Re: Student question about taste
On Fri, 28 Sep 2001 08:22:18 -0400 (EDT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, This is a question from a student. I have never been aware of the taste reaction that he is describing, but was wondering about his impression that the salt receptors are stronger than the others on the tongue. Is this true, or is he asking about something that is totally idiosyncratic? Although we are finished with the senses. I had to ask this. Why is it when one puts salt on their tongue and then sweet, the salty taste still lingers on your tongue before the sweetness. Also are the salt receptors stronger than the others? because it take a while before a salty taste leaves thae mouth. The issue is complex, and the student's impression may be idiosyncratic but here is a relevant issue. Saliva contains salt. The amount of saliva in the mouth and the amount of salt in the saliva will change the taste threshold for salt for an individual. (More salty saliva will increase the threshold because there will be adaptation.) When you start mixing foodstuffs in the mouth then you may see adaptation-produced potentiation of tastes. For example, if you adapt the tongue to the presence of something bitter (like quinine) then you may potentiate or elicit a sweet taste to a neutral substance like water. So your students impression may be explained by a combination of the saltiness of saliva, the saltiness of the foodstuff, and the sweetness of the other foodstuff. (And it Don McBurney can be raised from the shadows then he can provide a more definitive answer.) Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Other APA manual silliness
On Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:00:18 -0500 Mike Scoles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I'm on a rant about the publication manual, the subjects/participants distinction seems silly. What is the distinction according to the APA manual? As I read the relevant sections (pp. 18-19, 65, 70, 393-394)of the new manual, the distinction is that humans are participants and animals are subjects. Informed consent does not matter. Even the manual has problems with the distinction. Consider the following quotation from the manual, When humans participated as the subjects of the study, ... (p. 18). Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: New APA Manual inconsistencies
On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:49:34 -0500 Mike Scoles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Has anyone noticed that the latest publication manual says to use, he and she, sparingly, but to use, lesbian and gay, rather than, homosexual? Yes, and, continuing, they point out that gay is a vague term. Some people use the term to refer to only men (as in gay and lesbian) and other people use the phrase to refer identities and to the culture and communities that have developed among people who share those identities (p.67) So gay means either a male person, a person, an identity, a culture, or a community, or some combination of the above. And some really confused people, like me, continue to believe that gay is an appropriate synonym for happy Ken -- * http://www.coe.uca.edu/psych/scoles/index.html * Mike Scoles *[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Department of Psychology *voice: (501) 450-5418 * * University of Central Arkansas*fax: (501) 450-5424 * * Conway, AR72035-0001 * * * -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Course outline Quiz
On Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:33:47 -0400 (EDT) Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A retired colleague in this department gave a test on the course syllabus in the first week of a class. He used questions like below and the test was worth 10% of the final grade. Students grumbled some but I was amazed at how little protest there was about this practice. Apparently some students are not reading the course outline. They keep on asking questions where the answers are already provided for in the outline. So I have decided to give them a quiz on the course outline. Questions could be: how many quizzes do we have in this course? what are my office hours? how many exams do we have? when is the deadline for the book report? how will your course grade be calculated? and so on. Feedback invited. Is this a waste of time or could the results indicate students' level of interest in the course. Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: simple learning (one more try)
Chuck: Classical conditioning of paramecia has been a controversial topic. One problem in the case below is that both the CS and the UCS are the same type of event thus making it difficult to determine whether or not the backing up represents some kind of temporal summation of effects of both stimuli. One needs to run a series of tests to separate true conditioning from pseudoconditioning. Here is a reference to a study that may provide some help on these issues... Hennessey, T. M., Rucker W. B., McDiarmid, C. G. (1979). Classical conditioning in paramecia. Animal Learning Behavior, 7, 417-423. On Tue, 04 Sep 2001 17:51:53 -0500 Chuck Huff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK folks, no answer on my earlier question about how simple an organism can be and still show learning. Let me try again. I talked with a biologist today who works with tetrahymena (a one-celled ciliate). He told me that a colleague of his has found simple classical conditioning in the paramecium. The colleague used two mechanical stimuli as UCS and CS and the direction of swimming as the response. (1) a strong enough tremble in the medium to produce an automatic backing up movement was the UCS and (2) a smaller tremble in the medium was the CS. Claim: a small number of pairings produced backing up to the CS. My colleague did not know if it was published, but planned to ask. Anyone know of this or similar work with simple organisms? -Chuck -- - Chuck Huff; 507.646.3169; http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/ - Psychology Department, St.Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057 -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Help Needed: Reference?
Rosenthal, R., Fode, K. L. (1963). The effect of experimenter bias on the performance of the albino rat. Behavioral Science, 8, 183-189. On Wed, 05 Sep 2001 08:06:09 -0400 Tom Allaway [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In the dusty recesses of my grey matter I (think I) recall a Rosenthal Effect study done with rats: psych students were led to believe that the rats they were training (in mazes) were descendants of Tryon's maze-bright or maze-dull strains, and the animals, of course, performed accordingly. Can anyone guide me to the reference? -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: simple learning (one more try)
Paul: Thanks for the public comment on that study. I had done a PsychInfo search for studies on conditioning with paramecia and that study appeared to be the only one that included appropriate control conditions. There are several studies which identify confounds in other studies. So I would guess the question is still open Ken On Wed, 05 Sep 2001 09:59:20 -0500 Paul Brandon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 8:56 AM -0400 9/5/01, Kenneth M. Steele wrote: Chuck: Classical conditioning of paramecia has been a controversial topic. One problem in the case below is that both the CS and the UCS are the same type of event thus making it difficult to determine whether or not the backing up represents some kind of temporal summation of effects of both stimuli. One needs to run a series of tests to separate true conditioning from pseudoconditioning. Here is a reference to a study that may provide some help on these issues... Hennessey, T. M., Rucker W. B., McDiarmid, C. G. (1979). Classical conditioning in paramecia. Animal Learning Behavior, 7, 417-423. Actually, I have some doubts about that study, since it was done in our department and I was helping with it. The main observation was done by Todd Hennessey, a grad student of Bill Rucker's. Since it was a somewhat subjective judgement call on the movement of a paramecia in response to a stimulus (vibration -- a microscope slide was mounted on a speaker cone) I suspect a strong demand effect. As far as I know, this study was never replicated. BTW -- Bill Rucker also claimed to have demonstrated operant conditioning with the same experimental model. Of course, he was also convinced that learning was molecular, and (semiseriously) agreed with Aristotle that the brain's main function was colling the blood. * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * *http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html* -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Course ownership
Nancy: I am not sure that course ownership explains slovenly teaching. Do you think this individual would suddenly change his/her teaching style because someone else was teaching another section of that same course? Would you change your style because someone else is using mimeograph technology in another section? Similarly, do you think this individual would suddenly run out and learn a new technology if they were reassigned a different course? I think not. I would work on convincing the Powers That Be to let you teach another section of the course *also.* Pick a time that plugs a hole in the departmental schedule. Chairpeople are always trying to find faculty that will teach at unpopular times. Don't worry about what that other faculty member does or does not do in the classroom. That's the job of the chairperson. Good luck. Ken On Mon, 03 Sep 2001 12:30:45 -0400 (EDT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Colleagues: I have been contemplating the situation at a particular school at which I teach, where certain courses are only taught by one designated individual. The situation is, I would like a shot at teaching one of these courses, live or online, and suspect that I will never get the opportunity because those courses are viewed more or less as the territory of certain full time faculty members. My impression, which of course is highly biased (why I want your input) is that it is not an accident that this is the school at which innovation happens at the slowest rate, and where courses are most frequently cancelled due to low enrollment/lack of interest. I suspect that this policy gives those faculty members little incentive to examine how they go about presenting the material and assessing the quality of their pedagogy. So, I was hoping others could share perhaps the positive aspects of these kind of course ownership and/or validate my perception of the negative. Thanks for your input. Nancy Melucci LACCD -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Prenatal Mozart effect marketing
The first question is what the fetus can hear of such musical selections. This depends upon a number of factors including sensitivity of the auditory system, the baseline noise intensity in the body, the extent to which the musical signal is filtered by the mother's body, and the intensity (loudness) of the original signal. Robert Abrams and Kenneth Gerhardt at the Univerity of Florida have summarized what is known about the acoustic environment of the fetus in several publications. It appears that sounds below 60 Hz are unlikely to be heard because the internal noise is around 80 dB at such low frequencies. The mother's body filters frequencies above 500 Hz such that they are unlikely to be heard unless the original music was played at a very high intensity (over 100 dB). Thus there is only a narrow range (from about 60 Hz to 250 Hz, i.e. Middle C and 2 octaves below on the piano) that a fetus is likely to hear of the outside world. The intensity of these sounds would need to be above 80 dB. The fetus is unlikely to hear much more than a few of the fundamental frequencies of the lower notes of a musical selection. References Abrams, R M, Gerhardt, K J (2000). The acoustic environment and physiological responses of the fetus. J. of Perinatology, 20, 31-36. Abrams, R M, Gerhardt K J (1997). Some aspects of the foetal sound environment. In I Deliege and J Sloboda (Ed.) Perception and Cognition of Music. UK: Psychology Press. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: and the nominees for Worst Science Reporting are...
On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:03:11 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, David the Skeptic Epstein wrote: (now at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4241769,00.html) Computer games stunt teen brains Hi-tech maps of the mind show that computer games are damaging brain development and could lead to children being unable to control violent behaviour The argument seems to be: 1) playing computer games activates the visual and motor areas of the brain only. 2) doing mental arithmetic activates the frontal lobes. Therefore video games damage the brain and cause children to become violent. Seems reasonable to me. -Stephen But one must consider the alternative hypothesis. Excessive mental math may reduce visual and motor area activity which will lead to blindness and paralysis. I think we've got the beginning of a real controversy. I am readying my MRI facility request. We shall meet on the playing fields. Ken Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's Universitye-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/ -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Yet another alert: sensory physiology on the web
This is to second Stephen's recommendations. I have used both in my perception class with great success. On Tue, 07 Aug 2001 14:37:56 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks to a recent article by Martin G. Todman and Philip J. Benson in Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2001, 11:4:405-406, it give me much joy to draw your attention to two great sites on the web: http://www.hhmi.org/senses/ As an online example of informative web based science education, this page is hard to beat. Part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute pages, this report 'Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World' explores the biology of our senses. Its broad scope and excellent presentation makes this report and others like it accessible and interesting to all. My comment: an elementary presentation, but excellent, no contest. http://www.med.uwo.ca/physiology/courses/sensesweb/ Neat tutorial pages from Tutis Vilis, University of Western Ontario uses Flash animation to great effect in an excellent tour of sensory physiology. My comment: Neat fails to do it justice. This one is remarkable. It's an advanced, animated, interactive review of sensory physiology, especially vision. It's amazing what you can get for free on the web these days. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
APA style site info?
