Quality Webcomic Nerdiness

May 18, 2011 6 Comments

I love it when comics are both intelligent and fun. One of the first things I do when I wake up is read webcomics – it makes for a good transition to consciousness. And Today’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is particularly relevant to last month’s discussion:

First thought: that could totally have been my high school.
Actual first thought: Blurg… (read: Where’s my coffee)
Second thought: Wait a minute, 0^0 is a complicated question! It’s not necessarily 1!

But before I got too far up on my high horse about knowing that 0^0 is poorly defined, I looked at the scroll-over bonus panel:

And this is why I love SMBC.

Filed under Humor, Math

Kindles not Replacing Textbooks Yet

May 17, 2011 7 Comments

Are e-readers ready to replace textbooks? The lower costs would be welcome, that’s for sure. But is the technology good enough to serve the same purpose as a physical book? Researchers gave students Kindles with their books loaded to see how they’d be used. Turns out, not much:

By the end of the school year, nearly two-thirds of the students had abandoned the Kindle or were using it only infrequently. Of those who continued to use it regularly, the researchers write, “some attempted to augment e-readers with paper or computers, others became less diligent about completing their reading tasks, and still others switched to a different and usually less desirable reading technique.”

Now, I haven’t read the study so I don’t know if the Kindles made learning difficult or were merely unfamiliar and unpopular. After all, students have spent years developing study habits with physical books. Either way, they didn’t cut it. The article points out that the User Interface in Meatspace has incredible advantages:

Because we’ve come to take printed books for granted, we tend to overlook their enormous flexibility as reading instruments. It’s easy to flip through the pages of a physical book, forward and backward. It’s easy to jump quickly between widely separated sections, marking your place with your thumb or a stray bit of paper or even a hair plucked from your head (yes, I believe I’ve done that). You can write anywhere and in any form on any page of a book, using pen or pencil or highlighter or the tip of a burnt match (ditto). You can dog-ear pages or fold them in half or rip them out. You can keep many different books open simultaneously, dipping in and out of them to gather related information.

That’s all true. I’ve toyed with the idea of buying a Kindle, but I’m an avid highlighter and found that feature extremely clunky – definitely a deal-breaker for me. Yes, the technology will probably improve with time. I’m told iPads are better at it, though I haven’t been impressed.

Of course, that’s not an insurmountable challenge. Once e-readers can handle my style of reading and highlighting, I’m sold. Just thinking about that incredible amounts of searchable information at my fingertips… *Drool*

The researchers raise one advantage that won’t be easy to overcome: the physical books have an edge at creating a better cognitive map of the information. The constant unconscious cues we get by holding the book – how thick the sections are, how many pages are left, which side of the page a passage is on – all help us remember the content. Julia’s post on Memory Champions comes to mind – we remember things much better if we tap into our spacial memory as well.

I don’t know if visual cues are as powerful as kinesthetic cues, but I’m sure we can tweak the programs to give better constant feedback about our place in the book. It might not fully compensate for the shift to digital, but it’ll help.

The study focused on whether e-readers could replace textbooks in classroom settings, which might be where they’re at the biggest disadvantage. Textbooks are dense with information students are expected to be able to recall unaided. Outside the classroom, we’re rarely unable (or forbidden!) to look something up. As more information gets indexed, we need to hold less of it in our immediate memories.

I’m curious to see a study of how spacial memory aids learning processes vs. learning facts. I suspect it helps most with facts – the exact things that searchable libraries make easiest to handle. While our education system requires the memorization of facts, physical textbooks will have an edge. If we ever change to a model that prizes process-based learning and allow students to tap into external fact-mines, that edge will go away.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Filed under Education, Psychology

Synching Up: Another Cool Physics Video

May 12, 2011 7 Comments

Last week I stumbled upon that beautiful pendulum video. In comments, Max shared another cool video from the same people (Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations) – about synchronizing metronomes: (Thanks Max!)

The audio effect is important; watching the metronomes isn’t as powerful as hearing them get in a rhythm.

Any variation between the metronomes results in energy “swaying” the system, leading them to synchronize over time. After all, you wouldn’t expect a metronome to keep perfect time if you were shaking it – the setup just makes the shaking work against metronomes going against the consensus. I’m sure our friends at Ask a Mathematician/Ask a Physicist could give a more thorough answer.

