http://psychblogld.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/does-correlation-imply-causation/#comment-61
Is it ethically ok to use internet sources as data for qualitative studies?
Homework for Thandi 18/4
Methodology of my last SONA participation
So last week I enrolled in a simple SONA study looking at face identification.
It was rather simple; I was asked to do 8 different computer tasks that required me to identify faces and monitors this through reaction times.
The debriefing to this study highlighted to me that I was a participant into an investigation into Congenital Prosopragnosia and my results would be used to develop a baseline test for people with this condition and perhaps shed light on deficits and even benefits people have with this condition.
Overall it was an interesting study when discussing with the researcher the implications of the study, which is nice to receive after studies. And I have learned that reaction time studies can be rather fun
File-drawer effect – What is the problem?
The file-drawer problem was first coined in 1979 by Robert Rosenthal, and is also known as the ‘Publication bias’.
So what is this phenomenon? Most of us test (or plan to test) with a significance of 0.05% (and that remaining 0.95% is when you are reduced to accepting the null hypothesis) so those 0.05% papers go on to be published for having fantastic results. The remaining papers are they (as this problem states) filed away never to see the light of day again. Or in lay-mans terms: 1 in 20 of papers are written and then never see the light of day.
Now this is an issue if you are building evidence for a theory through studies for a meta-analysis, such as drug studies and ones relating to techniques and theories. But without multiple studies to support theories it makes it rather difficult to put it in perspective. This can affect us students when it comes to referencing our essays, as we lose out on many studies that use just for filling gaps/ or when spamming references for a better mark. Selfish, but true (Mintz, 1951. Mock, 1984. Maslow, 1948).
A solution is at hand, in America there is an act being discussed called the: Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). This is an act that any and all papers that are federally funded shall be publish free of charge to counteract any publication bias and perhaps even encourage researchers to publish more frequently even when results haven’t gone their way.
So perhaps in a few years this blog will be redundant with a legal obligation to report all results being in place. Then again; if that happens people may be more likely to lie a little about findings or change the hypothesis after getting the results just to make it seem they have achieved something with the years of work put in and the money they’ve spent by backers.
Here is an article about this FRPAA: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/free-science-one-paper-at-a-time-2/all/1
References:
Maslow, A.H. (1948) “ “Higher” and “Lower” Needs “, The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 25(2): 433-436
Mintz, A. (1951) “Non-adaptive group behavior”, The journal of social psychology, 46(2): 150-159
Mock, D.W. (1984) “Siblicidal brood reduction: The Prey-size hypothesis”, Chicago Journals, 125(3)
Rosenthal, R. (1979) “The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results”, Psychological Bulletin, 86(3): 638-641
Applied research findings are more valuable than theoretical findings.
This is a curious question which I feel is inaccurate as Science and its progress can be surmised in a simple example; of a donkey being led up a steep hill by a carrot on a stick being dangled merrily just out of nibbling reach. Applied research finding are the donkey, with theoretical science being the carrot. And the steep hill being scientific progression to which all answer cans be found and so on.
So why use this metaphor?
Applied science is what the world we live in has become built up with; we have so many inventions and theories that allow us to live in greater ease than our very distant ancestors. We have combustion engines, aeroplanes, space shuttles, almost-instantaneous foods (Microwave jobbies), mobile phones and other cool gear that the foundations of society are based on. This could explain why some would believe that its findings are more valuable than theoretical findings, as we cant microwave and eat with a theoretical paper on Viscosity in Strongly Interacting Quantum Field Theories from Black Hole Physics, but does that mean that theoretical isn’t useful.
I introduced the idea that the carrot leading the donkey is theoretical science because any idea someone wishes to understand must first become theory and is then constructed an applied; this happens in any field (whether this be Tesla with his TV or the Earl of Sandwich with his sandwich’s). This is why it must be the carrot, any invention or research we have applied today was once just theoretical – one day someone wanted to create a way of wirelessly communicating with someone on the other side of the world – it was all theoretical and now voila we have mobile phones. There is a lot of theoretical science that has uses greater than any microwave such as Cold Fusion (1), mind reading, immortality and faster than light travel that are all strictly theoretical but their applied applications could be world changing, today they are just the carrot encouraging scientists to work on solutions to make them applied and help coax the donkey just that little further up the hill of science (tad dramatic but it works).
So this is why I feel that applied research is just as valuable as theoretical research – without the carrot we’d be wandering donkeys lost on a steep hill.
An interesting concept from a POPPS prepared speech.
The speech that presented an interesting concept was a mock announcement on an exciting new creation in the world; The Chocolate-Milk Producing Cow (CMC). This has the capability to change the world as we know it, and for the better.