Hi all: The APA style manual states on p. xxvi that a detailed listing of the differences between 4th and 5th edition styles will be found at the APA style website. I have looked at the contents of www.apastyle.org and had no success finding the list of changes. Has anybody found this list? Ken P.S.-- A hanging indent signature line! Look for this suggestion to appear in the 6th edition, due out RSN. -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Diener's letter re: APA controversy
Michael: I don't think that we are in disagreement. By professional I meant a career in the arena that represents the profession in governmental circles, etc. Many of us are doing what we want to do in other areas of psychology, with success, and consider ourselves successful. But we are unlikely to be called upon to suggest funding priorities or write a friend of the court brief. I don't disagree with Paul Brandon's characterization of the purpose of the Diener letter. My point was that this was a pretty weak threat and that one reason it was so weak was that Diener could not resign and go to a professional organization of similiar influence. My fear is that the current APA is the real psychology of the new millenium... Ken --- On Thu, 31 May 2001 21:19:14 -0400 Renner, Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ken Steele wrote: ...If he actually quit APA over the issue then his professional career would be finished... -- Ken, I couldn't disagree more. Many working scientists, scientist/practitioners, and teachers would applaud such an action, taken as a stand on conscience. And I agree with Paul Brandon that going public at this point is not posturing but likely rather an attempt to generate or apply some political pressure. I know lots of folks who would desperately like to see APA strap on a spine and support a science-based approach to public policy on issues concerning behavior, but despair of getting the organization to be what it claims to be. This is far from the first gutless, boneheaded, and politically cowardly thing they've done. I believe in the concept of APA, but the reality of what APA really is, day to day, suggests that it may be unsalvageable. Many of us haven't been APA members in over a decade, and our careers are doing OK. Michael Renner Michael J. Renner, Ph.D. Interim Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs Professor of Psychology West Chester University West Chester, PA 19383 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Telephone: 610-436-3310 Fax: 610-436-2763 http://www.wcupa.edu/_facstaff/facdev/ The path of least resistance is always downhill. --- -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: editor's statement on APA controversy (fwd)
On Fri, 01 Jun 2001 13:06:16 -0500 (CDT) jim clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi More on the publication controversy. Best wishes Jim -- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 12:16:04 -0400 Reply-To: McCarty, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: Council of Representitives [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: McCarty, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [COR] STATEMENT--PLEASE FORWARD AS APPROPRIATE To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Statement by: Richard McCarty, Editor American Psychologist June 1, 2001 The Lilienfeld Manuscript [...] 7. If Professor Lilienfeld deems it important to respond to some of the issues raised in these articles and commentaries, he will be granted the opp ortunity to do so briefly in a subsequent issue of American Psychologist. So why not let Lilienfeld do his reply in the same issue, and then consider the issue officially closed? Disagreeing with editors is not a new phenomenon, but electronic mail has made it possible to write to thousands of people without a moment's reflection. The continued vitality of scientific journals, and the editorial process itself, will starve without the element of reflection. This is a baseless and base comment. I don't believe Lilienfeld, Diener, Zimbardo, or, on this list, Jim Guinee, Michael Renner, Paul Brandon, or I responded without reflection about the issue. ** Richard McCarty Executive Director for Science American Psychological Association -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Diener's letter re: APA controversy
On Thu, 31 May 2001 09:07:03 -0500 Jim Guinee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a tremendous amount of respect of Ed Diener (ever since I sat in his class as a little freshman), but I wonder about the use of such a letter. It seems that if you're gonna quit, then quit, and if you're gonna stay, then stay. But threatening to leave and then telling everyone about it...well, that seems a little less than professional. That was my reaction to the letter also. I wonder if APA is going to suffer a mass exodus from this controversy. I conclude one thing from the letter is that APS is not serving as the science-first alternative. APA seems to be the primary organization still, and so all people like Diener can do is strike a posture of disapproval. If he actually quit APA over the issue then his professional career would be finished. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: history of psych help!
Here is a great source... http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/ PS--For others, the URL is new. Ken On Tue, 29 May 2001 13:51:42 -0500 Karen Yanowitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just found out that I'll probably be teaching History of Psychology this summer starting TOMMORROW! :( I've never taught the class before- so if anyone has any ideas about resources, projects, films etc, I'd appreciate it! I'm already planning to look through ToPs. There are only 9 people in the class, so there could be a nice seminar feeling to it. TIA- Karen *** Karen L. Yanowitz, Ph.D Dept of Psychology and Counseling Arkansas State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] * -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: How do they know?
On Wed, 16 May 2001 06:47:38 -0400 (EDT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A student asked me how psychologists know that babies have blurry vision and that dogs/cats only see black and white. Actually Psychologists and physiologists know that cats and dogs *do* have color vision (depending on your definition of color vision). There are two sorts of evidence... Behavioral: Typically these involve discrimination tasks using operant conditioning procedures. The technical issue (and it is a bugger) is to make sure that only wavelength differences signal the different reinforcement schedules. An example experiment is Mello Peterson (1964). Physiological: a) Anatomical: Dogs and cats have cones that show different peak spectral sensitivities. For example dogs have a 2-cone color system with peaks at 429 nm (blue for us) and 555 (greenish for us), see Neist, Geist, and Jacobs (1989). b) Activity: Recordings from retinal ganglion cells show differential responding as a function of wavelength (cat example--Guenther Zrenner, 1993). This is a case where the public knows some out-of-date science which has congealed into common sense. A year ago I was teaching about Pavlov's brain account of discrimination and used a color discrimination task as an example. A student interrupted me with a huff and said, in a superior voice, that everyone knew dogs were color-blind. I tried to explain the difference between using the same wavelength categories and being color-blind but he would have none of that. I brought in articles so the student could see that the accepted conclusion was that dogs and cats do have color vision (although not like ours of course). The student wouldn't look at the articles. Instead he sat there fuming for the rest of the semester because I was trying to teach them something that everyone knew was not true. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Someone's Watching You - A Perception Question
Larry: The experience was investigated in depth by E. B. Titchener!! The reference is... Titchener, E. B. (1898). Feeling of being stared at. Science, 8, 895-897. I am not completely certain for the volume and page numbers as I had to use Readers Periodical to find the exact reference, and its reference system was not in the modern fashion. I read the article a long time ago. Needless to say, Titchener concluded that people did not have the ability to detect being stared at. Interestingly, he provided an analysis of why people believe it is so. As I remember the analysis went something like this... A person sitting in a theatre will get a feeling and then turn around. The person's movement will attract the attention of someone sitting behind the person and, so, that person will look at the person who turned. The turner will then be confirmed in his or her belief that someone was staring at him or her. A colleague in my department did a replication of the Titchener experiment for a methods class and found the results he reported. Ken On Mon, 07 May 2001 12:00:20 -0400 Larry Z. Daily [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello all, I got the impression when I asked about SP texts a while back that there are some really knowledgable SP folks on TIPS. So, here's one that stumped me (though that's not so difficult to do. :-) A colleague in economics has a daughter who wants to do a science fair project on whether person A can perceive whether person B is looking at A (without, of course, A looking at B). Mom's pretty savvy, so they've got a nice little study designed, but they came to me to see if psychologists know anything about the topic. I can't even think of a name for this type of perception to go look it up (though I did look through all the cool SP texts folks recommended). Can anyone help out with this? TIA, Larry If the beginning of wisdom is the statement I do not know then I must be the wisest person on Earth. Larry Z. Daily Assistant Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology White Hall, Room 213 Shepherd College Shepherdstown, West Virginia 25443 phone: (304) 876-5297 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://webpages.shepherd.edu/LDAILY/index.html -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Powerpointing: (Now attendance policy)
On Thu, 03 May 2001 23:36:43 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What's the downside? Well, if students can download a complete lecture any time they like, they don't have to come to class. So a professor might want to withhold information from the slides to ensure attendance. I used to think like this. But I decided it was more of a trick to induce attendance than a technique with sound educational justification. So I withhold information no more. Skeletal slides are gone, replaced by the well-nourished, plump with detail. I even include a complete reference for every experiment I discuss. Undoubtedly, attendance has decreased. But if students can learn the material without attending class, why should they be compelled to be there? First, let me suggest that Stephen's theoretically-possible state of affairs is not true in the main. Students already have a fleshed-out set of notes from the beginning of the semester. It is called the textbook. Stephen's possible students should be able to read the relevant chapter and pass the test without ever needing to come to class. So why should we ever lecture or hold formal meetings? I used to hold to Stephen's view but began to change my thinking on the issue after one comment-note in a course evaluation. This student complained that I did *not* require and take attendance. This led me to question several students on attendance policies, and, now, I view the issue as much more complicated. There may be many reasons why a student enrolls in a class; a required course, catchy title, popular professor, and so on. But the student begins without a framework for organizing the material. Literally, the student can't just read the textbook or read the Powerpoint slides and understand the material. The student looks to the instructor to help him or her bring order to this stream of factoids. When I questioned my students about attendance policies, their view of a policy that suggested that attendance was not required was that the instructor would not be doing much to help them understand the material in class. In other words, if class attendance was not required then there would be little benefit to attending class. Secondly, my students wanted it to be known that they were fulfilling their part of the implied bargain of enrolling in a class. They wanted me to know that they were working hard to understand the material. They did this by coming to class, taking notes, and asking questions. One example benefit for them was that if I knew their attendance rate was decent then they felt more confident in asking questions out of class or asking me to re-explain material in class. So now I have a compromise attendance policy. I stress the importance of attendance. I record attendance on an irregular basis. I note the attendance pattern of a student in informal interactions with that student (I'll be glad to help you with that material because I see that you are coming to class and trying to understand the material). And the consequences of nonattendance remain the same, the exam scores... Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: the face of a tipster
OK. I give up. Here is the link to a photo hidden on my site. http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~kms/KMSphoto.jpg Yes, the tiny bust is of W.A.M. This was done for a campus magazine. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Harlow's Folly (Now Spence Vignette)
Hank: Before you go... Would you write a vignette that captures Kenneth Spence as a person, or researcher, or psychologist, or whatever you choose. I am always looking for stories that characterize the people I mention in class. I sent this to the list since I assume there are other faculty who do the same. Best regards, Ken On Sat, 28 Apr 2001 07:32:16 -0500 (CDT) Hank Goldstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Harry Avis asked if we Remember sEr=sHr x V x D + K ?. As I prepare to retire in two weeks, I remember it all too well. As a U. of Iowa and Kenneth Spence Ph.D., I received it in daily doses. Actually, I agree with Harry--It sounded very scientific but it led us down quite a few blind alleys. Adios to all my TIPSter friends and thanks for all the gems that you've shared over the past few years. Warmest Regards, Hank === Hank Goldstein, Ph.D.| PHONE: (319) 588-6305 Department of Psychology | FAX:(319) 588-6789 Clarke College | EMAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dubuque, IA 52001 | -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: something to think about
On Tue, 10 Apr 2001 09:10:05 -0600 Jim Guinee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I'm a classic misinterpreter (always good when you're a psychotherapist), then how do we RESPOND to that argument with a better one? How do others tend to respond to the general public when asked "Why is there so much violence in the school?" I say "much violence -- compared to what"? How many high schools are there in the USA? What is the percentage of high schools out of that total number in which shootings have take place? Tell me about another similar situation where you cram together lots of adolescents for long periods of times and then we can compare violence rates. Ken Jim Guinee, Ph.D. Director of Training Adjunct Professor President, Arkansas College Counselor Association University of Central Arkansas Counseling Center 313 Bernard HallConway, AR 72035USA(501) 450-3138 (office) (501) 450-3248 (fax) "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION! It comes bundled with the software." ** ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Phobophilia
On Wed, 04 Apr 2001 10:51:46 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I announce the discovery of a new law, which I have modestly named "Black's Law". This fundamental discovery states: "For every phobia there is a philia". So, as there exists the condition of _phobophobia_ (fear of phobias, see http://www.phobialist.com/reverse.html), there must exist the corresponding condition of _phobophilia_, that is, love of phobias. Following Black's Law leads one to search for the (presumably rare and theoretically interesting) philaphobia. Perhaps Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to do with it?" applies... Ken -Stephen Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's Universitye-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/ ---- ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 16:13:34 -0600 Rick Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have all of my lectures on PowerPoint. However, I went to a lot of trouble to collect backgrounds and graphics and sounds. (Unlike the recommendations you will find for business users of PowerPoint) I never use slide templates. I make my own background/font/graphics combinations, and I change them each time I change a topic. By topic, I mean 5-10 changes in a 50 minute class. It takes a *lot* longer, but it provides another cue that helps to add structure and variation to the process. I try to make the graphics as relevant as possible, but an occasional irrelevant one (like Richard Nixon) will sometimes stand out. Rick: I like the idea of using a consistent background to indicate that the material is connected to a particular topic, and then switching the background to indicate a change in topic. Thanks for posting the info. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
Bartel http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~jbartel Department of Psychology, Kansas State University =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Rat dreams redux
