Null-hypothesis significance testing remains the standard inferential tool in cognitive science despite its serious disadvantages. Primary among these is the fact that the resulting probability value ...does not tell the researcher what he or she usually wants to know: How probable is a hypothesis, given the obtained data? Inspired by developments presented by Wagenmakers (
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14
, 779–804,
2007
), I provide a tutorial on a Bayesian model selection approach that requires only a simple transformation of sum-of-squares values generated by the standard analysis of variance. This approach generates a graded level of evidence regarding which model (e.g., effect absent null hypothesis vs. effect present alternative hypothesis) is more strongly supported by the data. This method also obviates admonitions never to speak of accepting the null hypothesis. An Excel worksheet for computing the Bayesian analysis is provided as
supplemental material
.
Federal funding for basic scientific research is the cornerstone of societal progress, economy, health and well-being. There is a direct relationship between financial investment in science and a ...nation's scientific discoveries, making it a priority for governments to distribute public funding appropriately in support of the best science. However, research grant proposal success rate and funding level can be skewed toward certain groups of applicants, and such skew may be driven by systemic bias arising during grant proposal evaluation and scoring. Policies to best redress this problem are not well established. Here, we show that funding success and grant amounts for applications to Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant program (2011-2014) are consistently lower for applicants from small institutions. This pattern persists across applicant experience levels, is consistent among three criteria used to score grant proposals, and therefore is interpreted as representing systemic bias targeting applicants from small institutions. When current funding success rates are projected forward, forecasts reveal that future science funding at small schools in Canada will decline precipitously in the next decade, if skews are left uncorrected. We show that a recently-adopted pilot program to bolster success by lowering standards for select applicants from small institutions will not erase funding skew, nor will several other post-evaluation corrective measures. Rather, to support objective and robust review of grant applications, it is necessary for research councils to address evaluation skew directly, by adopting procedures such as blind review of research proposals and bibliometric assessment of performance. Such measures will be important in restoring confidence in the objectivity and fairness of science funding decisions. Likewise, small institutions can improve their research success by more strongly supporting productive researchers and developing competitive graduate programming opportunities.
Grasping Beer Mugs Bub, Daniel N; Masson, Michael E. J
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance,
04/2010, Letnik:
36, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
We examined automatic spatial alignment effects evoked by handled objects. Using color as the relevant cue carried by an irrelevant handled object aligned or misaligned with the response hand, ...responses to color were faster when the handle aligned with the response hand. Alignment effects were observed only when the task was to make a reach and grasp response. No alignment effects occurred if the response involved a left−right key press. Alignment effects emerged over time, becoming more apparent either when the color cue was delayed or when relatively long, rather than short, response times were analyzed. These results are consistent with neurophysiological evidence indicating that the cued goal state has a modulatory influence on sensorimotor representations, and that handled objects initially generate competition between neural populations coding for a left- or right-handed action that must be resolved before a particular hand is favored.
Correspondence effects based on the relationship between the left/right position of a pictured object's handle and the hand used to make a response, or on the size of the object and the nature of a ...grip response (power/precision), have been attributed to motor affordances evoked by the object. Effects of this nature, however, are readily explained by the similarity in the abstract spatial coding of the features that define the stimulus and response, without recourse to object-based affordances. We propose that in the task context of making reach-and-grasp actions, pictured objects may evoke genuine, limb-specific action constituents. We demonstrate that when subjects make reach-and-grasp responses, there is a qualitative difference in the time course of correspondence effects induced by pictures of objects versus the names of those objects. For word primes, this time course was consistent with the abstract spatial coding account, in which effects should emerge slowly and become apparent only among longer response times. In contrast, correspondence effects attributable to object primes were apparent even among the shortest response times and were invariant across the entire response-time distribution. Using rotated versions of object primes provided evidence for a short-lived competition between canonical and depicted orientations of an object with respect to eliciting components of associated actions. These results suggest that under task conditions requiring reach-and-grasp responses, pictured objects rapidly trigger constituents of real-world actions.
Public Significance Statement
Our experiments examine the relationship between the perception of objects and knowledge about their associated actions. We propose that when observers have an intention to make some form of hand action, such as grasping a handled object, they are likely to activate knowledge about the motor actions typically applied to objects they perceive. We demonstrate separate influences of action representations typically associated with an object, and actions that are invited by the object's perceived orientation (e.g., an object may be lying on its side). We show that both types of action knowledge may be available simultaneously and may compete when the observer is cued to make one specific action. Aspects of the relationship between object perception and action may provide clues to understanding neurological disorders in which patients are unable to identify objects or are impaired when trying to properly interact with them using manual actions.
