend's name]!
[Foe's name] attacks you!
This is specific behavior, represented as nonverbal, physical action, which advances a mutual goal (defeating the foe).
Proceed to Chapter 5
©
John Masterson