On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:18:33 -0500 (EST) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Stephen Black wrote: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Mark A. Casteel wrote: Hi TIPSters. Can anyone help me locate a recent study (out of MIT, possibly) that was discussed on NPR in the last couple of weeks that examined the brain waves of dogs as they "dreamed," (I know, I know, all sorts of problems with operational definitions) and correlated them with brain waves experienced during a waking state? A number of my colleagues in other disciplines brought this issue up in the faculty lounge the other day, and I couldn't comment, knowing absolutely nothing about the study. Any help you can provide would be appreciated. Probably this, but it's rats, not dogs, and I find the study distinctly underwhelming. http://news.24.com/News24/Technology/Science_Nature/0,1113,2-13-46_970477,00.html and this might be a more informative article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/science/25DREA.html?pagewanted=all And here is the original article... http://www.mit.edu/~mayank/skew.pdf Ken -Stephen Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's Universitye-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/ ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Rat dreams redux (original article url corrected)
On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:45:50 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) "Kenneth M. Steele" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:18:33 -0500 (EST) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Stephen Black wrote: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Mark A. Casteel wrote: Hi TIPSters. Can anyone help me locate a recent study (out of MIT, possibly) that was discussed on NPR in the last couple of weeks that examined the brain waves of dogs as they "dreamed," (I know, I know, all sorts of problems with operational definitions) and correlated them with brain waves experienced during a waking state? A number of my colleagues in other disciplines brought this issue up in the faculty lounge the other day, and I couldn't comment, knowing absolutely nothing about the study. Any help you can provide would be appreciated. Probably this, but it's rats, not dogs, and I find the study distinctly underwhelming. http://news.24.com/News24/Technology/Science_Nature/0,1113,2-13-46_970477,00.html and this might be a more informative article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/science/25DREA.html?pagewanted=all And here is the original article... http://www.mit.edu/~mayank/skew.pdf This is the correct url... http://web.mit.edu/klouie/www/Louie_and_Wilson.pdf Ken -------------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: projector question
On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 17:52:58 -0500 KLEISSLER [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyway, here's my question: We have some funding available for a projector to hook up with a lap top. Our classrooms are not very dark -- the architect won, the faculty lost the battle of the shades so we have non-room-darkening (but very aesthetically pleasing!) shades. Does anyone know how many lumens we would need to be able to have a visible image in day light? Kathleen: We have a similar problem but for a very different reason. We are in an old building that was built with lots of windows to take advantage of natural lighting. Even state-contract industrial shades only bring the lighting down into the region of pleasantly-dim. I would look at nothing below 1000 lumens; at present we are trying to find 2000 lumen projectors that are within our budget. Good luck. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
Anecdotally, there are PowerPoint haters here too. I use lots of projection of movies, figures, sounds, urls, etc. in lectures. They are located on a class web site and I leave the items there for students to use later to complete notes. But I have chosen not to use PowerPoint because of the negative comments about PP-lectures from several students. The chief complaints I have heard center around the use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists, with some irrelevant graphic embroidery. The similarity of these slides within and across classes makes it difficult to attend to content information according to my informants. A second difference I have observed as a member of an audience in a PP presentation is that it is often difficult for some presenters to alter the sequence of presentation in response to questions or comments. In those circumstances, this lack of flexibility makes the technique inferior to overheads. Ken On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:00:21 -0500 "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:33 AM 3/20/01 -0600, Stephen W Tuholski wrote: (snip) Last year I decided to use Power Point for all of my lectures. One of the perceived benefits was that I could upload the power point presentations on my web page, allowing students to download them before class. I reasoned that students could use these downloads to follow along while taking additional notes. This sounded really nice, and I thought that if anything, grades would go up. Amazingly, grades seem to have dropped since I started putting the power points on-line. My explanation is that students simply download and study my notes, but they are paying LESS attention to me in class. Has anyone else had this happen to them? If this is the problem, do you suggest NOT putting the notes on-line? I am hesitant to do that, because the better students really like having them in advance, and they are using them the way I intended. Steve, I've heard this complaint, independently, from a number of colleagues using PowerPoint notes in their undergraduate classes. I wonder whether you might consider making your overheads more spare. I post outlines of my lecture notes on the web, and students print them out to use for note-taking purposes. However, these outlines are truly outlines, intended only to help students see/use the organization of my lectures. To get the content, they need to be in class to fill it in. In any case, if this problem is as widespread as my personal experiences are indicating of late, someone needs to do a study on it. -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066 ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: senior test
On Mon, 05 Feb 2001 14:51:46 -0600 Gerald Henkel-Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm in charge of finding a comprehensive psychology major senior exam that can satisfy regional accreditation requirements for departmental assessment. Consequently, the test results must be able to be broken down into subareas, so as to provide constructive departmental feedback. Perhaps it would also be used in a longitudinal sense i.e. administered upon acceptance to the major, just before graduation, and maybe even at 1-year post-graduation. Recommendations? We have been very happy with the ACAT. You can customize the areas tested to match your program, you receive scores broken down by subarea, they are fast and relatively cheap (about $10 per test). You can find out more at http://pacat.apsu.edu/pacat/ Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Endowed Chair - Teaching of Psychology
Tipsters: Here is the text of an ad that will be appearing in finer publications everywhere. -- The Kulynych/Cline Family Distinguished Professorship in Teaching of Psychology Appalachian State University has established the position of Distinguished Professorship in Teaching of Psychology. The successful applicant will have a Ph.D. in psychology, be eligible to hold the rank of Professor at Appalachian, and possess documented effectiveness in recruiting, teaching, advising, mentoring, and assessing undergraduate psychology students. Additionally,the candidate should have an established program of research in an area related to the teaching of psychology. Responsibilities include the promotion, in consultation with Departmental Faculty, of a comprehensive undergraduate psychology program that 1) challenges academically capable students with a well-balanced and rigorous curriculum, 2) supports their academic efforts with a multifaceted advising program, 3) exposes them to potential mentors who can help them accomplish their educational and professional goals, and 4) assesses their abilities to demonstrate the student learning objectives of the Department. The successful candidate will teach two courses including a section of General Psychology each semester and serve as a liaison to other units in the University. Currently, the Department has 28 full-time faculty members, approximately 600 undergraduate majors, and 100 full-time graduate students in five Master of Arts degree programs. Applications consisting of a vita, statement of teaching and research interests, and three letters of recommendation should be sent to Stan Aeschleman, Chair, Department of Psychology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608. Deadline for receipt of completed applications is January 19, 2001. Appalachian State University is an equal opportunity employer. Applications from female and minority candidates and candidates with disabilities are encouraged. Additional information about the Department of Psychology is located on the Psychology Web site at: http://www.acs.appstate.edu/dept/psych. --- -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Prelude...for the 'Mozart Effect' (and Steele replies)
On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 14:24:06 -0500 Ron Blue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.mindinst.org/MIND2/papers/rauscher_reply.html For those interested in this issue, here is a partial reply... Neither Chabris nor I used the term "intelligence." Chabris used "abstract reasoning" and I have used either "spatial reasoning" or "spatio-temporal reasoning" when discussing the Rauscher-Shaw theory. However Rauscher has used the term and quite recently. She presented a paper at a conference at the Univ. of Illinois in June, 1999, entitled "Music exposure and the development of spatial intelligence in children." In any case, the terminological distinction was a red herring. Following an early group of failures to produce the effect by Stough et al., Carstens et al., and Newman et al., Rauscher and Shaw (1998) wrote a paper claiming that people were using the wrong spatial reasoning task. They meant a special subclass of spatial reasoning tasks, spatio-temporal reasoning, which was exemplified by the Stanford-Binet Paper Folding Cutting task. Unfortunately (for them) when Rauscher did the literature review, she had missed some earlier failures (Kenealy Monsef, Weeks) which had used the PF C task. I had seen them and realized that a series of experiments replicating their methods was needed to decipher the problem. Chabris originally used only PF C task results in his meta-analysis but the reviewers at Nature required him to report all possibly relevant studies. Since Chabris' analysis, there have been additional published failures to produce the effect and no positive reports other than by Rauscher herself. Note that Rauscher cites several manuscripts by her as in progress but none have been published yet. (Is it churlish to object to Rauscher citing the original report as a replication?) The other studies cited by her was one by Siegel (who didn't find the effect and it is still not published), by Nantais Schellenberg (who report that their result suggests that a Mozart effect is an artifact of preference/arousal differences), and by Wilson Brown (who found that their control condition did best). There is a recent meta-analysis by Hetland (2000) that reports a small Mozart effect but the result is based on the inclusion of lots of *unpublished* data from Rauscher and *weightings* of published data on criteria suggested by Rauscher (such as "quality of study"). Her criticisms of my work have had to change from her standard criticisms because I followed their rules. Her criticisms of my work involve two basic complaints. First, I used random assignment of subjects to conditions. (Which she didn't use. Instead she explicitly constructed her groups to "match.") Second, it was suggested that perhaps there was some sort of subtle demand characteristics in my methodology which precluded me from finding the effect. (A nonbeliever effect?) At a conference at Harvard at which we both presented, she stated that she emphasized how important it was to listen to the music and suggested that maybe I wasn't using the proper amounts of emphasis. (I measured the effect of the music on the mood of the participants.) Some might claim that pointing to demand characteristics as the source of not finding an effect is a dangerous strategy since other people might suggest that finding the effect could be explained as being due to demand characteristics also. Both Rauscher and Shaw (in his book) have emphasized the experiment by Rauscher, Robinson, and Jens (1998) as showing demand characteristic or other negative accounts are wrong when applied to their work. Rauscher, Robinson, Jens reported that rats which were exposed in utero and 60 days post partum to 12 hours per day repetition of the famous 10-min segment of the Mozart piano sonata showed faster acquisition of the solution of a 6-unit T-Maze, relative to those rats who had equivalent exposure to Philip Glass or white noise. Presumably, rats are immune to negative thoughts from the experimenter. As it happens, I will be presenting an analysis of that experiment next week at the Psychonomics Society meeting in New Orleans. In this case, one does not even need replication to discover fundamental objections to the report. Ken (who is salivating in anticipation of an oyster po-boy) -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Simulating data
Natalie: There is a technique called "boostraping" for resampling from your data set to get a more stable estimate of values. You may want to check your local stat package to see if that is available. For class assignments I use "lo-tech" techniques like Jim and create pseudosubject scores by jittering the data with calls to a random number generator such that the mean jitter effect is 0 and the range is some reasonable value, depending on the question. Treatment effects may be simulated by adding a jitterized constant. Ken On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 15:33:53 -0500 Nathalie Cote [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Suppose you were in a Methods or Statistics class in which you had to design a study, create the materials, collect some of the data, and then use the data from this partial sample to simulate or fill in fictitious data for the rest of the sample. Let's say, for example, that you've collected scores on self-esteem and body image instruments from 10 college men and 10 college women, and you want to use those data as the basis for generating fake data for 40 more women and 40 more men. The data will then be analyzed for correlations between the measures and differences between men and women on each measure and on the correlations. One thread, of course, might be to discuss why anyone would want to do this. Let's assume for the moment that it's done for good reasons. What I am interested in is, how would you go about simulating the data? -------------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Simulating data/spelling correction
On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 17:21:11 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) "Kenneth M. Steele" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is a technique called "boostraping" for resampling from That is "bootstrap" (as in lift yourself up by your own ...) Ken ---------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Psych GRE: guess/multiple choice strategies
Nancy-- You used the wrong value for correction for guessing. Assume 25 questions, 5 answers per question. A "pure guesser" would get 1/5 questions correct. Therefore the correction factor is 0.2 and not 0.25. Ken On Sun, 05 Nov 2000 11:41:39 -0500 (EST) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stephen, I am going to argue with your logic: 25 item multiple choice section 1 for correct; 0 for blank; ¼point deduction for wrong answer.  (All completed) 15Correct;  10 incorrect  ( 2.5 points deducted) 15 points minus   2.5 = 12.5 raw score. (All not completed) 15 correct, 5 guessed wrong. 5 left blank…15 points, minus 1.25 deducted = 13.75 raw score This seems to be self-evident to me, at least on an individual basis. Perhaps it does not hurt on a group level, especially if you work for the College Board and ETS. But if you are seeing something here that I am missing due to my obvious personal bias, or undetected stupidity on my own part, please point it out to me now. I like to think I have a good command of logic, too. Nancy Melucci ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Psych GRE: guess/multiple choice strategies
On Sun, 05 Nov 2000 11:41:39 -0500 (EST) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 25 item multiple choice section 1 for correct; 0 for blank; ¼point deduction for wrong answer.  (All completed) 15Correct;  10 incorrect  ( 2.5 points deducted) 15 points minus   2.5 = 12.5 raw score. (All not completed) 15 correct, 5 guessed wrong. 5 left blank…15 points, minus 1.25 deducted = 13.75 raw score Here is a second problem with your analysis. Your presumption is that these two scores represent equivalent states of knowledge. This boils down to the assumption that amount of knowledge is equal to the number of right answers *alone*! The point of a "correction" factor is that a score of 15 represents a mixture of correct answers + lucky guesses. The number of lucky guesses depends on the number of answers you make. Hence, someone with a score of 15 right and 10 wrong is presumed to know less than someone with a score of 15 correct and 10 blanks. A correction factor uses the number of wrong answers to estimate the number of times the correct answer was chosen by chance alone. This is actually a generous rule to the test-taker because usually at least one answer can be eliminated and hence the actual chances of getting an item correct by guessing is higher. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
correction factor corrected?
