The Human Capacity for Collaboration

One way to understand our capabilities as humans is through comparison with other animals.  Various studies have shown that young human children differ from our close primate relatives, chimpanzees, in social intelligence more than in other forms of intelligence.  Chimpanzees do have social skills, but it seems they are less capable than human children when it comes to understanding the intentions of others and using that understanding for collaborative purposes.

As Robert Sternberg has pointed out, intelligence has multiple components.  This raises the possibility that human intelligence has a different structure than that of other primates.  That hypothesis was tested by research reported last year in Psychological Science by E. Herrmann, M. V. Hernández-Lloreda, J. Call, B. Hare, and M. Tomasello.  These researchers used individual differences within a group of 105 human children and within a group of 106 chimpanzees to identify and compare the factors contributing to performance on a wide range of problem-solving tasks.

Herrmann et al. found that the human children showed a separate factor of social cognition, while the chimpanzees did not.  This finding supports the hypothesis that humans not only have superior social skills, but also that those social skills derive from a specialized component of intelligence in humans, while being a consequence of a broader intelligence component in chimpanzees.  In discussing this finding, the authors suggest that humans have "a species-specific 'cultural intelligence,' based on even more sophisticated social-cognitive skills, that underlies their unique ways of cooperating and communicating with others in the cultural group."

It seems that we, as humans, are "wired" for cooperation and communication.  This leads to a feedback loop:  We are social because we collaborate, and we collaborate because we are social.

---

REFERENCES

Hare, B. (2007). From nonhuman to human mind: What changed and why. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 60–64.

Herrmann, E., Call, J., Hernández-Lloreda, M.V., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Humans have evolved specialized skills of social cognition: The cultural intelligence hypothesis. Science, 317, 1360–1366.

Herrmann E., Hernández-Lloreda M. V., Call J., Hare B., Tomasello M. (2010). The structure of individual differences in the cognitive abilities of children and chimpanzees.  Psychological Science, 21(1), 102-110.

Sternberg, R.J. (1999). Successful intelligence: Finding a balance. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 436–442.

Sternberg, R.J. (2004). International handbook of intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675–691.

MonoTrans: Collaborative Language Translation

The Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland has developed MonoTrans, which uses a combination of collective human judgements and human-machine partnership for language translation. According to the research team's website, their goal is a "framework for translation that exploits imperfect technology and limited human abilities in tandem to achieve capabilities neither can achieve alone." One interesting aspect the project is that the human participants need only know one language.

I participated in a translation project using MonoTrans at the International Children's Digital Library via a link provided by Ben Bederson.  Things were set up so I could work on a series of very short tasks at my complete discretion.  There were two kinds of tasks.   In one case, I was shown a sentence from a children's book followed by a proposed paraphrase.  My job was to edit the paraphrase as needed so that it would convey the same meaning as the original sentence.  In the other case, an initial sentence was followed by three potential paraphrases, and my job was to pick the best one.  Each task took only a few seconds, and I could complete as many or as few tasks as I wished.

My experience in this project was minimally collaborative.  I had no awareness of other people doing work similar or complementary to my efforts.  However, I did assume that other such work had or would take place.  That assumption was what made my experience collaborative.

My participation was driven by three goals:

1. I wanted to learn more about the MonoTrans project.
2. I wanted the MonoTrans research effort to be fruitful.
3. I wanted a book that children might enjoy reading to be available in multiple languages.

My first goal was not directly collaborative; I did not believe that anyone else who might participate in the translation project was doing so in order to help satisfy my individual curiosity.  My other two goals were directly collaborative; I knew that my efforts alone would not be sufficient to achieve these goals, but I assumed there would be other participants who shared the same goals.

Collaborative efforts often involve individual goals as well as shared goals, and the pursuit of  individual goals can have a positive, neutral, or negative effect on the success of the collaboration.  In the case of the translation project, for example, knowing more about the MonoTrans project might allow me to do a better job on translation tasks.  On the other hand, spending time learning about the MonoTrans project might take away from the time I would spend on translation tasks.  Achieving positive synergy between individual goals and shared goals can be a stepping stone to the success of collaborative work.

In my earlier post on Collaboration and Mutual Knowledge, I suggested that work is not truly collaborative unless the participants know (or believe) it is collaborative.  In the case of my participation in the MonoTrans project, such knowledge was key.  While I might have completed one or two short tasks just to satisfy idle curiosity, I would not have spent several hours on such tasks without the belief that others were committed to shared goals and working towards them.

Those involved in the management of collaborative projects would benefit from effective tools and techniques for  (1) establishing knowledge of shared goals and efforts towards them, and (2) achieving positive synergy between individual goals and shared goals.

Vox Populi

In these democratic days, any investigation into the trustworthiness and peculiarities of popular judgments is of interest. The material about to be discussed refers to a small matter, but is much to the point.

