Casual Fridays
dmunger | April 24, 2009On Tuesday I got to see Greta and Nora performing with the Davidson College Symphony Orchestra. As usual, they did a fantastic job playing and the orchestra received a standing ovation. One of the pieces they played was BedÅich Smetana's tone poem "The Moldau," which, as the conductor explained, took us on a journey across what is now the Czech Republic. We heard two streams converging into a river, a peasant dance, the city of Prague, and finally the end of the river as it empties into a large one. Or did we just think that's what we heard because that's what the conductor told us to hear?
A…
dmunger | April 17, 2009Last week I created a survey that was truly humbling. The goal was to find out if time and money invested in preparing for the SAT and other standardized college admission tests is worth it. The first thing I learned from the study was that Cognitive Daily readers are incredibly smart -- much smarter than me, for example. Take a look at this graph of high-school class ranking among survey respondents:
As you can see, nearly half of survey respondents were in the top 4 percent of their high school class, and over 70 percent were in the top 10 percent. Only 15 percent of respondents ranked…
dmunger | April 10, 2009It's test-taking season for high-school juniors in the U.S. Most students take the SAT test, which claims to assess mathematical, verbal, and writing ability to help the college/university admissions process. The pressure to succeed on this and other tests has led to the creation of a whole cottage industry, selling books, software, classes, and even summer camps devoted to getting better scores on the tests. Some parents spend thousands of dollars preparing their children to take the test, in addition to the hundreds they might spend to take and retake the test, searching for the elusive…
dmunger | April 3, 2009Last week we asked our readers about their reasoning behind decisions they and others make about personal security. Are some of us just paranoid? Or do the decisions we make about security and safety reflect the real threats around us?
Actually, since this is just a casual study, we're not going to measure real threats -- we'll have to use a proxy: people's own perceptions of the threats facing them in their community. How safe do our readers feel their communities are? Here's how they rated the crime rates where they live:
Nearly 80 percent of respondents said crime rates were average or…
dmunger | March 27, 2009Most of us believe that the things we do to stay safe make a lot of sense. But some other people clearly are being unreasonably careful. One might even call them "paranoid." But is there a general consensus about how to stay safe in the modern world? Or does it depend -- on your age, where you live, or just your own personality quirks? Maybe this little survey will help us find out.
Click here to participate
As usual, the survey is brief, with 20 or so questions. It should take just a few minutes to respond. You have until Thursday, April 2 to complete your response. There is no limit on the…
dmunger | March 27, 2009Here's a bonus bit of analysis from last week's Casual Fridays study. In addition to asking respondents how familiar they were with our selection of stories, we also asked them to describe some detail of the story that was independently verifiable, like how the story ended.
The reason we did this was to double-check the self-reported responses. If everyone had said they were familiar with the Fox and the Grapes fable, but then half of the respondents got the ending wrong, we would have had a reason to discount the self-reported responses. As it turned out, for most of the stories, people who…
dmunger | March 20, 2009Last week's Casual Fridays study was inspired by an event in Greta's classroom. She had assumed that most of her students would be familiar with the story of the Fox and the Grapes, which goes as follows:
ONE hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the things to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again…
dmunger | March 13, 2009Last week Greta was telling her class about a study that related to a well-known story. She started off the discussion with a reference to the story, indicating that "of course you all have heard the story of _______" (I can't tell you the name of the story now because it's the subject of our study).
As you may have guessed by now, she was greeted by a roomful of blank stares. She was surprised, because she grew up hearing this story and assumed that her students would have heard it as well. So the question is, why? Do the common stories we all know go in and out of fashion over the course of…
dmunger | March 6, 2009Last week we asked readers to rate two hypothetical job candidates for a communications assistant position in a large neuroscience lab. The task seemed to pit education against experience. Everyone saw some version of these two resumes:
(click for a larger image)
Emily was Magna Cum Laude at Harvard, while Suzanne was an average student at a regional state college. But Emily appeared to have never held a paying job, padding her resume with activities like "Botanical Garden Society President" and "Varsity Tennis." Meanwhile, Suzanne had held an impressive internship and had three years of…
dmunger | March 6, 2009After taking a first look at last week's survey responses, I realize there's one more question I should have asked. So if you have a couple minutes, whether or not you participated last week, could you respond quickly to this short survey? You'll just be asked to look at two resumes and answer two quick questions about each.
Click here to take survey
Thanks!