Here is an attempt to explain how a correction factor works... The first point to realize is that the obtained number of correct answers is a mixture of cases, C (correct answers due to knowledge) and L (correct answers due to lucky guessing). The second point is the amount of correct answers that are cases of L depends on the number of questions answered (A). In the case of a pure guesser with 5 items per question, then L = 1/5*A. Imagine 3 people with equivalent states of knowledge who employ different guessing strategies on a 100-item test. Person 1 answers 30 questions(A), knows the answers to 20 (C) and guesses on 10. These are pure guesses, so L = 1/5 * 10 and this person ends up with a Raw Score of 22. Persons 2 and 3 have equivalent amounts of knowledge (C) but are more likely to guess. Person A C Guess L Raw Score 1 30 20 10 2 22 2 50 20 30 6 26 3 80 20 60 12 32 At this point, you can see there is an advantage to guessing. The question is how to "correct" this score so there is no advantage. There are lots of calculation techniques that will accomplish this, and all center around an estimate of the number of cases in the raw score that are L cases. Here is one method... For Person 1, we know a raw score of 22 is due to the mixture of C + L. The number of wrong answers was 8. Wrong answers represents the case where the testtaker was unlucky. There are 4 ways to be wrong on a 5-item question. (This is the source of using a correction value of .25) We can calaculate the chance of choosing a *wrong* item to estimate the number items guessed at and then subtract that estimate of guesses from the raw score. Person Raw Score Wrong * (1/4) = Guesses Corrected 1 22 8 2 20 2 26 24 6 20 3 32 48 12 20 The actual value of the correction factor will depend upon your calculation technique (are you estimating how a score will be inflated by guessing or are you estimating how inflated is this obtained score). The more general point is that if ETS is using a technique for correction that assumes guessing is truly blind then you improve your chances by choosing answers when you have some knowledge. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Psych GRE: guess/multiple choice strategies
On Sun, 05 Nov 2000 12:48:31 -0500 (EST) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Guessing is not ALWAYS to the advantage of the test-taker, that's all I am trying to say. My take is that whether it will be advantageous or not depends on a lot of factors, so maybe we shouldn't be so sure about using it or recommending it in every case. Assuming that the ETS strategy is based on correction of inflation of the score due to *pure* guessing *alone* then this is one of the few instances where ALWAYS is the best recommendation. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: correction factor corrected?
On Sun, 05 Nov 2000 13:41:20 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) "Kenneth M. Steele" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is one method... For Person 1, we know a raw score of 22 is due to the mixture of C + L. The number of wrong answers was 8. Wrong answers represents the case where the testtaker was unlucky. There are 4 ways to be wrong on a 5-item question. (This is the source of using a correction value of .25) We can calaculate the chance of choosing a *wrong* item to estimate the number items guessed at and then subtract that estimate of guesses from the raw score. Raw Score Wrong * (1/4) = LCorrected 1 22 8 2 20 2 26 24 6 20 3 32 48 12 20 By Guesses at this point, I meant *Lucky* guesses. Ken
Re: Two questions about Likert scales
On Tue, 24 Oct 2000 08:37:10 -0400 "John W. Kulig" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Supposedly, it is tricky (or, downright wrong) to use these scales for across group comparisons, they are only for within-group comparisons. The reason is that different groups' use of the adjectives may not be equivalent. If we compare "tasters" versus "nontasters" for instance, the the anchor "extremely bitter" for the former may correspond to a very intense stimulus - subjectively as intense as a very loud noises. For the latter, an "extremely bitter" taste may be at the top of gustatory experiences - but relatively mild relative to very loud noises. That is, the sensory world of tasters vs. nontasters guarantees these adjectives will be interpreted differently. The same logic would apply to other between-group comparisons. I agree, but the major problem here is caused by comparing across nonequivalent groups. I see this problem ignored most often when people are talking about "gender differences." Consider the following stem-and-leaf plots of answers to the question--- Is "Doom" a gory computer game? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not VeryMediumVery Men Women 7 7 +++ 6 +++ 6 +++ 5 +++ 5 ++ 4 ++4 ++ 3 ++3 ++ 2 ++2 + 1 + 1 Notice that the distribution of Men's answers are shifted towards "Not" by 1 item but are otherwise identical to the Women's answers. It doesn't matter whether you treat the data as interval or ordinal (the usual argument involving Likert-type scales). The summary statistic would indicate that men rate the game as less gory. As John indicated, the problem with this conclusion is that we don't know whether males and females use the scales in the same manner. The difference may only mean that men and women have a systematically different definition of the words "not very." Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Two questions about Likert scales
On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 16:08:34 -0400 "John W. Kulig" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1. Do we measure on a LIE-KURT scale or a LICK-URT scale? This depends on whether you are a (a)Michigan PhD, (b)pedant, (c)had met Rensis at a convention, or (d) some combination of the former. In that case, you say LICK-URT. On the other hand, if you want the grubby masses whose knowledge of scale construction came from textbooks without pronounciation guides to understand you in conversation then you say LIE-KURT. These are the same sort of squalid scholars who BUT-TON instead of BOO-TON. 2. When using a Likert scale with adjective-modified anchors (as in "extremely pleasant" or "extremely bitter") - are we permitted to compare results between subjects/groups? or are we limited to within-subject comparisons? This is a much trickier question as the use of the adjectives has caused people to be less likely to use the most extreme values. This would interfere with subjects assigning numbers in an interval-like fashion. This could have several effects depending upon the number of steps on your scale. Should we assume that this individual used these anchors with a 5-point scale? (I've seen worse.) Ken I have the answer to the first question, and maybe the second as well. -- --- John W. Kulig[EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Psychology http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig Plymouth State College tel: (603) 535-2468 Plymouth NH USA 03264fax: (603) 535-2412 ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: advice for research methods articles?