A weight-judging competition was carried on at the annual show of the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition recently held at Plymouth (England). A fat ox having been selected, competitors bought stamped and numbered cards, for 6d. each, on which to inscribe their respective names, addresses, and estimates of what the ox would weigh after it had been slaughtered and “dressed.” Those who guessed most successfully received prizes. About 800 tickets were issued, which were kindly lent me for examination after they had fulfilled their immediate purpose. These afforded excellent material. The judgements were [unbiassed] by passion and uninfluenced by oratory and the like. The sixpenny fee deterred practical joking, and the hope of a prize and the joy of competition prompted each competitor to do his best. The competitors included butchers and farmers, some of whom were highly expert in judging the weight of cattle; others were probably guided by such information as they might pick up, and by their own fancies. The average competitor was probably as well fitted for making a just estimate of the dressed weight of the ox, as an average voter is of judging the merits of most political issues on which he votes, and the variety among the voters to judge justly was probably much the same in either case.

Thus begins "Vox Populi," written by Francis Galton and published in the scientific journal Nature in 1907.¹  In this short article, Galton reports that the median of the group's estimates was accurate to within 0.8%.   The arithmetic mean of the group's estimate, 1197, was even closer to the ox's actual weight of 1198 lbs.²

Galton's findings have been cited by James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds.  According to Surowiecki's publisher, this book shows how "large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future."  A careful reading shows that Surowiecki's claims are more nuanced.  Relying on the wisdom of crowds works in some cases, but in other cases it does not.

---

¹Galton, Francis (1907) Vox Populi. Nature, 75(1949), 450-451.
²Galton, Francis (1907) The ballot box [Letter]. Nature, 75 (1952), 509-510.

Credits:  Facsimile copies of the articles by Francis Galton were obtained in PDF format from the website galton.org on August 25, 2011.

Collaboration and Mutual Knowledge

If two people, Alice and Bob, are working towards the same goal without awareness of each other's activities, are they collaborating? We might loosely refer to them as such, but "working together" typically means more than working towards the same goal. Yet it does not require that the work be performed in partnership at the same time and in the same place. Alice and Bob can "work together" even though they may be separated physically and temporally. Alice and Bob can "work together" without having been introduced and without knowledge of each other's identity. Alice and Bob can "work together" even though they each speak a different language. So what is the essence of collaboration?

Collaboration most clearly occurs when the act of working together is mutually known.

Mutual Knowledge Defined

Alice and Bob have mutual knowledge¹ of a thing, which I will call X, when:

• Alice knows X, and Bob knows X
• Alice knows that Bob knows X, and Bob knows that Alice knows X
• Alice knows that Bob knows that Alice knows X, and Bob knows that Alice knows that Bob knows X
• and so on, ad infinitum

Thus we can say with confidence that Bob and Alice are working collaboratively if:

•  X=Alice and Bob are working towards a specified goal, and
• Bob and Alice mutually know X

In general, mutual knowledge allows collaborators to co-ordinate their work.  However, there are cases of collaboration based on something less than mutual knowledge.  For example, if Bob is working towards a goal and knows that Alice also is working towards that goal, then Bob might be said to be working in collaboration with Alice, even though Alice herself is not working in collaboration with anyone.  Similarly, if Alice and Bob each are aware that some other party is working towards a specified goal, they may be said to be working collaboratively, even if they are not aware of each other's existence.  Exploring cases like these may help us to understand the collaborative process.

---

¹Herbert Clark and I used the term "mutual knowledge" in: Clark, H. H. & Marshall, C. R. (1978). Reference diaries (pp. 57-63). In D. L. Waltz (Ed.), Theoretical issues in natural language processing (Vol. 2). New York: Association for Computing Machinery. PDF

The term "mutual knowlege" has been used in the same way by other researchers in the fields of cognitive science and linguistics. The terms "common ground" and "common knowledge" are sometimes used to describe the same concept, but these terms have other meanings in other contexts (as does the term "mutual knowledge" in the context of game theory).  Since there is no universal agreement on a term to describe the concept presented above, I will stick with "mutual knowledge."

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to explore the nature of collaboration, and to provide information about tools and techniques that facilitate effective teamwork. I am interested in collaborating groups of all sizes, from two-person teams to large communities, and my current focus is on tools and techniques that allow people to work together while separated in space or time.

Definitions

The words "collaboration" and "quotient" each have multiple meanings.  As used in the title of this blog, they are defined as follows:

col·lab·o·ra·tion  /kəˌlabəˈrāSHən/

The act of working together to achieve a goal.

quo·tient  \ˈkwō-shənt\

The degree or magnitude of a specified ability, quality or characteristic.

Thus "collaboration quotient" refers to the degree or magnitude of those abilities, qualities or characteristics that may be required for the act of working together to achieve a goal.