Strong versions of the embodied account of language processing propose that comprehension depends on the mental simulation of sensorimotor experiences conveyed by linguistic meaning. Primary support ...in favor of this view is based on demonstrations of processing advantages for compatibility between an action implied by sentence content and concurrent sensorimotor processing. Although these effects have been reported across a variety of contexts, various attempts to reproduce these results, both through direct replication and conceptual extension, have not been successful. We present a series of experiments that examine the viability of previous methods used to obtain compatibility effects and the validity of the typical interpretation of such effects as evidence for mental simulation of described actions. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that compatibility between sentence content and sensorimotor processing does not produce robust compatibility effects. Further, our findings suggest the data obtained from some studies that have been successful in generating compatibility effects can be accounted for without appealing to the notion that these effects are due to the simulation of actions implied by the meaning of a sentence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
In many cognitive, metacognitive, and perceptual tasks, measurement of performance or prediction accuracy may be influenced by response bias. Signal detection theory provides a means of assessing ...discrimination accuracy independent of such bias, but its application crucially depends on distributional assumptions. The Goodman-Kruskal gamma coefficient,
G
, has been proposed as an alternative means of measuring accuracy that is free of distributional assumptions. This measure is widely used with tasks that assess metamemory or metacognition performance. The authors demonstrate that the empirically determined value of
G
systematically deviates from its actual value under realistic conditions. A distribution-specific variant of
G
, called
G
c
, is introduced to show why this bias arises. The findings imply that caution is needed when using
G
as a measure of accuracy, and alternative measures are recommended.
In an extension of Gibson's (1979) concept of object affordance, it has been proposed that motor representations are automatically evoked by pictures of graspable objects. A variety of effects on ...left/right-handed keypress responses to the perceptual attributes of such images have been taken as evidence that features of actions, including the hand best suited to grasp an object, contribute to the effect of the handle's left/right location on response selection. We present an argument against this claim by establishing that all of these effects are based on spatial codes, including effects mistakenly interpreted to reflect the influence of limb-specific features of a grasp action. We also present 6 experiments showing that under certain task conditions, limb-specific effects on response selection are indeed automatically generated by the task-irrelevant image of a graspable object. These effects are found either when the observer makes keypress or reach-and-grasp responses to the laterality of a pictured hand superimposed on a depicted object. Both tasks recruit control processes that determine how the hand is selected and configured to grasp an object. We infer that processes implicated in the planning of a reach-and-grasp action themselves determine whether the task-irrelevant picture of an object triggers motor-based rather than spatial features. Our results have deep implications for the widely used concept of an affordance for action furnished by an object.
Public Significance Statement
It has been widely claimed that the picture of a graspable object automatically triggers components of action, regardless of the intentions of an observer. On this view, intentions-far from playing a direct role in generating an action-merely work to select from already prepotent motor representations immediately afforded by an object. We provide compelling evidence against this claim by establishing that processes implicated in the planning of a reach-and-grasp action themselves determine whether the task-irrelevant picture of an object like a frying pan or teapot triggers mental representations of motor-based rather than spatial features. Our results have deep implications for the widely used concept of an affordance for action furnished by an object.
The prospect of speed reading—reading at an increased speed without any loss of comprehension—has undeniable appeal. Speed reading has been an intriguing concept for decades, at least since Evelyn ...Wood introduced her Reading Dynamics training program in 1959. It has recently increased in popularity, with speed-reading apps and technologies being introduced for smartphones and digital devices. The current article reviews what the scientific community knows about the reading process—a great deal—and discusses the implications of the research findings for potential students of speed-reading training programs or purchasers of speed-reading apps. The research shows that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. It is unlikely that readers will be able to double or triple their reading speeds (e.g., from around 250 to 500-750 words per minute) while still being able to understand the text as well as if they read at normal speed. If a thorough understanding of the text is not the reader's goal, then speed reading or skimming the text will allow the reader to get through it faster with moderate comprehension. The way to maintain high comprehension and get through text faster is to practice reading and to become a more skilled language user (e.g., through increased vocabulary). This is because language skill is at the heart of reading speed.
We distinguish between grasping gestures associated with using an object for its intended purpose (functional) and those used to pick up an object (volumetric) and we develop a novel experimental ...framework to show that both kinds of knowledge are automatically evoked by objects and by words denoting those objects. Cued gestures were carried out in the context of depicted objects or visual words. On incongruent trials, the cued gesture was not compatible with gestures typically associated with the contextual item. On congruent trials, the gesture was compatible with the item’s functional or volumetric gesture. For both gesture types, response latency was longer for incongruent trials indicating that objects and words elicited both functional and volumetric manipulation knowledge. Additional evidence, however, clearly supports a distinction between these two kinds of gestural knowledge. Under certain task conditions, functional gestures can be evoked without the associated activation of volumetric gestures. We discuss the implication of these results for theories of action evoked by objects and words, and for interpretation of functional imaging results.
Tannin–formaldehyde carbon aerogels were prepared based on organic gels obtained by sol–gel polymerisation of tannin with formaldehyde that have been dried with supercritical acetone and pyrolysed at ...900
°C. Tannins drastically reduce the cost of the gels, typically by a factor five, and polymerise in a wide range of pHs, leading to porous carbonaceous materials whose mesopore fraction ranges from 57% to 78%. The surface area and the total porosity can be as high as 715
m
2
g
−1 and 95%, respectively. Pore volumes and micro-mesopore-size distributions are similar to those of much more expensive carbon aerogels derived from resorcinol–formaldehyde resin. However, more easily adjustable pore textures may be obtained using tannins as precursors.
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