On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 09:20:55 -0500 "G. Marc Turner" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Okay, here's the full citation of the article: Steele, K., Bass, K., Crook, M. (1999). The mystery of the Mozart effect: Failture to replicate. Psychological Science, 10(4), 366-369. One of the main things I like about this article, as opposed to other short articles I've found in Psych. Science, is that it actually uses standard headings. Also, it uses simple ANOVAs, so the students should be able to easily understand the results section. Marc: Thanks for the kind words. People can grab a copy of the paper in pdf format from our departmental web site: http://www.acs.appstate.edu/dept/psych/Faculty/Steele.htm Or you can get it directly at: http://www.acs.appstate.edu/dept/psych/Documents/Mozart_PS.pdf Actually, *I* have been too embarassed to assign it directly to my classes and have used articles I find in Psychological Reports and Perceptual Motor Skills. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Mozart effect (now Strong Sell)
On Sun, 15 Oct 2000 23:47:05 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And speaking of the Mozart effect, there I was watching The Practice (US TV drama) tonight when a commercial for the Fisher-Price toy company came on. They had this nifty new toy for babies they were flogging: you press the keys, and out comes Mozart. To their credit, F-P didn't claim any special developmental advantage for their toy (maybe they were worried that Eleanor and Lindsay would sue them the way they were suing the EPA on the programme). But I bet they're betting that parents will make the connection. If I were Mozart effect watchdog Ken Steele, I'd want to check this device out. The worst part is that the group that originally reported the result continues to sell the Mozart effect in a manner that makes F-P look circumspect. See the writings on Gordon Shaw's web site, http://www.mindinst.org Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: History - level of course
At 03:01 PM 9/28/00 -0400, Renner, Michael wrote: I want to throw out a question and then sit back and be simultaneously amazed and enlightened. An alternate model would be to put the course at a lower level, encourage students to take it as soon as possible after Intro psych. With this model you could use the historical overview to provide a framework for later courses. Have any TIPsters had experience with the "Take History Early" model, and if so, what are their thoughts about the relative merits of the two models? I took History Systems as my second course in psychology in my second-semester freshman year. The first day of class we were supposed to pick a famous psychologist/school of psychology for an end-of-semester paper. I had to go to the instructor (Burton Rosner--the chair of the department at that time) and admit that I had only taken introductory psych. He made dire predictions but allowed me to stay (and assigned me to write about Piaget--a name I had never encountered). It was a hard class, but (as Michael suggested) it turned out to be a wonderful experience because I had a general framework that allowed me to appreciate specific-area classes. I was amazed at the connections between some currently-hot research topic and a similar historical issue (e.g., "mechanistic explanations of behavior" and language-use by chimpanzees). I am not sure that a History Systems course, at the level presented as a capstone course, would be the best model to follow. Instead, I would suggest (and have wanted to develop) a much easier version to be used as the introductory course, itself. My N=1... Ken -------------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
web pages that perform statistical calculations
Links to over 550 programs are located at http://members.aol.com/johnp71/javastat.html Enjoy! Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Grades, Curving, Fairness Motivation
On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:15:30 -0400 "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi all, I have a 2-part question, based on the following (too true) premise: I just gave the first exam of a Cognitive Psychology course, which consisted of multiple-choice and short-answer questions. The class includes many 1st and 2nd year students, with a smattering of 3rd and 4th year students. Based on percent-correct scores, my grade distribution breaks down as follows: A's: 11% B's: 11% C's: 11% D's: 18% F's: 50% Yikes. Clearly, some students performed admirably, but many others did not. So here Mike: Generally I am opposed to curving grades, especially in this case. It suggests to the F-students that you will back down and assign them acceptable grades whatever their performance. It suggests to the A-students that their hard work and attention in class was for naught and, instead, they should strive to be just a little better than the pack. It suggests to all students that you are uncertain about your standards, or are willing to compromise under difficult circumstances. (In local parlance, a "pud.") As to fairness, that is a different issue. If you are sure this was a "fair" evaluation then I would go into class and be honest and direct with the students. Generally, I take a criterion approach to these situations. I tell them there is a certain level of knowledge I expect them to have acquired. They didn't achieve it on this test, but they did see what was expected of them. Depending on the context and the course, I give them a second opportunity to demonstrate their success. This may be to rewrite a paper or to take another exam on the topic. However, if they are satisfied with their grade then they do not have to do anything. (And many are satisfied with a C or a D in a course since they are just cruising through college.) I have found that almost all students understand this approach and consider it "fair." Good luck. Ken (getting ready to return some methods papers that received poor grades) Thanks much! -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066 -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
replacement for the dead grandmother
My anecdotal impression is that "my computer crashed and ate my disk" has now replaced "dead grandmother" and "sibling in car crash" as the most popular reason why a paper cannot be turned in at the assigned time. So far today it is 2/16 and still 15 minutes until class. ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: A query about specific nerve energies
On Tue, 02 May 2000 10:39:36 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The reason I'm currently hot on this topic is that a remarkable paper was just published in Nature (which, unfortunately, hasn't yet arrived in our library) which appears to settle the question. Von Melchner et al (2000) found a way to get the visual pathway in ferrets to connect with the auditory cortex. In behavioural tests, the ferrets still responded to a light as a visual stimulus. In other words, they still see lightning, but with their auditory cortex. Amazing, isn't it? Muller himself couldn't make up his mind whether the "specific energy" was due to the nerves or where they terminate in the brain. Most of us have placed our money on the termination in the brain. It looks like we were wrong. A journalistic account is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/042500sci-animal-ferret.html Von Melchner, L., et al (2000). Visual behaviour mediated by retinal projections directed to the auditory pathway. Nature, 404, 871-876. There is also a companion article from the same research group which reports that the affected auditory cortex shows "visual-cortex-like" columnar organization. The reference is Sharma, J., Angelucci, A., Sur, M. (2000). Induction of visual orientation modules in auditory cortex. Nature, 404, 841-847. -------------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: grad perspective
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 16:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Dawn Morales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am currently a grad in experimental psych. These days, in order to get a teaching job, you must have teaching experience, with good evals. Student evals may not be the best appraisal of teaching quality, but it does seem to be the currency of the realm. I agree that adjuncts will "do whatever it takes" to get good student evals. Dawn: (And other people heading towards the job market) At ASU (and, I believe, at most schools) we realize how easy it is to manipulate student evaluations, and the tenuous relationship between evaluation scores and quality of instruction. Generally we look at student evaluations of applicants but don't weigh them that heavily in the decision process. As far as teaching goes, we would be more interested in the courses that you have taught and your ability to give articulate answers to questions about teaching (such as your balance between rigor and accessibility in a specific content area). Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: statistics course
On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 11:19:25 -0400 Dennis Goff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have also started to collect internet resources to use in the course. Do any of you know a good basic site with links to more specific sites? I am hoping to find databases that I could use for illustration and homework problems as well as some informational sites that could support explanations from class and textbook materials. Here is a good site, the Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lane/rvls.html Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Illusion d'optique post
Ron Blue posted an interesting optical illusion in *.uue format. It is like a Hermann grid on steroids and I encourage people to decode and take a look at it. If you don't know how to decode the file then I can send you the *.jpg file in an attachment. Thanks for the post, Ron. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: False Memory Syndrome Doubted
On Wed, 15 Mar 2000 16:02:47 -0500 (EST) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Jim Guinee wrote: LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists say they have cast doubts on the prevalence of False Memory Syndrome and the idea that recovered memories are often bogus ones induced by therapists. etc. Tipsters interested in this issue should also note: Clancy, S. A., Schachter, D. L., McNally, R. J., Pitman R. K. (2000). False recognition in women reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse. Psychological Science, 11, 26-31. The authors report that those women who reported recovered memories of sexual abuse were more prone to false recognition in other memory tasks and suggest that these women as a group may be more susceptiple to memory illusion. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: False Memory Syndrome Doubted
On Sun, 19 Mar 2000 12:43:12 -0500 "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ken wrote: Tipsters interested in this issue should also note: Clancy, S. A., Schachter, D. L., McNally, R. J., Pitman R. K. (2000). False recognition in women reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse. Psychological Science, 11, 26-31. **This is an interesting finding, but I was surprised at how **statistically weak the effect was, given its publication in **Psych Science. **Overall, neat effects, but not particularly robust. Of course, **the sample sizes here were understandably small (ns = 12-15 **per group). It will be interesting to see whether successful **replications come down the pike... **Mike Urps! And I illustrate the danger of citing a study after reading only the abstract. Honest, I was going to read the full article. Ken * Michael J. Kane Psychology Department Georgia State University University Plaza Atlanta, GA 30303-3083 phone: 404-651-0704 fax: 404-651-0753 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: operant boxes
On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 11:44:52 -0900 Dani' Raap [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am a new faculty member this year and am in charge of building a psychology lab from basically ground zero. Been there. Done that. :-) (2) Are there any brands for which you have positive or negative reviews? I think that a very important issue to consider when you are shopping is the control apparatus. How are you going to control and record events in the box? Much of the commercial chamber apparatus is more or less wedded to a company's controller system (especially the connectors!) and all companies will try to convince you that their system is "plug and play" (or maybe "plug and press"). Be wary of these claims and inquire into the programming backgrounds of people who are using various systems. I can't give you detailed advice about the pluses and minuses of the various control systems as I do my own programming. (3) Any suggestions of things we can "build" ourselves to save money? (e.g. I've seen outer casings as dorm fridges with appropriate drillings) You can save a pile of money by not buying the commercial sound enclosures. Another technique is to build cabinets and sound-dampen them with acoustic tile and carpet. I got lots of tile (because it was old sizing) and carpet (administration buildings are always getting recarpeted) free from our physical plant. Good hunting, Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: TS (silly aside)
On Mon, 06 Mar 2000 09:45:38 -0500 "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "Coprolalia," or the impulsive/compulsive vocal tics characterized by inappropriate speech, is a rather uncommon symptom of Tourette's Syndrome. Isn't there a tendency for some psychology faculty to suffer from palilalia? Ken -------------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Cheating Culture
On Fri, 25 Feb 2000 10:40:10 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time) Vincent Prohaska [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It might be that these "ethnic" students are being recruited by your college from the same high school, where this was allowed to go on, or that they belong to the same student organization on campus. For example, we have a freshman program that blocks students into their first year courses. Often students who were friends in high school register for the same block and keep many of their high school habits alive. I am leaning toward this explanation, rather than ethnicity because your students seem to know another from before getting to your class. (Notice if they were majority students, they might be from the same student club and frat, and it would not be as readily apparant as their ethnicity, nor would we think culture is responsible. Uh-oh, I am starting to get into a political/race discussion that I wanted to avoid.) In my experience Vinny's "cohort" explanation is the better one for the cases I have encountered. As to "ethnic" concerns, most of my cheaters are WASPs. The ethnic distribution of cheaters seems proportionate to the student population. Vincent Prohaska Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology Lehman College Bronx, NY 10468-1589 718-960-8776 718-960-8092 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: RE: the big question
On Fri, 18 Feb 2000 11:27:01 -0700 "Martin J. Bourgeois" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rod Hetzel wrote: What do you consider to be the biggest problem or challenge facing psychology today? I have no clue, but about a year ago, The Psychology Place website asked 20 or so top psychologists to answer this question and posted them on their website- it was fascinating to see the range of problems people talked about. Yes, but in many cases the answers seem to revolve around an article in their area that they were in the process of publishing. Oh gosh, it must be a Friday afternoon moment of cynicism... What I meant to say was the effect of music on the brain. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Is college relevant to getting a job?
Jeff: That was an interesting post but I suggest that something important is missing, which is data on the job to which they aspire. Some job requirements seem pretty stable to me. I don't think my kindergarten teacher would be too shocked at what she would find in a classroom today whereas many computer scientists from the same time era would be astounded at how computers are used by most people today. (You turned a calculator into a TV!?!) It seems to me one reason that we see such mixed messages in our student's reactions is that there is such a mixture of goals. Many students taking psychology here want to be kindergarten teachers. They have wanted to do this since adolescence and have no other goal in life (other than being nice to people). A college degree is required for this job. They are here to get their ticket punched and pick up a few techniques. Given the turnover in staff in these jobs, there is a very good chance that there will be jobs available for them when they graduate. Given the requirements of the job, they can expect little change in the job for 20 years. Now I don't like their perspective on college, but it doesn't seem to be an irrational perspective. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Another reason why students get confused...
On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 09:50:41 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) "Kenneth M. Steele" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Poor proofreading of textbooks. Today's example is the conglomeration of punishment, negative reinforcement, and positive reinforcement. See Figure 6.22 (p. 239)in Weiten, W. (1998). Themes and variations (4th ed.) Stephen Black noted in a kindly fashion that many not have access to that text. I have scanned the figure and will send you a copy if interested. It is 183Kb in size and in jpeg format. Let me know privately and I will send you a copy. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
signal detection tutorial
Would someone point me to an interactive signal detection theory tutorial to pass along to my students? The tutorial from Purdue (IPL)does not work with Netscape 4.7 for me and the Krantz tutorial (from Hanover) requires Office 2000! One would think that there must be a thousand SDT tutorials floating around but I haven't been able to find much beyond the standard 2 (yes - no) x 2 (target present - absent) table. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Basic APA Manuscript Needed
On Tue, 18 Jan 2000 15:39:29 -0600 (CST) Hank Goldstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do any of you know where I can beg, borrow, or copy a basic APA manuscript that might be intelligible to most undergrads who are being introduced to research in Psychology? The samples that I have seen in a few research methods texts are some combination of too advanced/complex/error-plagued. I would be very happy to pay for copying, mailing, etc., if anyone already has something that might help and is willing to share it with me. My students and I would be eternally (well, maybe not that long) grateful. David Martin has a nice short example paper in his book "Doing Experiments" which I have used with success in class. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: The moon illusion
On Thu, 06 Jan 2000 21:20:58 -0800 Gary Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, I saw this in the paper also. Is there something new about this? I thought this was one of the standard explanations--quite a few years old. Perhaps some SP folks can enlighten us as to what's new about this?Is it really considered the most efficient explanation? Gary Peterson This sounds like a standard answer to me. I would be interested in hearing whether there is a new twist. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: which computer programs?
On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 15:04:06 -0500 Miguel Roig
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Happy Y2K everyone.
There is a course in C++ that I will be able to audit next semester. Is C++ a
useful language for these purposes?
Miguel:
I learned to program in C after much frustration with BASIC and
FORTRAN. C is an extremely powerful and flexible language. C++
is a superset and has some additional features that are probably
not that relevant to you.