What surprised me is that they got OUT of synch after being removed from the soda cans. I thought that, once in a rhythm, they would stay that way. I guess that by picking the system up and putting it back on the table was enough to break that. Or am I missing something?

Filed under Physics, Video

Simple, Beautiful Physics: Video

May 4, 2011 15 Comments

This is one of the simplest but most captivating physics videos I’ve ever seen:

Each pendulum is at a slightly different length – not just for the visual effect, but it gives them different phasesperiods/frequencies [Seth, the Physicist in Ask a Mathematician/Ask a Physicist wrote me to correct this – Thanks Seth!]

Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and random motion.

For more details see http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k16940&pa…

The period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. The length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. The length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations.

This seems easy enough for middle school students to set up and learn from. Our friends at Ask a Mathematician/Ask a Physicist just had a post: Cheap experiments and demonstrations for kids. I think this would be a great addition.

(Via Richard Wiseman)

Filed under Physics, Video

Computer Learns to Tell Dirty Jokes

May 2, 2011 5 Comments

Finally, a computer capable of passing MY Turing test. Two computer scientists at the University of Washington are creating an algorithm teaching a computer to make “That’s what she said” jokes:

They then evaluated nouns, adjectives and verbs with a “sexiness” function to determine whether a sentence is a potential TWSS. Examples of nouns with a high sexiness function are “rod” and “meat”, while raunchy adjectives are “hot” and “wet”.

Their automated system, known as Double Entendre via Noun Transfer or DEviaNT, rates sentences for their TWSS potential by looking for particular elements such as nouns that can be interpreted in multiple ways. The researchers trained DEviaNT by gathering jokes from twssstories.com and non-TWSS text from sites such as wikiquote.org.

First, the name is outstanding. They report 70% accuracy, but they expect the number to improve with more data to draw on. Of course, 70% success isn’t that bad considering how often my friends make questionable TWSS jokes. (Hint: if you have to explain the context in which she said it, you’ve probably failed.)

In case this isn’t your particular style of humor, they’re hoping it’ll be able to learn new types of humor based on the metaphor mapping.

Suddenly “I can’t let you do that, Dave” has a whole new meaning…

Filed under History, Language

How Smiles Might Beat Poker Faces

April 29, 2011 70 Comments

Is putting on a poker face the most effective strategy in cards? People talk about spotting players’ ‘tells’, involuntary behavior that gave away their confidence level. To prevent people from picking up on your tells, you were supposed to work on a poker face – a blank look that gives nothing away.

But instead of shutting down and sending no signals, can we send misleading signals?

Well, via NCBI ROFL, a recent study wants to suggest that a blank face isn’t the best – a trustworthy face is:

Participants made risky choices in a simplified poker task while being presented opponents whose faces differentially correlated with subjective impressions of trust… [P]eople took significantly longer and made more mistakes against emotionally positive opponents… According to these results, the best “poker face” for bluffing may not be a neutral face, but rather a face that contains emotional correlates of trustworthiness. Moreover, it suggests that rapid impressions of an opponent play an important role in competitive games, especially when people have little or no experience with an opponent.

[Quick note: As I read through the procedure, I wasn’t sure that I agreed with their assessment of ‘mistake’ in this simplified version of poker. I’ll look into it, but it’s still interesting to note that people folded more against trustworthy-looking faces]

It’s a natural habit to develop – a if a person looks confident and trustworthy, we’re more likely to believe them if they say they have an advantage (by, say, betting). They provide an image which I think lays it out well:


We have access to the information in grey – our own cards, our opponent’s bet, and our opponent’s facial expression. We’re trying to make a decision based on how our cards compare to theirs – which is unknown. Their style is also unknown, which is a problem because it’s a hidden factor influencing their bet.

Since we can only work with the information we have, we go backward: given the face we see, what is their style/attitude? Given their style and bet, what cards do they have? Of course, the random static computerized faces weren’t ‘inadvertently’ giving cues, but we’ve unconsciously learned to treat facial cues are a vital part of figuring out how the bet correlates to cards.

So is a trustworthy smile better than a blank poker face? As the authors point out, the study holds for first impressions, “when people have little or no experience with an opponent.” I would love to see a study of how long the effect holds up. After repeated interaction with the trustworthy-looking computer opponent, do people adapt and re-calibrate the assumed face-to-attitude correlation? I expect there to be some difference even over time – the unconscious connection is tough to shake. But its impact would diminish.

