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Author Topic:   Is experimental psychology science?
macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3927 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 31 of 107 (252151)
10-16-2005 10:56 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by nator
10-16-2005 8:01 AM


it is possible. but you didn't have to explain the difference between clinical and research i'm an academic too, remember.
and yes i suppose if that is the case it would make all the difference as clinicians tend to be more interested in a quick diagnosis ...
This message has been edited by brennakimi, 10-16-2005 10:57 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by nator, posted 10-16-2005 8:01 AM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by nator, posted 10-17-2005 5:24 PM macaroniandcheese has replied

  
Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6011 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 32 of 107 (252178)
10-16-2005 12:57 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by robinrohan
10-16-2005 10:14 AM


Re: Pseudo-science
You didn't answer my question:
So, any research that deals with motivations, feelings, or "ideas about morality" is, necessarily, pseudo-science? Is that your claim?
Is that your claim? Yes, or no?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by robinrohan, posted 10-16-2005 10:14 AM robinrohan has replied

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 Message 33 by robinrohan, posted 10-16-2005 1:04 PM Zhimbo has replied

  
robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 33 of 107 (252181)
10-16-2005 1:04 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Zhimbo
10-16-2005 12:57 PM


Re: Pseudo-science
So, any research that deals with motivations, feelings, or "ideas about morality" is, necessarily, pseudo-science? Is that your claim?
Is that your claim? Yes, or no?
Only if pretends to be scientific.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Zhimbo, posted 10-16-2005 12:57 PM Zhimbo has replied

Replies to this message:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 107 (252184)
10-16-2005 1:13 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by robinrohan
10-16-2005 10:20 AM


Thanks for responding, robin.
I guess I don't see the problem. Psychologists make observations in the real world, like the behavior of a person, her answers to some sort of questionaire, her descriptions of how she feels or her interpretations of her actions, and so forth. From these observations theoried about human behavior and human emotions are made. From these theories one can, presumably, make predictions about further observations that should be made. If these observations are actually made, the theory is considered verified. If these observations are not made, then the psychologist must either find an explanation for why the observation was not made or must modify or discard the theory.
This is all that the "scientific method" demands. Do you disagree that this is the procedure used by experimental psychologists? If not, then why is the procedure not sufficient to render psychology as a science?

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

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 Message 29 by robinrohan, posted 10-16-2005 10:20 AM robinrohan has not replied

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Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6011 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 35 of 107 (252185)
10-16-2005 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by macaroniandcheese
10-16-2005 2:16 AM


Well, there may well be isolated pockets of hostility towards biology, but as a *mainstream* attitude within psychology? No way. And it's not only "my world" - it's the mainstream psychology journals that I'm basing this on.
Here are articles from the most-recent issues of mainstream, general-psychology (not biological psychology) journals. Articles are chosen only when they mention brain/biology/chemistry IN THE TITLE. I'm not reading all of the articles to see how many discuss biology in the text (from the topics I suspect many do).
Latest issue of "Psychological Science":
"Frontal Brain Asymmetry and Reward Responsiveness. A Source-Localization Study"
Latest issue of "Current Directions in Psychological Science":
"The Neural Bases of Placebo Effects in Pain"
"Components of Short-Term Memory and Their Relation to Language Processing. Evidence From Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging"
"Facilitation of Extinction of Conditioned Fear by D-Cycloserine. Implications for Psychotherapy"
Latest issue of "Annual Review of Psychology"
"MODELS OF BRAIN FUNCTION IN NEUROIMAGING"
"BRAIN ORGANIZATION FOR MUSIC PROCESSING"
"VESTIBULAR, PROPRIOCEPTIVE, AND HAPTIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO SPATIAL ORIENTATION"
"THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MAMMALIAN ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING"
"BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION: Linking Biology and Behavior within a Developmental Framework"
"HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: Biological and Genetic Processes"
"THE PSYCHOLOGY AND NEUROBIOLOGY OF SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR"
Latest issue of Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
"The Role of the Locus Coeruleus in Mediating the Attentional Blink: A Neurocomputational Theory."
Latest issue of Psychological Review
"Integrating Incremental Learning and Episodic Memory Models of the Hippocampal Region. "
Latest issue of Psychological Bulletin
"Evolution of Life-History Trade-Offs in Mate Attractiveness and Health: Comment on Weeden and Sabini (2005). "
Of course, there are also tons of journals with titles like "Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience", or "Brain and Behaviour", or "Cognitive Neuropsychology" that are certianly mainstream within Psychology, as well. Hardly an indication of a widespread reluctance to examine biological data in the course of psychological research.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by macaroniandcheese, posted 10-16-2005 2:16 AM macaroniandcheese has not replied

  
Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6011 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 36 of 107 (252186)
10-16-2005 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by robinrohan
10-16-2005 1:04 PM


Re: Pseudo-science
OK, let me rephrase:
Any "scientific" research that deals with motivations, feelings, or "ideas about morality" is, necessarily, NOT science but pseudo-science?
That is, if a professional scientist publishes work in the journal, say, "Psychological Science", and talks about the scientific implications of the work...
AND that work deals with motivations, feelings, or "ideas about morality"
THEN that work is actually pseudoscience?

