Liu, Z Kersten, D Knill, DC Dissociating stimulus information from internal representation–a case study in object recognition. Vision research. 1999; 39(3): 603-12.

However, I’m very confused about them calling the figure on the left an object. This is a collection of objects in 3D space – making it a scene. I’m not sure that this nullifies their model – but this is not object recognition.

People should really start using ideal observer analysis with scene perception…

Here’s a demo for you to try out (I use this to teach Psych 100). The correct answers are below the fold.

Which is the more common cause of death in the USA?

1.
A) Asthma
B) Meningitis

2.
A) Breast Cancer
B) Stomach Cancer

3.
A) Lung Cancer
B) Motor Vehicle Accidents

4.
A)Influenza (the flu)
B) Stomach Ulcer

The correct answers are…

6x as many die from Asthma than from Meningitis
3x more die from stomach cancer than breast
4x more die from lung cancer than car accident
2x more than all types of accidents combined!
2x more die from stomach ulcers than flu

How many did you get right? Let us know in the comments.

Also… just fyi
In the last three days Swine Flu has killed 1 baby while the Real Flu(tm) has killed nearly 300.

Also…
If you love the swine flu as much as I do you might like this t-shirt.

Hi Jason,

This is really the first time around that I’ve tried the blogging thing. I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while but having 2 classes with 50 people in each meant a blog would be a bit unwieldy. If there are that many people in the class a discussion board is a much better choice (like on blackboard or something). If you have under 20 people or so it becomes more manageable. The most straight forward way to do the blogging is to create a post each week (or at some other interval) and then that’s it. You then need to hope that students comment on each others posts or actually require them to do so (which now that I’m writing this I realize I should have done that). I’m actually a bit unhappy about this style since it isn’t really collaborative and that’s a big benefit of the blog. Something you might consider is having some portion of the class write posts and the other portion comment on them – and then switch it around the next time. This would work particularly well for a larger class. With my 3 honors students it wouldn’t be that great.

As far as their instructions for posts they were just told to pick a peer reviewed journal article and start by summarizing it and then criticizing it in some way (alternative explanations, better experiments, etc.). This didn’t always happen though since they don’t have a great idea of what a good peer reviewed journal is. Next time I would have more oversight into what they are posting about to make sure its quality science. On the other hand they have written about some interesting things. I also have them doing something different for a couple posts and you can see that assignment here:

Now that you have each explored a number of aspects of each of your topics I have some more specific things for you to do for the next couple posts.

For your next post would like each of you to find a popular press article about a journal article that you are interested in and read both the press article as well as the primary source. You should give a general summary and then discuss what the press article gets right & wrong (or misrepresents). For the primary article find something that the press article has missed that you think is important and discuss it.

If you have problems finding something checkout The New Yorker, the NYTimes science section, LATimes, Salon, The Atlantic, anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Oliver Sacks (though they usually write about more than 1 article). I’m also here if you need any help.

For the post after that I would like each of you to attempt to write a short popular press article about another cool journal article (preferably one that doesn’t have something already written about it). Try to find something ‘sexy’ (well at last as sexy as science can be). This doesn’t have to be any longer than your usual posts.

Finally, for your last post of the semester (Friday April 24th – or really anytime during that following weekend) I would like you to write a summary post of what you’ve learned (overarching themes, as well as specifics). It would also be great if you’d offer any suggestions as to what would have been a more valuable experience for this James Scholar project.

There we go!

Now that you know what we’re talking about you can check out a podcast that I’m particularly interested in called Armed With Science.

Here’s the schtick:

Research and Applications for the Modern Military, is a weekly webcast that discusses various applications of science and technology to military operations, and the cutting-edge scientific research and development sponsored by various defense offices. We will be interviewing scientists, administrators, and operators to educate and inform our listeners about the importance of science and advanced technology to the modern military.

I always consider the usefulness of my research in the real world and what I keep coming back to is military applications… I feel a bit guilty for that. Maybe this podcast will convince me otherwise.

