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TY  - THES
AU  - Kies, Alexander Daniel
TI  - Mind over matter: multiperspective findings on brain-computer interfaces' impact in service and technology interactions
PB  - Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
VL  - Dissertation
CY  - Aachen
M1  - RWTH-2024-11399
SP  - 1 Online-Ressource
PY  - 2024
N1  - Veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University 2025
N1  - Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2024
AB  - Human Enhancement Technologies (HET), heralded as the next frontier in service technology, hold the potential to revolutionize human capabilities to augment a person’s physical, cognitive and emotional capabilities beyond their usual limits. Amidst this technological (r)evolution, Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) stand out as a key technology in these developments. BCIs are wearable technology that establishes a direct communication link between users’ brains and external devices by recording and decoding neural activity. As a result, users can turn on smart lights by thinking about it, query databases at the speed of thought or communicate their emotional state to another BCI user via brain-to-brain transmission. Clearly, this development holds important considerations for enhancing the capabilities of Frontline Employees (FLE) on service interactions, user intentions to adopt BCIs for technology interaction or changes in communication due to the extension of communication affordances. Although there is a substantial body of research on the technical aspects of BCI technology, there is a noticeable gap in the literature on the potential BCIs hold for services, user perceptions and communication. Therefore, the four essays of this dissertation offer a multiperspective view on these critical areas. The first paper finds that enhancing FLEs with BCIs for efficiency leads to the 'cyborg effect', where BCI enhancement has a negative impact on service evaluations, mediated by warmth and competence grounded in social cognition theory. We show that framing BCIs for personalization of encounters alleviates the cyborg effect and demonstrate that with increasing service complexity, personalized BCI-enhanced FLEs are perceived as warmer and more competent than their human counterparts. The second paper conceptualizes BCIs’ impact on FLEs’ well-being when the technology is worn as workplace technology. Depending on how BCIs are integrated, FLEs perceive the technology as a tech-resource (i.e. predominant positive impact) or tech-stressor (i.e. predominant negative impact). When FLEs see BCI as tech-resources, they perceive the technology as aiding in task completion, enhancing their motivation, and reducing stress. Conversely, when BCIs are perceived as tech-stressors, FLEs’ perceive to be surveilled by technology, overwhelmed by its complexity that led to the view of BCIs as taxing or exceeding FLEs’ available resources. The third paper aims to understand how regular users perceive this innovative method of controlling their devices, as it offers a more seamless and intuitive way of interacting with technology. Our findings reveal that users consider their self-perception as cyborgs and the device's functionality when deciding on their intention to interact with BCIs, depending on whether the BCI is used for individual or organizational interaction. The fourth paper explores how BCIs offer an unprecedented level of immersion and technological embodiment in the metaverse. This paper establishes a conceptual framework that details enhanced communication affordances using BCIs and discusses the ethical implications of mainstream market BCI technologies.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)11
DO  - DOI:10.18154/RWTH-2024-11399
UR  - https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/998458
ER  -