NYT article on Mechanical Turk cites Asad research

Research done by PhD candidate Sher Afghan Asad and Joydeep Bhattacharya, professor, was mentioned in a Nov. 15th New York Times article on Mechanical Turk.

The experiment used typing speed as a measure of caring. “We’re looking at whether people care about others based on race,” Mr. Asad said. His paper is due out soon. The task where I typed A and B turned out to be part of an economics study about racial discrimination. The researcher, Sher Afghan Asad, a graduate student at Iowa State University, explained that some participants were paid more or less than me, while others were paid nothing but told that their typing would cause another person who was identifiably black or white to be paid.