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 Message 33 by robinrohan, posted 10-16-2005 1:04 PM robinrohan has not replied

  
Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6011 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 37 of 107 (252194)
10-16-2005 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by robinrohan
10-16-2005 1:04 PM


Re: Pseudo-science
Assuming your answer to my previous post is "yes" - which I think it must be based on your posts so far - how about the following article which appeared in Nature, which mentions and deals with feelings (fear, judgments of trustworthiness, etc.):
quote:
The human amygdala in social judgment
RALPH ADOLPHS*, DANIEL TRANEL* & ANTONIO R. DAMASIO*”
Studies in animals have implicated the amygdala in emotional, and social, behaviours, especially those related to fear and aggression. Although lesion, and functional imaging, studies in humans have demonstrated the amygdala's participation in recognizing emotional facial expressions, its role in human social behaviour has remained unclear. We report here our investigation into the hypothesis that the human amygdala is required for accurate social judgments of other individuals on the basis of their facial appearance. We asked three subjects with complete bilateral amygdala damage to judge faces of unfamiliar people with respect to two attributes important in real-life social encounters: approachability and trustworthiness. All three subjects judged unfamiliar individuals to be more approachable and more trustworthy than did control subjects. The impairment was most striking for faces to which normal subjects assign the most negative ratings: unapproachable and untrustworthy looking individuals. Additional investigations revealed that the impairment does not extend to judging verbal descriptions of people. The amygdala appears to be an important component of the neural systems that help retrieve socially relevant knowledge on the basis of facial appearance.
This is just the abstract. If you'd like more info, I can see if there's a free link to the article; if not, I can provide more information.
However, based on what you seem to be telling me so far, you would have to qualify this as "pseudoscience" based on it dealing with "non-physical" stuff like "trustworthiness" and "fear" and "approachability".
If, instead, you think you need more information before dismissing this as pseudoscience, then you need to retract your claims as you've stated them.
This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 10-16-2005 02:47 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by robinrohan, posted 10-16-2005 1:04 PM robinrohan has replied

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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 107 (252205)
10-16-2005 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Zhimbo
10-16-2005 2:31 PM


Re: Pseudo-science
If, instead, you think you need more information before dismissing this as pseudoscience, then you need to retract your claims as you've stated them
I retract them. You're right; I'm wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Zhimbo, posted 10-16-2005 2:31 PM Zhimbo has not replied

  
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 39 of 107 (252210)
10-16-2005 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Zhimbo
10-16-2005 2:31 PM


Re: Pseudo-science
So, now that you've shown that research papers are not accessible to the layman, let's address the real question.
What's the operational definition of "emotion" here, and how does that relate to robinrohan's usage of emotion?
robinrohan's claim might not be based on logic, but that doesn't mean his intuition is incorrect. Making RR retract is just debate and sophistry. Let's actually address the interesting question.
To put my own thoughts out there, so as to be transparent, I've never seen any research paper address in any rigorous way "feelings". Maybe I just haven't read enough yet. I'm pretty sure that the paper below does not address "emotions" in a layman's sense, but a very strict operational definition where emotion=behavior. I'm thinking Damasio's separation between "emotion" and "feeling" here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Zhimbo, posted 10-16-2005 2:31 PM Zhimbo has replied

Replies to this message:
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Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 40 of 107 (252218)
10-16-2005 4:02 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Zhimbo
10-15-2005 3:59 PM