The concept behind this is that we take an ordinary Dairy Cow (Holstein-Friesian cattle) (Laben, Shanks, Berger & Freeman (1982)) due to its preference in the dairy world for being the highest milk-yielding animal. With prudent experimentation and alteration a cow of this species could be used to provide plentiful nutrition’s and aid millions.
To make this so it would require a Holstein-Friesian Cow with the addition of an artificial gland that is safe for the animal (Jordan, 1963), the safety of the glands excretions are important due to the contents of the gland; Chocolate cocoa. This gland will sit on the cow’s udder (internally) and secrete the cocoa that is mixed naturally by the bio-motion of the cow. This, however, will require a certain level of genetic manipulation to avoid the rejection of the artificial gland (which is unlikely) (Garrett et al, 1993) but also so the cow can survive having cocoa within its body (outside the digestive system). In the chance that this works the cow would be capable of creating chocolate flavored milk instead of its standard unchocolated variant.
Issues that do arise is that creating a gland that secretes cocoa has difficulties in the replenishment of the gland, which would require the cow to perhaps provide the energy and nutrition required for cocoa to grow internally, but the methodology behind this is still unknown.
The practical application of this is that study has shown chocolate milk has been found in other investigations to be beneficial in ‘…endurance performance and post-Exercise recovery…’ and with the potential to ‘…be considered an effective alternative to commercial carbohydrate replacement drinks…’ (El-Khair, 2009). And with an increase in the population of the CMC it could increase the likelihood of better health in individuals.
This is a world changing invention, to which its progressed should abide by ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ (Stuart Grauer) with the whole world taking on the production and maintenance of CMC’s to spread its benefits globally. And with its practical applications of aiding with sports and health as well proving nutritious food when the cow surpasses its ability to consistently create a sufficient level of Chocolate-milk, which is approximated at 305 days after calving (Hutjens, 1999).
So this has the potentiality to improve global health and welfare and possible impact world hunger, and perhaps lead the world to accredit the creator with a Nobel Peace Prize: as it could impact the world by creating something for the world to bond over, and therefore end global hostilities. The hope of this blog it to increase awareness on the benefits of hybridisation of certain animals and their uses to improve the world we live in, Chocolate-milk could be the answer the world has been searching for; and the great thing is its delicious.
References
El-Khair, A.A.A. (2009) Optimazation of a New Version of Chocolate Milk for Endurance Performance and Post-Exercise Recovery, Research Journal of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, 5(4): 482-489
Garrett, T.M., Harold W.B., and Rosellen M.G. (1993). Health Care Ethics: Principles and Problems. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Ch. 9.
Grauer, Stuart. Think Globally, Act Locally: A Delphi Study of Educational Leadership Through the Development of International Resources in the Local Community. University of San Diego, San Diego, 1989
Hutjens, M. (1999) Managing the Transition Cow, University of Illinois
Jordan, G.P.J. (1963) Artificial Gland, United States Patent Office, San Francisco, California
Laben, R.L., Shanks, R., Berger, P.J. & Freeman, A.E. (1982) Factors Affecting Milk Yield and Reproductive Performance, Journal of Dairy Science
Blogs – What I think on them
For the past several months we have all groaned and gotten on with blogging our thoughts, theories and opinions on blogs begrudgingly. But upon reflection there are a lot of benefits to blogging that we may have overlooked.
Firstly, publishing theories isn’t as easy it was when all psychologists started in the 1900’s where you publish a paper which doesn’t have to fully publish or announce anything through proper channels APA approved. But now it’s a long process where you have to have the text in a certain order and important enough to be worthy of publishing that minor theories can become overshadowed and ignored. This is bad for science and how blogs help is that they allow scientists and researcher’s to discuss theories with others by presenting ideas and opinions online for the world to comment on and get the theory out straight away and not have to be played in the great tennis game of publishing in journals.
Secondly, it helps us rant. This is damned important for us as we can actually rant about stats and blogs like this; despite it involving laborious trolling for information on blogs for silly assignment topics, which has expanded our broader knowledge, this has sadly come into use. As scientists we do need to see both sides of an argument and with the ability to be anonymous with commenting with critical reviews to help highlights miss-thinking and bring to light healthy, intellectual debate, which is jolly fun.
Tres (I’m feeling Spanishy), this is more my opinion but I some what feel that we are doing more of a psychology degree than our stats degree we started last year as we have to do more discussing topics which are important within psychology. This again benefits us.
So all in all I say thumbs up for the blogs, but I for one will not toast them this Christmas, but hopefully next year when you come back you can understand my point that blogs are not the peak of evil but instead a way of us ranting about psychology in a constructive way and exploring topics in broader details we can apply to future debates.
prpdh 