IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015 - 76

technical object into sub-functions. This functional
decomposition leads to a segmented evaluation of
performance, which does not allow the capacities of a
technical object to be extensively compared with those
of the human body. The performance of these technical objects is thus generally simplistically evaluated as
the capacity to achieve the function for which it was
defined. This performance, although "local," tends to
be deformed or generalized when it is subjected to the
process of scientific and technical popularization. Thus
the fact that artificial intelligence beat a human mind in
a game of chess induced the (false) notion that artificial
intelligence performs better than man, in the minds
of a part of the public. It is this same deformation
that leads the public to fantasize the real capacities of
robotic objects, by extrapolating and generalizing their
temporary capacity to carry out a task more efficiently
than a human being.
Prostheses, like other technical objects, incur this
phenomenon. The debated concept of "the augmented
man" is, for example, a direct consequence of this
phenomenon in the sense that existing augmentations,
which are the subject of much thought, are far from
being complete "augmentations," but are rather "local"
augmentations, only effective for very specific tasks.

There has been very little conceptual
change in prostheses since the
beginning of the previous century.

Oscar Pistorius can thus run faster than most of mankind
with his carbon blades (Cheetah from Ossur® [28]), but
he needs "ordinary" anthropomorphic prostheses to be
able to stand without having to jump on the spot, and to
be able to walk slowly without scraping the ground.
This popularization of a localized, generalized technical performance and the forgotten versatility that is
the primary characteristic of the human body induces
a certain amount of perplexity in amputees and tends
to increase their dissatisfaction with their prostheses.
Flicking through a catalogue of lower limb prostheses can give a good idea of how far this phenomenon
extends: in the hour in which the term augmentation is
used in relation to lower limb prostheses, different prostheses are required to be efficient in different domains
(running, walking, and climbing, for example).

Level of Perception of Technical Objects
Another influential phenomenon relates to differences
in the perception of technical objects between different groups within the population, as well as within each
group. The prosthesis as a technical object can be
viewed from many angles. Thus if we study the semantics used by the different groups who have contact with
prosthetics to qualify this technical object, large differences can be observed. The following results were
obtained during interviews with amputees fitted with
prostheses in the Regional Institute of Physical Medicine
and Rehabilitation (IRR) in Nancy.
The user group uses expressions such as "practicality, slow, heavy, disabling, expensive, and restrictive,"
particularly if the interviewer is identified as belonging
to the technical staff group. This latter group uses more
generic terms such as "performance, fragility, manufacturer, guarantee, possible adaptations, etc." which could
characterize any type of machine. Lastly, when the "public" is asked to discuss prosthetics, the themes that arise
generally converge around futuristic and technological
aspects, quite frequently with passionate opinions oscillating between fascination and perturbation (see the
passionate debates aroused by the ambient cyborg myth
and the lag between augmentation and technical reality).
All the same, and this is the important point, perceptions vary greatly within the same group. A person's
personal history, their amputation, family, social, and
professional life are all elements that affect the definition
and shape of a person's relationship with his/her prosthesis. Thus, within the group of prosthetic-users, some will
view their prosthesis as part of their body, and others as a
quite separate tool (particularly manual workers or those
in the primary sector). There is also ambivalence between
its nature as a "mask" and the "stigma" that is quite present, particularly for those with aesthetic prostheses. Lastly,
some patients describe their prosthesis as an external
entity, sometimes a partner, sometimes an adversary, with
which they are engaged in a sort of "social" relationship.
The public perception of prosthetics - largely
deformed by the recurring concept of augmentation -
errs between fascination and rejection, and this study of
course is a reminder of the complexity and the ambiguity of the social representation of disability, underlined in
the 1990s [29]. Above and beyond the technical object,
and in the case of prosthetics, much more than for
other technical objects which interact with the body, it is
normality which is questioned. Thus, even if it is tempting to organize and to categorize the phenomena of representation, the large number of studies carried out on
labeling theory [30] and on stigmatization reminds us of
the limits of such simplifications.
The validity of categorizing people in groups, as is
sometimes proposed in simplifications of prosthetic

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june 2015

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