But are you interested in predicting the specific behaviors of specific people at specific instances in time?
It is interesting theoretically to know not just how the average human behaves in a situation, but the actual mechanisms behind it. It is interesting theoretically to know the sources of variation in an individual. So, we want models that "in principle" allow us to predict an individual's behavior. The actual predictions part... not so interesting.
Fitt's law isn't very interesting to me because it doesn't explain behavior; it just describes it. It's interesting to people who are trying to describe group behaviors, but not nearly as interesting to someone like me, who is interested in describing the mechanisms that make an individual work.
There's variability in real life measures of the path of a ball, too. The idealized physical equations don't translate into perfect real world precision.
I'm not making my point explicitly enough. The point is about a lab environment. Ballistic motion is not very complex, there are few confounding factors. And you can take it into a laboratory environment, remove the confounds, and given the underlying theory, predict with high precision what the motion will be.
The problem with people is twofold; first has to do with confounds. Even figuring out what confounding factors might be present is super hard; we don't have an "external" or "objective" perspective, we tend to get fooled by our folk-psychological intutions. Second, actually controling for those confounds is a real problem. Third, when you take people into a lab, you change the behaviors. People's behavior is dependent on all sorts of contextual cues. And you change that when bringing them into the lab.
I dare you to go out into a field, apply force to a ball, and make it behave precisely the same each and every time you apply force.
Even the paper you posted isn't "out in the field." Experiments are usually done in lab environments, where confounding factors can be controlled. I thought I could assume this experimental point. Now I'll make it really explicit.
Taking a ball into the lab doesn't fundamentally change the laws that govern the ball. Taking a person into the lab and running "controlled" tasks fundamentally changes the way their mind processes information. A real problem in cognitive science is the validity of extending lab studies to actual human behavior that happens "in the field." There is not nearly the same problem in something like ballistic motion.
Why is this so important? Digit spans are "7 plus or minus 2", the so-called "Magic Number" of cognition. Any theory or model of cognition must account for the mean (7) AND the variability (plus or minus 2).
Tell me how Baddelley's Working memory model accounts for variability. Do you actually find it to be "scientific", or a complete, utter gloss? I find it to lack rigor.
Why is variability bad? It's data. It can be quantified. Variability is data, too. It tells us something about how the mind works. Any model that predicts a digit span of 7 AT ALL TIMES is wrong. It can't be an accurate model of cognition.
Any model that predicts "approximately 7" without specifying the set of conditions that change the result is not a rigrous model of congition.
I don't find the answer "he didn't have his cup of coffee" to be the level of rigor I'm looking for. Neither is "he was tired" or any other folk psychology-based "explanation."
I would claim that anywhere you see folk psychology, whatever's being investigated is not scientific. Folk psychology pervades cognitive science in motivating the hypotheses, in identifying confounds, in being parts of completely underspecified models, and in being the preferred method of "glossing" results. Granted, it's not this way in every study, every model, or for every researcher. But we're talking about a discipline as a whole.
That's why I prefer computational models. They're predictive. And that's why I prefer behavioral measurements, I'm OK with some imaging measurements... sometimes. But they're prone to misuse and misinterpretation. Just another way that the field fails to be really rigorous. But that's best saved for another post, focused on imaging techniques, data processing procedures, and the types of sketchy stuff that can, and does, go on there.
Ben

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Zhimbo, posted 10-15-2005 3:59 PM Zhimbo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by Chiroptera, posted 10-16-2005 4:04 PM Ben! has replied
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 41 of 107 (252220)
10-16-2005 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Ben!
10-16-2005 4:02 PM


quote:
Fitt's law isn't very interesting to me because it doesn't explain behavior; it just describes it.
Newton's Laws does not explain motion, they only describe it. Yet, it would appear that few people would dispute that Newton's Laws are good science.

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Ben!, posted 10-16-2005 4:02 PM Ben! has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by Ben!, posted 10-16-2005 4:07 PM Chiroptera has replied

  
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 42 of 107 (252222)
10-16-2005 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Chiroptera
10-16-2005 4:04 PM


You missed my point. Newton's laws aren't interesting to quantum physicists, except that you want quantum physics, in the limit of large objects, to reduce to newton's laws.
This wasn't an argument why it's not science; it's an argument that it doesn't address the level of cognition that I'm personally interested in. I'm interested in describing the behavior of individuals.

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 Message 41 by Chiroptera, posted 10-16-2005 4:04 PM Chiroptera has replied

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 Message 43 by Chiroptera, posted 10-16-2005 4:11 PM Ben! has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 43 of 107 (252223)
10-16-2005 4:11 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Ben!
10-16-2005 4:07 PM


First things first. In order to explain behavior, you have to how people behave. Fitt's law gives us an example of behavior that is to be explained. You cannot explain behavior (scientifically) until you know how people actually do behave.

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by Ben!, posted 10-16-2005 4:07 PM Ben! has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by Ben!, posted 10-16-2005 4:27 PM Chiroptera has replied

  
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 44 of 107 (252230)
10-16-2005 4:27 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by Chiroptera
10-16-2005 4:11 PM


In order to explain behavior, you have to how people behave.
It's an indepenedent level of analysis. You don't need ANY understanding of how groups of particle work in order to understand how an individual particle works (i.e. quantum mechanics).
Without any isolation of any cognitive system, the result is meaningless. It can only be used at the end, when you have a model of the cognitive system, to see if the behavior of the overall system is consistent with that measure. It doesn't help at all in understanding the underlying system.
It's completely a side point. The only point I wanted to make is that Fitt's law doesn't address things at the level that I'm questioning of whether it's science. You can do studies like that all day, come up with mathematical fits, but in the end it doesn't address the mechanisms underlying any behavior. It's too complex.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by Chiroptera, posted 10-16-2005 4:11 PM Chiroptera has replied

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 45 of 107 (252231)
10-16-2005 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Ben!
10-16-2005 4:27 PM


quote:
The only point I wanted to make is that Fitt's law doesn't address things at the level that I'm questioning of whether it's science.
It's possible that I don't understand what you are asking. I think your question is whether psychology can be considered a science. If you wish, you can reply to a question that I asked robinrohan.

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Ben!, posted 10-16-2005 4:27 PM Ben! has not replied

  
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