I would recommend learning the language. Also I would recommend
going to the instructor and explaining how you are going to use
the language by describing a simple experiment. Much of what I
suspect you want to do concerns time-critical input/output
operations whereas the typical programming course is heavy on
"data structure" and database manipulations. The instructor
should be able to let you know where the course is going too
lightly or too heavily over topics of interest to you.
printf("Good Luck!"\n);
Ken
--------------
Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Associate Professor
Dept. of Psychology
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
Re: Screwy stats?
On Tue, 14 Dec 1999 11:53:01 -0500 (EST) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've just been reading a new paper by Hodoba (Sleep Research Online, 1999, at www.sro.org/1999/Hodoba/101 on the effect of chewing gum on subjective feelings of sleepiness. He says yes, and among other data, reports a Mann-Whitney test (exptl = 21, control = 43) with a median sleepiness score of 2 for the experimentals (range 1-3) and median for the controls of 2 (range 1-5). He reports a U of 282.0, Z of 2.6278, and significance at p = 0.0086 Question: is this possible? The answer is yes, but there is something screwy going on with the data set. First off, one must appreciate what is being compared/computed in the Mann-Whitney -- which is differences in the sum of ranks. Consider the 3 data sets below: Group A B C 10 9 1 9.8 8.8 .8 9.4 8.4 .4 9.2 8.2 .2 If one were to do a M-W comparison on A vs B and compare the results to A vs C then one should get the same numerical results because the size of the data sets is the same and group A has the highest ranks when either A and B are combined for the computation or A and C are combined for the computation. The important insight at this point is to realize that rank scores and the medians for a data set are not equivalent measures. I played around with some data sets (N=20 per group) and was able to produce practically equivalent medians and similar M-W results to the study Stephen cited. The trick was to make each group have a bimodal distribution and have the distribution of one group shifted downward just enough so that they looked like data sets A and B above. In that fashion, I could maximize the rank score differences even though the raw score differences were very tiny. (And it was much more fun doing that than grading exams...) Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Screwy stats?
On Tue, 14 Dec 1999 16:39:39 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) "Kenneth M. Steele" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 14 Dec 1999 11:53:01 -0500 (EST) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've just been reading a new paper by Hodoba (Sleep Research Online, 1999, at www.sro.org/1999/Hodoba/101 on the effect of chewing gum on subjective feelings of sleepiness. He says yes, and among other data, reports a Mann-Whitney test (exptl = 21, control = 43) with a median sleepiness score of 2 for the experimentals (range 1-3) and median for the controls of 2 (range 1-5). He reports a U of 282.0, Z of 2.6278, and significance at p = 0.0086 Question: is this possible? Both Mike Scoles and I suggested data sets that could produce equivalent medians but different rank score sums on the M-W. Both suggestions concerned odd distributions of scores. If you go look at the paper cited by Stephen (the *.pdf version) and examine the figures (which show boxplots for the different groups) then you can see that the distributions are very skewed or are otherwise not symmetrical. Another notable aspect of the pdf version of the report is the acknowledgment. Check it out. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: The end of the world as we know it?
On Mon, 13 Dec 1999 07:28:22 -0700 Jeff Ricker
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Given all the hype and hoopla about massive Y2K problems, I have been
surprised by what seems to be a lack of concern among the general
populace about what some claim will be the complete disintegration of
social order. Although I have seen a great deal of concern among some
Christian groups about this, I have seen little evidence that most
people are worried. For example, not one student has mentioned TEOTAWKI
("the end of the world as we know it") during class, and television
commercials seem to have taken a somewhat sardonic attitude toward it.
Are people, in general, more skeptical and rational than I had
previously thought, or is everyone waiting until after December 25th to
become overly concerned?
I believe that the case is more like that with the Monica
Lewinsky story. People are tired of hearing about the story.
Ken
------
Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Associate Professor
Dept. of Psychology
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
Re: RE: Nosing out suspects
On Fri, 03 Dec 1999 10:41:13 -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a related topic, I remember from an industrial psychology class a reference to research showing that pigeons were superior at removing flawed phamaceuticals from an assembly line than were humans. The company did not implement a pigeon quality review team, though, because of image concerns. Is there a grain of truth in any of this? I would like to use it as an example of discrimination learning if I can verify it. Yes, Thom Verhave made such a proposal in a 1966 article in American Psychologist and in a 1967 Psychology Today article. However, having worked with pigeons, there are issues of sanitation to be considered. Ken Reference: Verhave, T. (1966). The pigeon as a quality-control inspector. American Psychologist, 21, 109-115. (I hope that OSHA never asks an operant lab about the exact constituents of "piegon dust") ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: plagiarism.com (.ORG!)
On Mon, 22 Nov 1999 10:12:21 -0600 Rick Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a snippit from the CNN Technology section: http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/21/plagerism.detective/index.html The text report made an error. The correct address is www.plagiarism.org not com. ^^^ Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
(long) article on lashley and hebb fwd
either groundless or weaker or less in concert with the laboratory and the clinic. That he misreads Descartes (e.g., p. 332) seems by now to be an entrance-requirement for the College of Positivistic Cognitive Neuroscience: "I eat, therefore I am", indeed! (p. 333). And he certainly lived long enough for his own reflections (pp. 333-334) on the "privacy of the mental" to derive more rigorous support from Wittgenstein. But against the pardonable lacunae and occasional howler can be projected arguments and understandings at once forceful and original. In an age in which the "brain sciences" are serving up so many volumes best described as "thick but thin", it is gratifying to have one that is "thin but thick". REFERENCES Hebb, D. O. (1949) The Organization of Behavior: a Neuropsychological Theory. New York: Wiley. Lashley, K. S. (1929) Brain mechanisms and intelligence: A quantitative study of injuries to the brain. New York: Dover. Orbach, J. (1998) (Ed.) The Neuropsychological Theories of Lashley and Hebb. University Press of America Orbach, J. (1999) Precis of: The Neuropsychological Theories of Lashley and Hebb. PSYCOLOQUY 10(23). ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Psycoloquy/1999.volume.10/ psyc.99.10.029.lashley-hebb.1.orbach http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?10.29 Skinner, B. F. 1938. The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. --- End Forwarded Message --- -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Pavlov: bell or metronome?
On Mon, 08 Nov 1999 08:16:57 -0500 (EST) Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: did Pavlov use a bell or a metronome ? Pavlov used tones of various frequencies, a metronome, the sound of bubbling water, and a variety of other sounds. However I have never seen a specific reference to a bell in Conditioned Reflexes. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Applied Mozart at Pitt
On Wed, 03 Nov 1999 08:20:19 -0500 (EST) Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to my local media,administrators at U of Pittsburg have placed jumbo speakers near college bars and are transmitting Mozart and other classical music. The intent is that the music will have a calming effect on rowdy drinking students and hence decrease the probabilty of aggression. I would have suggested Brahm's Lullaby, but I guess Mozart does everything... Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: mozart effect tues nite
On Tue, 02 Nov 1999 08:07:51 -0500 (EST) Pat Cabe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Mozart effect may be featured on the Fox Family channel tues nite--the show is Exploring the Unknown and the producer tries to present some scientific skepticism about paranormal issues. Gary Peterson Will our own Ken Steele be featured, we wonder? Any word from anyone on that? Pat Cabe No. Ken Steele will not be featured. It should be Gordon Shaw (the physicist who is the promoter of the effect), Don Campbell (a fellow who trademarked the name "Mozart Effect" and has a ton of CDs to sell), and Chris Chabris (who did the meta-analysis that appeared in Nature along side of the joint report from ASU, U. of Montreal, and U. of Western Ontario). There is a mildly interesting story here. Chris Chabris emailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked me whether the TV show people had contacted me and I said they had not. He was quite surprised as they also wanted footage of the experimental setup. We both thought it odd that they would have him but not me. Chris wrote me that he had brought up this issue twice with the TV people but I never heard anything. My thought is that when you can have an expert who is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Harvard Medical School then who else is required? Ken PS- Speaking of magical thinking, Gordon Shaw has an elementary school district in Montana that has agreed to be a test site for his music and spatial reasoning program. One of my criticisms of his theory was that no causal mechanism was specified. Evidently (from the Oct. 18 AP story I read) he told the school board that the effect was caused by changes in magnetic fields! ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: harry potter (now magic thinking)
On Mon, 01 Nov 1999 18:39:27 -0600 "Paul C. Smith" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not sure that I see the change over time, in light of everything from Casper to Clarence to Samantha to Jeannie. However, I have long wondered about the role that matter-of-fact magic in the movies and tv plays in making the paranormal believable (the "encourages them" side of your speculation). People apparently find it very easy to believe in all sorts of magical powers, universal cures (ever really look at the lists of claims for those herbal supplements?), and religious miracles. Surely the belief is not the product of the very meager real-world evidence. One would expect these to be the kind of exceptional claims that require exceptional evidence, but they're treated almost as though the burden of evidence is in the other direction (as though _natural_ explanation is the odd route to take, the last resort). Paul brings up a point that I have wondered about, surely there is little real-world experience supporting the belief in magical powers and outcomes. So is TV to blame? I have a second culprit--intellectual laziness. I have noticed that often students tire quickly in dealing with thorny issues, like specifying the operational definition of "cigarette smoking." They want me to tell them "the answer" rather than working out a solution for themselves. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: harry potter and child dev
On Mon, 01 Nov 1999 10:30:18 -0800 Gary Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As an amateur magician and educator, I am interested in the reactions of teachers and others to the increasingly popular books featuring the Harry Potter character. I haven't read the books yet, but my understanding is the character uses spells and magickal powers to make the world right (for him). I predict reactions from concerned parents, as well as folks like us who may be asked our view of such books in relation to a child's (or adult's) ability to differentiate reality and fantasy, the kind of role model being fostered for people who are troubled, feel rejected by others, etc (do any Halloween movies come to mind here? ;-). There might be interesting discussion of coping and adjustment, and appropriate and inappropriate outlets for handling personal problems, etc. Harry is a student of witchcraft and wizardry (still a eurocentric charter school??) and faces dismal and paranoid-like dangers in his world. He rescues himself by his sorcery and magickal powers. Old stuff really, but I am also curious as to the popularity of such books at a time when science literacy in the U.S. is considered very poor (was it ever really good?), and a number of us in education are trying to find ways to encourage critical thinking. I have put Harry Potter on my reading list and will check them out for myself. Has anyone else heard of them, or had discussions about the books? Ask your Wiccan students? You can find some reviews at amazon.com of course. Gary Peterson Gary: I have read parts of the books (at bedtime to my son) but not each book entirely. I am surprised by the success of the books (although I would have loved them if I read them as a 9 year old). The atmosphere in the books is similar to that evoked by Roald Dahl. There are truly mean people and dangerous situations encountered by Harry and his friends. The emphasis is not on using magic to solve personal problems. Instead Harry is busy sorting out typical school/growing up problems with the realization that his history/background has given him a particular destiny. That destiny is a mystery, although some of the adults seem to know something about his future. So Harry must puzzle out whether a particular teacher is mean to him because of that destiny or because he just doesn't like Harry; and, if the mean treatment is because of Harry's destiny, then is it due to simple jealousy or is there a darker explanation? This emphasis on sorting out one's position in the world is done in an engrossing manner. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Are you overweight?