Update: Okay, got what I need. You can still take the survey if you're curious, but I'm not going to tabulate any additional data.
dmunger | February 27, 2009There's a lot of advice online about what makes a good resume, and in these tough economic times, getting a job is tougher than ever.
So this week, I thought we'd test some different resumes and see which factors are most important in picking a good candidate. You'll be asked to read two resumes very carefully, then answer a few questions evaluating each candidate. I've changed just a few items on each resume, so make sure you read them closely. Then next week we'll see which factors matter the most.
Click here to participate
As usual, the study has just a few questions, and should only take…
dmunger | February 20, 2009This week's Casual Fridays study was inspired by this comment on the Random Number thread:
When a freshman at Penn State too many years ago to count, the intro psychology prof did an amazing demonstration. I wonder if anyone knows the answer to this which I have long forgotten.
He said he had written the numbers 1 through 5 in random order on a piece of paper. He then asked the very large class to read his mind and write down his number order.
When the class compiled the answers, more than 50% of the class had his order, and so proved that telepathy was possible!!!
The class was ecstatic,…
dmunger | February 13, 2009Just a random Casual Friday survey this week.
Click here to take survey.
As usual, the survey is brief, and should take only a minute or two to complete. You have until Thursday, February 19 to respond. There is no limit on the number of responses. Don't forget to come back next Friday for the results.
dmunger | February 7, 2009Last week's Casual Fridays study started out innocently enough: A contact on Twitter asked if most women would prefer fresh fruit or chocolates as a romantic gift. That's a fascinating question, I said -- maybe even interesting enough to merit study on Casual Friday. With Valentine's Day coming up, it might be a valuable service to our readers, preventing them from making a big mistake on the big day.
But once we're asking, I figured, why not ask about a few other possible gifts, like jewelry or perfume. And maybe we should ask about sexy lingerie and sex toys, just to make things more…
dmunger | February 6, 2009Sorry, this week's Casual Friday results won't be ready until tomorrow. There's lots of interesting data, and I want to make sure I do it justice.
dmunger | January 30, 2009Valentines' Day is coming up in just a few weeks, so we thought we'd help our readers prepare by assessing the romance level of a few common gifts they might consider getting for their significant others.
I've noticed that there's often a fine line between a romantic gift and a disappointing downer. Does a box of chocolates signal true love or the fact that you've given up on your lover ever having a perfect figure? Is a cooking a romantic dinner an event in itself or just a way to guilt your date into "putting out" later on? What gift strikes the right balance? Maybe we can determine the…
dmunger | January 23, 2009Last week's Casual Fridays study was supposed to be about distractions and distractibility. Many of us struggle to keep our minds on work when the whole wide internet is available to entertain and inform us. So I wondered: Are people who are more easily distracted by the temptations of the internet actually better-informed? Do they know more about current events, tempted as they are by the incessant flow of news update not just hour by hour, but minute by minute?
The answer: not really. We asked respondents several questions about how easily distracted they were, and how much time they spend…
dmunger | January 16, 2009One of my most difficult challenges as I work at home on Cognitive Daily and other projects is to keep focused on the task at hand. The internet, with its myriad distractions, is just a click away. It used to be that I could just head to a coffee shop with my laptop to get away from the internet, but now even that refuge is gone: My home internet service provider now offers free access from most coffee shops.
I've had to discover new ways to remove myself from the distraction of the internet. I'm often surprised when the latest "convenient" device is unveiled allowing unprecedented internet…
dmunger | January 9, 2009Last week we asked readers to tell us under what circumstances they would be likely to use a public restroom reserved for the other gender. We've all been in the situation where there's a long line for one restroom and a very short or non-existent line for the other (although this tends to happen more for women's rooms, which lack urinals). If you're a woman, is it okay to use the men's room? If you're a man, is it okay to use the women's room? Should there even be separate restrooms based on gender?
We asked about the situation where there's a short line at the other gender's restroom and a…
dmunger | January 2, 2009Yesterday on our way back from a vacation in New York, we stopped to get coffee and use the bathroom. There was a long line at the women's room, and a much shorter line at the men's restroom. These were both one-seat restrooms with locks on the door. A man in line for the men's room gallantly suggested that Greta use the men's toilet. By the time I had purchased our coffee, the situation had reversed and there was no line for the women's room.
Would it be okay for me to use the women's facility? Or would it be rude? After all, I might surprise a woman later on when I emerge. Is it okay for…