Msylvester On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:18:52 -0800, Michael Sylvester wrote: >I could swear that I read somewhere (might have been a review >in Time magazine) that some tenets of sociobiology state that men >go to war to please women,and that gays make it possible for >there to be more females available for reproduction and thus >enhancing the gene pool.
Michael, is it the case that you do not have access to PsycInfo or other proprietary journal/newspaper/magazeine databases? When I have students ask me questions like the one above I tell them: (1) Given that I don't know what is the source of your information, I can't evaluate how credible it is nor whether your question is well formulated given the info that you think you're relying upon. If part of our jobs is to encourage the development of good, empirically testable questions in order to acquire useful and accurate info, shouldn't we avoid either using or encouraging poorly thought out, badly posed questions? (2) I would ask the student to the locate the source he/she thinks is the basis for the question and provide me the reference. If the reference is from the popular media, I might ask the student to use PsycInfo to locate the sources, either explicit or implicit, used in the media source to find the published research literature (i.e., journal article) serving as the basis for the media piece. If the media piece is just an opinion piece, I would point this out to the student and that one shouldn't confuse opinions with either data or theories. To illustrate this, a student in one of my cognitive courses a few semesters back asked something like the following question during the lectures on memory and forgetting: "What about people with photographic memories?" I responded that what ordinary people think of as being photographic memory is exceedingly rare, that the research term used to refer to this is "eidetic imagery" (and I contrast it with the use of mnemonics), and that there was only one foolproof test of eidetic memory (fusing Julesz-style random dot stereograms -- see Charles Strotmeyer, Reading #40 "An Adult Eidetiker" in Ulric Neisser's "Memory Observed"; see Reading #41 by Gummerman & Gray on the difficulties associated with finding "true" edetikers). The student's response was: "But I read on Yahoo that there was a woman who could remember every day of her life". I responded with: (1) "The Yahoo" may be a source of many entertaining and even useful things but one shouldn't rely upon it as a primary source of information. If there was really such a woman, then she would have been systematically studied by someone (I pointed out Luria's "S" and Hunt and Love's VP) and this would have been published in a research journal. (2) I pointed out that it was impossible for a person to remember every day of their lives and give the example of infantile amnesia to show why people don't remember the first few years of their lives (I point out that one would have to have a "Zoe Implant" like those used in the movie "The Final Cut", starring Robin Williams) (3) I asked if the student could remember whether there was a journal mentioned and she said that she couldn't remember (which was good point in time to talk about source memory and that as research oriented students they should focus on remembering what the primary source or research article being referred to and less on the exaggerated claims made in a media presentation that is infotainment). The student promised to email me the link to the Yahoo article and I said I would follow up. As it turns out, the Yahoo story was based on a research article by Parker, Cahill, & McGaugh (2006) published in the journal Neurocase which focused on a woman named "AJ" who had an extraordinary autobiographical memory. The article clearly points out that AJ could not remember every day of her life and had poor memory for materials that other mnemonists could easily retain (e.g., Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts"). The key finding was that AJ had detailed memory for events that she experienced and that she was either interested in or personally invested in. Her memory was less like a "videotape of her life" (a metaphor used in various places to describe her life) than memory for diary entries she had written all of her life. Of course, for AJ, it would be more beneficial to leave the public with the impression that she had imcomparable memory because she would eventually come out with a book about herself (see: http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Cant-Forget-Extraordinary-Science/dp/1416561765 ) and to be interviewed by Diane Sawyer on ABC's 20/20 (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=4813052&page=1 and http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4824374 ). I admit to talking back to the TV during the Diane Sawyer interview, yelling "Give her the 'War of the Ghosts" story!' ". So, what are the points: (a) It's a good idea to put in some time in thinking about the background and form for the question one wants to ask. A well-informed question will be easier to understand as well as answer than a "stream of consciousness" type question. It may also save one some embarassment (e.g., asking "Can I get swiss cheese on my pastrami sandwich" in a Jewish delicatessen that keeps kosher). (b) If one doesn't have access to PsycInfo and other proprietary databases (e.g., Proquest), then one can always use The Google to get answers. Librarians have been known to be quire helpful in guiding one in making effective and efficient searchs. >Michael "not necessarily full of bs" Sylvester,PhD Is you middle name equivalent to "there is a non-zero probablity of bs here"? -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