On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 17:21:57 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also seem to recall that a recent big study (maybe it was that JAMA, maybe another: for once, I'm at school and the report is at home) actually showed a U-curve of risk with a large flat area at the bottom. Risk was greater only for the seriously skinny and the seriously fat; everone else could relax (literally). Unfortunately, that's not the message that was being delivered about the results. And it was all correlational, anyway. I went to PubMed and looked at abstracts for the last 3 or 4 years. There are a *lot* of studies looking at BMI and mortality risk. The general message I got from a review of these abstracts is consistent with Stephen's suggestions. The function relating bmi to mortality risk is not linear, the argument being whether is it a U or a J-shaped function. The function itself is fairly flat over a major portion of the range, indicating over the typical range of weights there is little change in risk. It is only when you get to the grossly fat and the grossly skinny. (And, as many of the abstracts pointed out, being very skinny or very fat at some moment in time may be the outcome of a pre-existing disease process.) Finally, I have a guess at to why 25 is the magic number. It looks like 25 is about the inflection point for the curve, where your relative risk starts to change. But as Stephen pointed out, and is consist with my reading of the abstracts, the actual change in mortality risk is pretty small for quite a change in the BMI. Ken PS - A colleague of mine, on learning that the function is a U and his BMI score was 25, concluded that an alternative for him was to drink more beer, not less. -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: How do I get those @#$% complementary after-images?
On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 10:29:48 -0400 (EDT) Bob Keefer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't use PowerPoint (don't have the equipment readily available), but I do use this demonstration. I have a heart and an American flag in 'opponent' colors on overheads. One thing I know you need to do is to make sure they're staring at a fixed point in the middle of the field you want show the effect. My overheads have a black dot in the middle where the student focus for at least 30 seconds (I have a little explanation I do while they're staring so as to help the time pass). Then I tell them to keep staring at the exact same spot, and then zip the overhead off the projector. It's very effective. If you're not including the fix point, that might be a problem. I do what Bob does and it works very effectively. Another thing; why the dark background? I think it might work better on a light background (at least, that's how it works using the overhead projector). I agree with Bob, go to a white background. Also I have noticed that the effect seems strongest at a chromatic border. Why not try a gigantic plus or x, which will help the observers keep their fixation steady. We just got some Epson projectors so I will try the PowerPoint technique sometime in the Spring. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Are you overweight?
As you may have heard, the prevalence of obesity has increased and the JAMA article reporting these results refers to the change as an "epidemic." The article can be found at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v282n16/full/joc91119.html The Charlotte Observer provides a formula to calculate the measure (Body Mass Index)used: BMI = ((weight in lbs)/(height in inches)^2) * 704.5 Where a BMI score of 25-29 indicates you are overweight and score 30 indicates obesity. I calculated my score conservatively (shrunk my self-reported height by 1/2 inch and rounded my weight up to the next 5-lb interval) and discovered that I was not overweight according to the formula. However it was easy to see that a large variety of people that I would not have classified as overweight would be classed so by the formula. Before I suggest to you that this can be turned into a teaching moment on operational definitions, can someone confirm that the formula is correct? Off to get some BBQ... Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: HELP: Psychometrics for HS students
On Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:39:31 -0500 "G. Marc Turner" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On rather short notice I've been asked to do a presentation on psychometrics to a group of high school math students (10-15 students). When I agreed to say yes, I had a wonderful plan in mind. Of course, now I'm realizing that there simply won't be enough time for them to do what I would love to do. So, I'm now frantically searching for ideas. I'm hoping to be able to give them a short instrument and go through some of the simple computations used in item analysis, which might turn into using SPSS to do the calculations and then explain what the different numbers mean and how the information would be used. Of course, my main goal is to try and turn these math people into future psychometricians, or at least get them to think critically about testing and test results. Marc: I think that your assumptions about their knowledge of tests are too advanced. My bet would be that they still need to be convinced that there is any kind of regularity about people that can be quantified and used to predict. My suggestion would be to do some simple correlation or regression on measures that you can obtain from them. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: RE: the failure to replicate
On Fri, 22 Oct 1999 20:34:49 -0500 Al Cone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In science we build by replicating (with extensions) on the method side in order to confirm or disconfirm the earlier findings of others. To say that someone "failed to replicate" means that researcher number two didn't duplicate the procedures of researcher number two. It says nothing about the results. Perhaps I'm being old fashioned in insisting upon this traditional distinction. Al Al: Would you provide a reference for that distinction. I have had someone else tell me the opposite, that replication refers to results and not method. (I have tried to take the middle ground and state what is being replicated..method or results or both.) Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: the failure to replicate
On Fri, 22 Oct 1999 17:53:08 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A possible new example is the recent paper by Maurer et al (1999). They reported the startling finding that as little as one hour of patterned visual stimulation after the birth of a baby with cataracts improves vision, a result which received wide attention in the press. Yet the paper is sprinkled with one-tailed tests, without a single word of justification. I've complained to _Science_ in a letter-to-the-editor (don't hold your breath, though). Complain, Stephen, complain. One of my fears is that academic experimental psychologists have split into two groups. One group is at the big name universities, where they are expected to be an active participant in the shaping of the field. (And, as Paul pointed out, the contingencies are not always conducive to good science.) The other group is at lesser-known schools (no names mentioned), where a type of "on-looker" attitude sets in because of the difficulty of finding time and resources to be active. When you complain you help disabuse the notion that science only happens in Boston, Palo Alto, and Toronto. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: RE: zener deck
On Wed, 06 Oct 1999 17:47:50 -0400 Rick Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If not, you might try writing Duke University, they used them quite extensively there in Rhine's lab. J B Rhine has been long gone (in many ways) from the Duke Psychology department. Try www.rhine.org Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
update on shoe size and negative r
The demonstration worked! shoe size and height, r = +.68, p = .06 shoe size and hair length, r = -.69, p = .058 What a look of surprise when we did the scatterplot for shoe size and hair length! Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: update on shoe size and negative r
On Thu, 07 Oct 1999 11:12:39 -0500 Rick Froman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Congratulations, Ken! That looks like a great demo. There is one thing I wondered about as this demo was being proposed. Aren't men's and women's shoe sizes on different scales? A size 5, for example, may not mean the same for both (personal communication, my wife, C. Froman, speaking for the women in her office). Your personal communicator is right. To convert a woman's shoes size (e.g., 9) to a man's shoe size then subtract 1 (W - 1 = M or 9 -1 = 8). To verify this, go to a sizing chart that converts from European shoe sizes to male and female American sizes. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Seeing upside down
On Sun, 03 Oct 1999 19:40:28 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 03 Oct 1999 10:35:10 -0500 Jim Matiya [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Folks, My wife asked me why I was in the bathroom alone with a flashlight. I told her I was trying to see upside downI need help Here is paraphrasing Marilyn Von Savant column in last week's Parade magazine... On Sun, 3 Oct 1999, Kenneth M. Steele replied: If Marilyn said the latter that then she is wrong snip Question: Is it possible for an individual who is (was?) listed in the Guiness Book of Records as having the world's highest IQ to be wrong? Conversely, can we trust someone whose IQ was undoubtedly artificially and unfairly enhanced through listening to Mozart? Yes, but I developed tolerance (to the dose) and intolerance (to the conclusion). I think Jim's empirical approach is the only way to go. I have a story about this, involving scholars and horse's teeth. But the problem is that Jim is looking into a mirror and so his retinal image is reversed. What is his brain going to do about that? Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Shoe size and negative r
On Sun, 03 Oct 1999 00:33:44 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3) (requires male and female students) The greater the shoe size, the shorter the hair That looks like a winner! (I am cheating because my class is small enough so that I know how direction the r will take in this case.) I was also hoping to sneak in a 3rd variable issue and I think that the students will spot this one immediately. Thanks for the help. Now we will see if this works... Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Seeing upside down
On Sun, 03 Oct 1999 10:35:10 -0500 Jim Matiya [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Folks, My wife asked me why I was in the bathroom alone with a flashlight. I told her I was trying to see upside downI need help Here is paraphrasing Marilyn Von Savant column in last week's Parade magazine... Question: Is is true the eye sees everything upside down and that the brain turns it rightside up? Answer: "Go into a completely dark room with a little battery operated flashlight switched off. Put the bulb end into your mouth. Then turn on the switch. Even though the flashlight is below your eyes, you will light above your eyes." I have tried this several times and it did not work. I seem to be misunderstanding something. Anybody have any ideas? If Marilyn said the latter that then she is wrong. The retinal image is inverted of course. The issue of the need for correction of the inverted retinal image is an old pseudodilemma that was answered by William Molyneux in 1692 (according to my copy of Herrnstein and Boring). The eye is functioning correctly when it can transmit the relative layout of the environment, which in this case would be that the light is in your mouth at one position relative to your nose and your eyes are located on the opposite side relative to the nose. It doesn't matter whether this image is inverted or not. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Chronic Pain Addiction
On Fri, 01 Oct 1999 14:12:30 -0400 "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Beth Benoit wrote: Iagree that it's certainly doubtful that people become addicted to aspirin and ibuprofen. I'd say it's not so doubtful. See the following quote from The State, a newspaper in SC, Summer 1993: "While taking the occasional aspirin for a headache can be good medicine, taking any analgesic too much can promote regular headaches, researchers at St. Louis University Medical Center report in a recent issue of Headache Quarterly. 'It's really a paradox,' said Dr. Paul Duckro, an associate professor of psychiatry. 'People who suffer from headaches are typically taught to rely on medication for their pain, but we've found that regular use of analgesic medication can contribute to the transformation of an occasional headache into the nearly constant pain of chronic, daily headache.' Note that this is not so strange when one considers classical conditioning mechanisms of tolerance and withdrawal, as in Siegel's influential research. I regularly introduce my discussion of conditioned compensatory responses (in my Learning course) with the above quote. Mike is right, and the term for the effect with aspirin is "rebound analgesia." You see a similar effect with nasal sprays, termed "rhinitis medicamentosa." Also, for perception fans, Siegel (and Lorraine Allan) have spent the last few years building the case that the McCollough Effect is a classical conditioning effect. [See the Siegel Allan (1998) article in Psych. Bulletin.] One reason this is an interesting endeavor is that Richard Solomon's opponent process model arose from his familiarity with the Hurvich Jameson opponent process theory of color vision. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Job Ad - App. State - Quantitative
Here is a copy of our job ad which will be appearing in some selected fine periodicals... Ken The Department of Psychology at Appalachian State University invites applicants for a tenure-track position at the assistant professor level beginning August 2000. Candidates should be graduates of a doctoral program in psychology with specialization in Psychometrics/Quantitative Psychology. The successful applicant should have expertise in both basic and applied research methodology and be able to develop a research program in a content area of psychology (e.g., decision-making processes, epidemiology, program evaluation). An essential characteristic is the potential for effective communication of methodological and statistical concepts to undergraduate and master's level graduate students. Responsibilities include: teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in research methods and statistics and an undergraduate course in the candidate's content area of interest, providing consultation in statistics and research design to faculty members and graduate students, and advising in our undergraduate program. Preference will be given to candidates who are committed to excellence in teaching and who have teaching experience. Successful applicants will be expected to develop and maintain an active program of research including thesis supervision. Appointment is contingent on completion of all requirements for a doctorate in Psychology. Currently, the Department has 27 full-time faculty members, approximately 600 undergraduate majors, and 100 full-time graduate students in five master degree programs. Applications consisting of a vita, statement of teaching and research interests, copy of graduate transcripts, and three letters of recommendation should be sent to Stan Aeschleman, Chair, Department of Psychology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608. Deadline for receipt of completed applications is January 19, 2000. Appalachian State University is an equal opportunity employer. Applications from female and minority candidates and candidates with disabilities are encouraged. Additional information about the Department of Psychology is located on the Psychology Web site at: http://www.acs.appstate.edu/dept/psych. -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: WebCT
