If Milgram was using an event recorder (which is consistent with
apparatus technology at that time) then one is talking about
yards of paper to measure and convert to shock durations,
latencies, and progressions rates through the sequence for a
session. At the least, one would need to normalize by individual.
(Are Subject A and Subject B both both shocking faster than
typical at this level--then you need to be able to compute what
was typical for the individual subject.) Milgram was probably
overwhelmed by the amount of data conversion. Finally, if one
was missing a relevant transition point, time in session, shock
level, etc. then the record is garbage.
I have used event recorders before and the mistake is not to
record enough events so that you can measure transition/event
probabilities/durations. That mistake is one reason why you see
so little use of event/transition probabilites even though
psychologists often talk about the importance of the sequence of
events.
Ken
Jean-Marc Perreault wrote:
This is mentioned in his biography: The Man Who Shocked the World
(Blass, 2004). The exact reference to this is at the bottom of p. 79,
and top of 81 (as p.80 is a graph). The author states: Connected to the
schock machine was an apparatus that automatically recorded not only the
shock levels, but also the duration and latency of each shock to 1/100th
of a second.
Cheers.
JM
Jean-Marc Perreault
Chair, School of Liberal Arts
500 College Drive, PO Box 2799
Whitehorse, Yukon Y1A 5K4 Canada
t 867.668.8867
f 867.668.8805
www.yukoncollege.yk.ca
-----Original Message-----
From: David Hogberg [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 7:54 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Milgram Study: how long the button was held down?
What I remember from the film is that he showed an event recorder (and a
sample of its record) to display latencies and button-down duration. I
don't have access to the article right now, but as Jamie Davies said,
there was no mention of such data in his results section. DKH
David K. Hogberg, PhD
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Albion College, Albion MI 49224
[email protected] home phone: 517/629-4834
Jamie Davies <[email protected]> 06/01/09 10:18 AM >>>
Both the latency and the duration of the shocks were measured by Milgram
(he
states this in his method section) however on a re-read of the original
article he doesn't refer to this in the results section.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [email protected]
Professor
Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
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