Perhaps we can smile and look trustworthy whenever we want opponents to fold? Sending misleading information is a powerful tool in game-theory. But I suspect decent card players would adapt quickly. Unless you’re damn confident that you know how to exploit their assumptions, you’ll be giving them an edge. Poker faces give up the chance to send intentional false information, but it also cuts out the unintentional cues we’re not even aware of.

I can’t pass up this perfect opportunity to quote Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality after Harry’s attempt to bluff Snape:

Professor Quirrell had remarked over their lunch that Harry really needed to conceal his state of mind better than putting on a blank face when someone discussed a dangerous topic, and had explained about one-level deceptions, two-level deceptions, and so on. So either Severus was in fact modeling Harry as a one-level player, which made Severus himself two-level, and Harry’s three-level move had been successful; or Severus was a four-level player and wanted Harry to think the deception had been successful. Harry, smiling, had asked Professor Quirrell what level he played at, and Professor Quirrell, also smiling, had responded, One level higher than you.

Against true amateurs in a little house game, I’ll try some one-level deceptions. But when I’m in a new place with good players, I tend to play it safe and focus my energy on staying blank rather than on sending false signals.

Filed under Game Theory, Psychology

Going with Your Gut: Subtle Cues Spread Obesity

April 26, 2011 3 Comments

Obesity is, apparently, transmissible. Studies already found evidence that it spreads through communities and social networks. If you have a friend who becomes obese in a time period, you’re 57% more likely to follow suit. But it’s not just shared regional foods or common experiences. Merely interacting with overweight people impacts us — and not the way most people expect when asked.

A new study found that simply seeing pictures of overweight people motivates us to eat more. Jonah Lehrer describes the situation:

A majority of people insist that the picture of [an overweight person] would reduce their consumption of cookies. (31 percent believed that [seeing it] would inspire them to abstain entirely from the sweet treat.) This is how we like to think ourselves: independent minded creatures, able to learn from the unflattering photographs of others.

Alas, our responsible self-image is entirely divorced from reality. The Colorado researchers demonstrated that, in several situations, the exact opposite occurred: When people were exposed to pictures of someone who was overweight, they ended up consuming far more calories.

It’s a neat study. The researchers asked people to take a quick survey which had a random picture of an overweight person, a person of normal weight, or a lamp. Afterward, the subjects were invited to take candy from a bowl. The ones whose surveys had the picture of the overweight person took 30% more. In a similar study, the subjects were asked to do a cookie taste test (what an offer!). Those first exposed to pictures of overweight people ate twice as many cookies.

The first takeaway lesson is that if you’re asked to participate in a psychology study, there’s almost always a trick – they’re probably testing something completely different than what they claim. (On a side note, if there’s one other “subject” with you; don’t trust him. He’s almost certainly working for the researchers. Cynical and paranoid enough for you? …*cough* But back to the study at hand.)

Taken together, this research begins to explain how obesity moves through a social network. It turns out that the habits and hungers of others shape our own, that we unconsciously regress to the dietary norms around us. Because we’re not particularly good at noticing when we’re sated and full – the stomach is a crude sensory organ – we rely on all sorts of external cues to tell us how much to eat. Many of these cues from other people, which is why our eating habits are so contagious.

It’s not shocking when we look at it like that: we look to others for signs of how to act. A picture of a stranger influences us – and even if the subject explicitly stated a goal to maintain healthy weight.

The point that our stomachs are crude sensory organs hit home for me. Those “external cues” influence our perception even about something as intimate as the amount of food we want to eat! “Going with your gut” to make the decision is an easy strategy but doesn’t lead to great results. If we want more control over our weight, a more objective and deliberate strategy based on measures like calories, glycemic index, and metabolic rates would probably work better.

Filed under Psychology

Philosophy Referee Signals

April 21, 2011 4 Comments

Ok, I love it when I can combine my passion for discussing philosophy with my interest in sports. Check out these philosophy referee signals:

I think I’ll enjoy this most during public debates – I can just see my friends and me gesturing wildly from the back of the auditorium.

Can you think of other signals that would be useful?