On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 17:54:55 -0700 Larry Dickerson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ken Steele wrote: What is important to note here is that a simple task like putting up a reference (only a text string) has been turned into this multi-step process. I have to go to a special add reference function, which is going to put my reference in a database, require me to give it a label to put in my resources list, and then I reference the label in the list. And if this were a link to an image or a sound file or url, then I need to go through separate menus to accomplish the same task. For me, it is much easier to type in my table "Check out the hot new article by Smith Jones in the current issue of Psych Bulletin" Yikes, Ken, I had forgotten it could be this bad. What you described sounds a lot worse than anything I've had to do on WebCT in two years. I provide links for my students all the time; I just use a bit of very basic html code to add them to my pages, and WebCT displays them just fine. The gyrations you describe bring to mind the old adage "Build something so simple even a fool can use it, and only a fool will want to use it." For the kinds of tasks I've wanted to use in an intro psych course, I just really haven't had to worry much about complications like these. I wrote this as if I didn't know anything about html (etc) and was using the program as presented. Just adding the HTML is what I would do of course. And that is what I found with a lot of WebCT, I found myself saying "but there is an easier way to do that" I don't think most users will find WebCT nearly as scary as the manual makes it sound; I would put the slope of its learning curve way below PowerPoint, for example. And they do offer good support, maintain a good users' listserv, and have a very competitively-priced licensing schedule. Anyone who wants to compare the different programs for offering web courses might check out http://www.ctt.bc.ca/landonline/ ; Bruce Landon teaches Social Psychology at Douglas College in British Clumbia. Thanks for posting the url. For sure I will take a look. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: WebCT
On Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:47:45 -0700 Larry Dickerson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ken Steele wrote: Mike: How do you like WebCT? I found it to be cumbersome and have discovered that there are PD perl scripts that one can use more flexibly. I'm quite surprised to hear the negative comments about WebCT. I have taught intro psych totally online for five semesters now, the last three with WebCT, and our students take to WebCT very quickly, much faster than the combination of web/e-mail/FirstClass that we used initially. I have steered away from the bells and whistles like Chat and Whiteboard, which I have found to be distractions to learning; I have found that the basic WebCT is very conducive to the cooperative learning activities and other social interactions that I emphasize. The learning curve for WebCT course designers is as easy as I can imagine for someone like me, who wouldn't know a perl script from a pearly gate. Larry: Here is an example of what I mean. Say I discover an interesting url that I want my students to view or an interesting article that I want them to read. I could go to my class web site where I might have a table labeled "Interesting Stuff for Students." The easy (for me) action is to type the url into the next row, highlight it, and indicate it to be a url with my web editor and that is all. And if it a reference to an article, then I just type in the text string and that is all. My table could be a list of text strings, urls, gifs, adobe pdf files links, real audio file links, etc. It doesn't matter. Here is what you must do in WebCT (abridged from page 39 of the WebCT tutorial) to add a reference to a book, article, or URL to your course content page: "WebCT's Reference Editor allows you to associate your course content with external references so that students can find supplementary information on the current topic. These references can be any of three types: References to textbooks References to articles References to URLs To access the Reference Editor, you must be on a page located on the WebCT Path. On the Page Design Menu, click on the References button. ... The top frame updates to list the references which are defined for the current page. ... The bottom frame shows the Reference Editor Menu. Before you add a reference to a page, you must create a new "Resource". A resource is the actual book or article that your're referring to. When you create new resource, you enter the publications information into WebCT's database. This information only has to be typed in once. After the information is stored, and you wish to make reference to that resource, all you have to do is select from a list of available resources." Whew! (URLs are handled in a similar manner through separate menus.) What is important to note here is that a simple task like putting up a reference (only a text string) has been turned into this multi-step process. I have to go to a special add reference function, which is going to put my reference in a database, require me to give it a label to put in my resources list, and then I reference the label in the list. And if this were a link to an image or a sound file or url, then I need to go through separate menus to accomplish the same task. For me, it is much easier to type in my table "Check out the hot new article by Smith Jones in the current issue of Psych Bulletin" Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Copyright/WebCT (used to be StudentU.COM)
On Fri, 10 Sep 1999 08:51:29 -0500 (EST) Pat Cabe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My understanding is that, at least by Georgia state law, if web materials are password protected then you need not worry about copyright. In WebCT, for example, it is very simple to restrict access to you site to the students registered for your course. Mike Perhaps, although it may be an issue whether Georgia state law supersedes the federal copyright laws. Part of the issue in fair use, as I understand it, involves "face to face" presentation (generally okay). So there is a bit of a question as to whether or not a web site restricting access to registered students meets this kind of criterion. Pat Cabe (by no means an expert on copyright law) When WebCT was introduced at our campus, one speaker presented also the suggestion that the password restriction separated "fair use" from "publication." Mike: How do you like WebCT? I found it to be cumbersome and have discovered that there are PD perl scripts that one can use more flexibly. Ken (who knows even less about copyright law than Pat) ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
activity wheel parts/questions
I am getting an experiment into operation that requires an activity wheel. I have an old Wahnmann wheel that is missing the "resting cage." I have 3 requests for all you experts and equipment hoarders out there... 1. I need to tear down the axle on the wheel so that I can clean and lube it. Does anyone have an a manual or sage experience with this operation? 2. Does anyone have an old resting cage that they would be willing to part with? I called up Lafayette and they wanted $500 for the cage alone!!! (The salesperson said it would be a custom order.) 3. Is Wahnmann still in business? Thanks Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
excerpt on history of SAT
http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/10_99b/printed/us/so/so0110_1.htm Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: course evaluations
On Thu, 02 Sep 1999 09:41:27 -0400 Miguel Roig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yesterday's Metro section of the New York Times featured an article titled: "To professors' dismay, ratings by student go on line". The article focussed on the current trend of establishing websites by either students, or by the institutions themselves, where information about course evaluations is readily available. There is one independent website, http://www.collegestudent.com/, where one can select a school and track down by course or by professor, evaluations provided anonymously by students. This feature is described in the article as one of the most popular aspects of this particular website. However, it appears that not too many students are yet aware of it: Some institutions, including my own, are not yet listed. This looks like another case of anecdote before data. There are only 12 reviews in the database and that covers all courses in all schools. No school is identified either. Darn... Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Mozart Effect
On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 13:19:15 -0400 (EDT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I always thought Philip Glass was a strange control condition for the original Rauscher studies. In the article that follows Ken Steele's (Nantais, K.M. Schellenberg, G. (1999) The Mozart Effect: An Artifact of Preference. Psychological Science, 10, 370-373.) they used Schubert (I believe) and also a passage of prose reading (a Stephen King passage) in two separate studies. The "Schubert effect" was as great as the Mozart effect. In their second study there was no overall difference between listening to Mozart vs Stephen King, but, there was an effect for whatever people preferred. If people liked Stephen King more, their scores went up. For those that preferred Mozart, their scores went up. There has been almost no rationale for the use of the Glass selection as the control condition. If you have not heard this selection before then you should go to one of the web audio stores and listen to a sample. Musical preference or familiarity would be an obvious alternative explanation. A much-better control group would have been a selection from the classical period which lacked the supposed special properties of the Mozart selection. For the rat research, there should also be a range of control groups, including other classical music, and other music. But is such a program of research worth the effort? Lots of things will temporarily boost scores on any DV. Stare out the window and breath deeply for 10 minutes and you'd probably see the same effect. If the effects are fleeting, is it worth pursuing any more? Besides, if you read Ken's article (same issue p. 366-369) there is even a question about the basic effect being replicated under conditions that are supposed to produce it (nice article, Ken). If you read the original article (and later articles) then you will notice that there is very little that connects the effect with their theory. On the one hand, you have a simple behavioral experiment where exposure to some condition is supposed to produce a short term effect on a spatial task and, miles away in conceptual space, a resonance model in which areas of your brain (unspecified locations) are activated (unspecified physical method) by special patterns (vaguely exemplified with terms like "complexity" and "symmetry"). From a musical standpoint, it never made sense to me that the effect should revolve around Mozart in particular. Sure, Mozart was great - perhaps the most gifted composer known to us. But his compositions are not that different from those of Hayden. And if Mozart was singled out because it tweaked our spatial sense, J.S. Bach would be a better choice. Mozart is noted for his ability to blend German (spatial) harmony and Italian melody. There is nothing unique about his counter-point - it's just more pleasant than Bach for most people. I have not listened to this particular Glass piece, but I would imagine that its lacks the pleasant quality of Mozart's pieces. Even the specific sonata chosen does not represent either the typical Mozart sonata or the apex of Mozart's composition. This particular sonata is only one of two 4-hand sonatas composed by Mozart. It was composed to reward a wealthy patron's support and featured Mozart playing the piece with the wealthy patron's daughter. The first 3 books about Mozart piano sonatas I consulted did not even list this particular sonata. Ken (Sorry for the tardy comments but the ASU email system has been SNAFU.) ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Chickens, roosters, and Ken Steele
On Wed, 04 Aug 1999 12:33:09 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Black [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What does Ken Steele have to do with this? Absolutely nothing. I just thought I'd mention that I enjoyed hearing the interview with him on the subject of the non-existence of the Mozart effect on the prestigious public-affairs radio programme "As It Happens", CBC (Canada) radio last night. He spoke with great authority on the subject. So that's what he sounds like! Thank goodness I escaped the headless chicken debate. I remember my grandmother killing chickens in her front yard and have been trying to decide whether the resultant effects could ever have been described as "running." Ken -------------- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Chicken Mythology (culture issues)
On Wed, 04 Aug 1999 13:59:56 -0500 William Wozniak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I love this topic. Aside from asking answerable questions, it brings back fond memories of my childhood in Cleveland. It also points out that. in the past, there was a clear cognitive connection between the food we ate and the animal that gave it to us. My daughter has no trouble eating "pork" or "beef," but "pigs" and "cows" are another story. When I was an undergraduate, I spent one weekend at my roommate's home in Bergenfield, NJ. At supper one night, I was describing life in the Southern US and was talking about my grandfather, who had a tobacco and diary farm near Abingdon, VA. At that point I had to explain my roommate's 12 year old sister what was a dairy farm. She thought I was lying when I said that the milk she was drinking came from cows, and became so upset about the idea that she refused to drink any milk for the rest of my visit. (And I didn't even have the opportunity to explain the method by which it was obtained, only that it came from a cow's body.) Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
New Nasty Virus
There is a new and very nasty email worm being propagated. See the url below for details. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/worm.explore.zip.html -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Behaviorism Walden Two
On Thu, 10 Jun 1999 08:16:25 -0400 "James S. MacDonall" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Linda, I'm not sure why you want feedabck on these items. They are accurate statements regarding misunderstandings of radical behaviorism. Basically, many do not understand the distinction between 'Skinnerian' or radical behaviorism and what some call methodological behaviorism, the type developed by Hull and others. Many of these statements are not misunderstandings of methodological behaviorism. Skinner was aware of the limitations of methodological behaviorism and developed a philosophy of science (radical behaviorism) that avoided these limitations. Jim Agreed. One problem is that many summaries of behaviorism that pop up in textbooks are breezy and superficial summaries by people who don't know much about the topic. Ken ------ Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Behaviorism Walden Two
On Thu, 10 Jun 1999 07:04:52 -0500 (CDT) Al Cone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Linda M. Woolf wrote: Hi Folks, I'm using Walden Two in a class this summer and while surfing the web, I ran across a Walden Two community's web site (Los Horcones: http://www.loshorcones.org.mx/). Anyway, it says the following. I would love to get your feedback on this. Linda, Their list is good; right on. One thing is missing: Treated as a technology, Applied Behavior Analyis WORKS. Al Cone makes an important point. In the classroom and in textbooks, many topics are covered because of historical reasons or they provide stimulating discussions or some similar reason. An emphasis on utility is often lacking. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
