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| vacognition |
 Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:29 am Post subject: Please participate in this experiment |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 2
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Hi,
I run brief (5 minute or so) experiments from my Web-based lab (The Visual Cognition Online Laboratory). Web-based experiments allow us to run experiments that require large numbers of subjects. For instance, I need about 2,000 for the following experiment:
vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu/VSTMTime
You can find other experiments at the main page: vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu
There is also some discussion on the various pages about Web-based research, which you may find interesting.
Thank you!
Josh
_________________
Be a guinea pig. Try my experiments at
vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu |
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| Nevyn |
| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 21 Jan 2007
Posts: 827
Location: UK
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| Pendragon |
| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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Moderator
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
Posts: 1160
Location: Nederland
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Hi Josh. I'll leave the thread here, on the condition that you tell us something about your research  Otherwise it will be moved, this section is about experiments themselves. |
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| vacognition |
| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:07 pm Post subject: what the research is about |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 2
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Point taken.  We study many aspects of visual cognition. The main study currently up (vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu/VSTMTime) looks at visual short-term memory.
What is VSTM? Well, for many years there has been a distinction between long-term memory (memory for things that happened a while ago) and short-term memory (memory for things that happened a second or two ago). If you watched Memento, the main character has anteriograde amnesia and is unable to store things in long-term memory, though his short-term memory is ok (he can remember something that happened within the last few seconds...or longer, if he concentrates).
Memory may be different in different modalities. Short-term memory is pretty well-studied for words. You can remember 7 words or so for a short period of time. This is why phone numbers are conveniently 7 numbers long.
People have also studied visual short-term memory, which seems much more limited. However, there is some question as to whether VSTM really exists or is just an epiphenomenon of something else. VSTM is so limited it seems too useless to have evolved for any purpose.
So the experiment mentioned above is exploring aspects of the nature of VSTM. I can't be too specific without potentially affecting the results, but I hope that makes it more interesting.
I should add that participants can check back in a few months to see the results of the experiments...and/or can sign up for email notification when the results are released.
Does that work for you?
Oh, and we don't pay. If the old model of computer program development was to pay a few people a lot of money to work on a program full-time and the Open Source model is to have lots of volunteers put in a small amount of work for free, then the traditional laboratory model is to collect a lot of data from a small number of paid or coerced (read "Psych 100 students") subjects, and the Web-based model is to collect small amounts of data from large numbers of good samaritans.
_________________
Be a guinea pig. Try my experiments at
vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu |
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| Keith |
| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 94
Location: NY
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I got angry after I got like 3 in a row wrong and threw my tv remote.
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"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." -Carl Sagan |
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| Pendragon |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:30 am Post subject: |
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Moderator
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
Posts: 1160
Location: Nederland
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Tnx Josh
I did the experiment, and it's really just a couple minutes. So I would encourage others to do it as well. |
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