Filed under Humor, Philosophy

Sense of Meaning in Dreams: NOT too Hard for Science

April 19, 2011 3 Comments

What questions seem implausible for scientists to answer? Are they really out of reach? In an intriguing new feature at Scientific American, Charles Q. Choi solicited questions that science would have trouble investigating. It’s called ‘Too Hard for Science?‘ It’s a great concept:

The idea here is to interview scientists about pet ideas they would love to explore that seem impossible to investigate in real life. Perhaps they involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun; perhaps they would be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people; perhaps they would be too expensive, or require centuries to run, or could never find volunteers to participate, or are in some way unprovable.

This feature aims to look at the seemingly impossible dreams, the most intractable problems in science. However, the question mark at the end of “Too Hard For Science?” suggests that nothing might be impossible. Perhaps these very interviews could spur brainstorms that actually make these ideas a reality.

I’m looking forward to reading these. Foucault’s Pendulum would have been a good one back in the day, but the 1850’s came and went. What other challenges can we overcome with a new perspective?

One example is “In dreams, could we discover where the mysterious feeling of revelation comes from?” That’s the question which led Choi to start the feature in the first place.

At first blush, it might seem outside the realm of science to ask what gives us meaning. But that’s not the question. We’re asking what gives the feeling of meaning while we dream. What if we’re not reacting to a metaphysical “meaningful” property but can find a physical cause for the sensation? Can it be plausibly tested?

That’s what Robert Stickgold, director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Harvard Medical School brainstormed about. He notes that during REM sleep the brain shuts down the release of serotonin – something that only happens during sleep and while using LSD, “when people seem to have these totally uninteresting experiences they describe as profoundly meaningful called ‘acid insights.'”

This sense of meaning may be a physical phenomenon “just like hunger or thirst, save that it’s the excitement we feel upon a great insight, that ‘Aha!’ feeling,” Stickgold says. “Who knows why, for instance, fireworks often seem to trigger it — maybe there’s something about the geometric patterns that evokes this sense of awesomeness, the feeling that we can almost understand something amazing but not quite that drives us to seek a better understanding of things. It’s like what you feel during a religious experience — you sense the oneness of mankind.”

During dreams, the brain might be associating disjointed experiences together to create potentially valuable combinations of thoughts. “It could be the brain is making you focus your attention on material that was only weakly associated before and investing this association with this feeling of profundity to help it mine these connections for something not immediately obvious but potentially important,” Stickgold says. “It makes sense that the sensation would be a positive and reinforcing one.”

Sure there are some obstacles, but now there’s something we can test! Let’s separate people into three groups: one that gets serotonin-boosting drugs, one that gets serotonin-blocking drugs, and a third that gets placebos. Show them each the same poem, piece of music, painting or somesuch and see how ‘meaningful’ they rate it.

It’s important distinguish between what scientists can do and what science can do. Science is the most powerful tool we have to learn about the world, but sometimes we mere mortals have limitations. The more ways we figure out to use science while accommodating those limitations, the more we can learn.

Filed under Philosophy of science, Psychology

Stigma and Perception of Attractiveness: Strange Finding

April 15, 2011 4 Comments

Ever gone on a date only to find out that they’re secretly a shoplifter? Did you find them more or less physically attractive after that? Via NCBI ROFL (a great blog for quirky science), I found out that there was a study about negative information’s effect on how attractive undergrads found smiling and nonsmiling faces. If the person was described as bad for one reason or another, would they be less attractive?

I haven’t read the article, but the abstract is interesting. As expected, smiling faces were more attractive overall than non-smiles. The researchers were looking at the impact of the negative information, and gender differences appeared:

Analysis indicated that smiling faces were rated more attractive than nonsmiling faces, consistent with previous research. There was a significant interaction of participants’ sex and target description, in which women rated smiling faces less attractive after exposure to negative information about the target, but men rated smiling faces more attractive after exposure to negative information.

Well, that makes perfect evolutionary sense. After all, men would look for…

Just kidding. I’m not going to make up an evolutionary just-so story. If I had to make a guess with very low confidence, I’d say it’s more likely a socialized phenomenon anyway.

The different negative facts were one of these:

  • Convicted of insider trading on the stock market
  • Commits adultery on a regular basis
  • Alcoholic with anger management issues
  • Addicted to child’s Ritalin medication
  • Addicted to gambling after cashing paycheck
  • Convicted of petty theft of expensive jewelry

So apparently, if you want men to find you more attractive when you smile, just tell him you have serious problems.

Filed under Psychology

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