Category: Humor • Language • Technology
Straight from Neatorama:
A research team at Hebrew University in Israel has developed a computer program that can recognize sarcasm with about 77% accuracy:
To create such an algorithm, the team scanned 66,000 Amazon.com product reviews, with three different human annotators tagging sentences for sarcasm. The team then identified certain sarcastic patterns that emerged in the reviews and created a classification algorithm that puts each statement into a sarcastic class.
The algorithms were then trained on that seed set of 80 sentences from the collection of reviews. These annotated sentences helped the algorithm learn what sorts of words and patterns distinguish sarcastic remarks - those that mean the opposite of what they literally convey, or that convey a sentiment inconsistent with the literal reading.
Wow that's so totally interesting and amazing!
(I'll bet my comment easily falls into the 33% of sarcasm that the computer doesn't detect)
Posted by The Omnibrain at 2:46 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books • Humor • Neuroscience • Popular Culture • Psychology • Research • Vision • Weird
I'm sure by now you've heard about inattentional blindness, as I've posted about it a million times since this blog began. It's an amazing effect! It shows us that we really aren't as aware of the world as we think we are. If you haven't heard about it by now I encourage you to go right here to try out a demo on yourself! Inattentional blindness isn't the only time this happens though, there are a number of cognitive illusions that make you realize you're a lot stupider than you thought you were.
There's a brand new book out today by the semi-discoverers of inattentional blindness (well maybe they didn't discover it but they sure did make it famous). Chris Chabris and Dan Simons have a book called the Invisible Gorilla that is a really interesting read. I'm about halfway done and besides all the stuff I already knew - dude, I study this stuff - I've learned a lot about a lot of other cognitive illusions. The book is slightly reminiscent of blink and freakonomics except there is some real scholarship going on. Chris and Dan still can't get away from the citations (which are thankfully end notes). I'm actually very glad of this since when I'm reading books about science I'm always wondering, "where the hell did they get that idea from?!"
I encourage everyone to go out an buy at least 1 copy of their book (and preferably 7, one for each day of the week). You can find it right here:
Here's some more info on what you can find in the book from the authors:
Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself-and that's a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, we use a wide assortment of stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to reveal an important truth: Our minds don't work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we're actually missing a whole lot.
We combine the work of other researchers with our own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, we explain:
* Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail
* How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it
* Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes
* What criminals have in common with chess masters
* Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback
* Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters
Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We're sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our mind with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we're continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement.
The Invisible Gorilla reveals the numerous ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it's more than a catalog of human failings. In the book, we also explain why people succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. In short, we try to give you a sort of "x-ray vision" into your own minds, with the ultimate goal of helping you notice the invisible gorillas in your own life.
You can also check out the Authors webpage/blog @ invisiblegorilla.com. There's some interesting posts up there.
Posted by The Omnibrain at 1:53 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Psychology • Video • Vision
This year I was asked to participate in the Illusion of the year contest and it was a blast! There were a bunch of great illusions and I had no idea who was going to win it until the votes were counted. There's even some great video of me acting in one of the presentations. Anyway here's a video of one of the contestants using me - can you guess who I am?
Keep reading for a video of the 1st place winner and links for the 2nd and 3rd place winners!
Read on »
Posted by The Omnibrain at 6:54 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animals • Art • Psychology • Vision
The monkey business illusion.
Did it work on you?
This video is great especially since most people studying psychology have seen the original gorilla video. This even worked on a group of the most important vision scientists in the world at a recent Vision Sciences Society annual meeting.
Also, check out the invisiblegorilla.com for more videos and posts by Dan Simons!
Posted by The Omnibrain at 1:44 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Food
I'm seriously considering dropping science (although the methods might come in handy) and taking up food. Check out my latest creation - a cold smoker:
The idea here is that you generate smoke in the green, steel, eggish shaped thing - and then pipe it into the 55 gallon barrel where some salmon, ham, or other yummy food is waiting. The smoke is cooled to 80-90 degrees so that the food is not actually 'cooked'. Typically the smoking lasts for 8,12, or even 48 hours. I'm seriously looking forward to the results.
What would you do if you quit your career? What's your 'Plan B' ??
Posted by The Omnibrain at 10:53 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category:
Help two nerds win a crate and barrel wedding contest!
Our love story.
We met in a hallway at the Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chris was on his way to the lab where he researched birds and I was working as a scrub for a famous professor. We realized that we both loved wine, food, music, dogs and all things of a dorky nature. Game on!
Three important details about our Ultimate Wedding.
1. Chris' parents are doctors who immigrated from Sri Lanka to New York in the late seventies. I am wearing a sari for the wedding as part of tradition. I hope the wedding is really colorful and a good mixture of all of our beliefs. 2. We want our friends to have a good time at our wedding! It is happening in northern WI, and there will be wine, food, and kids and dogs are allowed. Oh, and canoeing. 3. Dancing is a super important part of the reception. There might be some serious dance offs.
Our everyday dream day.
Wake up, walk the dog to the bakery, get some pastries and coffee. Go to the farmer's market and get ingredients for dinner. Go somewhere: the arboretum, a new hike, the lake, some where. Try to convince the dog to swim in the lake, which will not be possible. Come back home. Take a nap. Make dinner. Or watch Chris make dinner while I drink wine. Repeat.
I have no idea what they win... buy hey... They're nerds!
Posted by The Omnibrain at 2:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Health • Humor • Psychology
It seems that if you eat on a full brain you are more likely to make poor eating decisions.
So here's the schtick via Weighty Matters:
Simple experimental design. Take 165 undergraduate students and enroll them in a study you tell them is about memory and where as part of their reward for inclusion, they'll be given a snack. Ask half of them to memorize a 2 digit number and the other half a 7 digit number and once they've memorized their numbers ask them to go into a second room where they are faced with their snack choice - either a piece of chocolate cake or a cup of fruit salad. Track choice and then follow up with an exploration of the students' perceived reasons for making the choice.
The results?
Read on »
Posted by The Omnibrain at 11:17 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor • Video • Weird
I've been fascinated by chatroulette since news of it has been floating around the internet for the last month or so. Not fascinated enough to actually go on it... but fascinated anyway. This is by far the coolest thing I've seen coming from it so far.
Twitter on the other hand... what a honking piece of crap - what's the point?!?!?!?
Posted by The Omnibrain at 11:02 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