I’ve found the blog to be a very wonderful way of getting students to explore the literature. It gets them writing as much as the standard end of the semester term paper as well as allowing a constant communication between me and the blog poster as well as the other honors students. This is great – both peer review and guidance by me. It allows students to both explore the literature broadly (which is perfect for psych 100), it also allows me to offer guidance in both the literature they are looking for as well as their thought processes. There are clearly areas that I would have to work on in the future – perhaps integrating the rest of the class into the commenting or offering credit for posting, even if they aren’t honors students. I would also like to have more interaction between the different honors students – maybe even in person. This has most definitely been an experiment that I’ve given very few guidelines for the students on. In the future I’ll create more specific guidelines after I do a complete review of how this semester went.

One guilty pleasure of mine though with this blogging thing is that it is less perceived time spent (both for me and the students) since it is split across many weeks as well as the opportunity to do the blogging anytime and anyplace.

If you are interested in reading some of the posts of my students I would very much encourage you to head on over to thoughtsonpsychology.blogspot.com and do some reading and even better…commenting!

I would also appreciate any comments you have on the value of this kind of writing vs. straight up term paper writing as well as comments on how to make this better in the future.

Here’s some highlights of the student writing:

Within this research they looked to answer the question of whether clothing my effect our views of attraction between humans. In the study they took 95 participants who listened to prerecorded audio tapings that had 30 suggestions relative to marketing a perfume. As these audio tapings were heard a slide of a women (6 models were used – 3 in attractive attire -3 in unattractive attire) were presented in front of the individual, from this image the participant would rate the female on the competence, work comfort, and sociability.

From the data that they collected, they received results which were expected by many of the experimenters. The females that were dressing in more attractive attire were perceived to be more positive compared to women that were dressed in unattractive attire. [link]

This journal entry, by Douglas R. Oxley and colleagues, finds that political views may have a biological basis. This experiment tested 46 adults in Lincoln, Nebraska with strong political views. Participants filled out information about themselves and then were hooked up to machinery that measured their blinks and skin conductance.

Skin conductance “has been closely linked with the psychological concepts of emotion, arousal, and attention.” It represents sympathetic activity. Harder blinks indicate a heightened “fear state.”

Results showed that “participants whose policy positions suggest more concern for protecting the social unit were distinguished by an increase in skin conductance when threatening stimuli were presented. Those with “measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War.” [link]

It has come to be an accepted fact in psychology that rejected or “unpopular” individuals often exibit certain anti social tendencies, such as elevated levels of aggression and assertiveness in respect to their peers. The study reffered to in the article “Enmity in males at four developmental levels: cognitive bases for disliking peers” attempts to determine whether or not age is a factor in the reasons males have for disliking other males.
Four groups of males: preschoolers, primary school children, preadolescents and yond adults, were asked questions about two people, their best friend and the person of the same sex that they dislike the most. They were asked aboout both someone they like and someone they dislike so that they would not place undue emphasis of the person they dislike. They were asked why they disliked their nonfriend so much and why they liked their best friend so muc so that there could be a sort of comparison. [link]

From Jimmy Fallon:

Last night, Michael Showalter (from Stella, Wet Hot American Summer, The State, your dreams) made a cameo on the show. He and our head writer, A.D. Miles, played a couple of Columbia grad students on spring break. Things got pretty scandalous!

Really funny… but totally off base. It’s more like Girls Gone Wild… I promise!

-via everyday scientist-

Straight from XKCD…

I had this exact same reaction.

Now that we’re on the topic. I don’t like federal money going to pay bonuses but seriously… this money was promised long ago and it’s already been given out. Using the tax code to take it back? Wow this is seriously a real cluster @#$!

Here’s a little snippet from People:

President Barack Obama’s lighthearted Thursday night appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show didn’t leave everyone clutching their sides with laughter.

Obama’s comments to Jay Leno about his low bowling score – in particular, an off-the-cuff remark that it was “like Special Olympics or something”
….
In a statement issued Friday, White House spokesman Bill Burton said, “The President made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics. He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world.”

Seriously… give me a break. Mentally challenged people (is that the right term?!) bowl much better than Obama if they are in the Special Olympics. People’s sensitivity to this kind of thing appalls me. I appreciate a president who can sit down and be a real (well as real as one can get as a person on national television who is the leader of the free world). I also bet that some of the things that Obama and his wife say in the bedroom is much more offensive than this

Stop holding presidents to some unrealistic standard. They are people as well.