h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

resi school is for doing our experiment plus a series of tutorials and usually you get the lecturers doing talks in the evening as well on their pet subjects (kinda unofficial, not part of the course, but gives them a chance to try stuff out and us a chance to get some free info!). Basically it is equivalent to the degree level project but done in 1 week and then written up afterwards for the next marked assignment.

Ta for the tips on where to visit!

Have to admit that reading Dan Dennett's Consciousness Explained whilst studying the phonological loop stuff is probably not a good idea! As soon as they mention the 'Central Executive' I start quibbling I think levels of processing is covered else where and multiple drafts is covered later.

I'm a rare visitor here at the moment, but I did happen across something on Radio 4 the other day which you might be interested in. The series is called The Mind Changers and as a whole it's about the history of psychology in the 20th century, revisiting some of the "classic" studies and looking at the context of how they came to be done. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008cy1j

I missed the one on Rosenham's study, but the one I heard by accident was about the Hawthorne Effect. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lv0wx/Mind_Changers_Series_4_The_Hawthorne_Effect/ The next is about Harlow's monkey experiments.

(Correct that typo to Rosenhan!)

I just went off to read your journal. The summer school sounds fascinating, as does the numbers study. I must read up more about it. Did you see the TV programmes to celebrate 40 years of the OU, or was that when you were away?

that OU proggy was on the sunday (I think) after I got back. Did watch it - quite interesting actually.
Really was a very good week (and possible a very, very good week but I don't want to pre-empt anything ).

One thing they flagged up to us was that the OU media dept has been putting some youTube vids up including this one of the Thatcher effect - but as a video clip rather than just the pictures you usually get.

http://www.open2.net/healtheducation/body_mind/face-perception.html

I used to have a Tony Blair picture like that on the wall of my lab, but the Thatcher one was far more scary!

The open2net stuff is an excellent resource so cheekily I'm bookmaking that for future use. I don't know if I've given you this link before, but here's a site called Psychclips that has put a lot of useful clips in one place. It's particularly helpful for psychology in schools, where You Tube itself might be blocked. http://www.psychexchange.co.uk/videos/

Fingers crossed that it turns out to be a very very good week, if the means what I suspect it might. Good idea not to pre-empt anything though. The highlight of my week has been ordering a new car under the scrappage scheme. I love my old car (Hyundai Atoz Midas - special edition in gold with stars on the side) but it really is old and the deal was too good to miss. Like many thousands of other people I've ordered a Hyundai i10 so I'm now investigating decals on ebay to make it stand out in the car park.

"special edition in gold with stars on the side"
Wow! That's some paint scheme! Lines of stars, random stars or just one or two here and there?

I'm quite pee'd off with the scrappage scheme. My cars not worth a whole heck of a lot due to high mileage. But it is only a 53 plate so doesn't count. Ah well, sounds like the South Koreans will be doing nicely out of it!

Good link as well, ta for that!

>>"Lines of stars, random stars or just one or two here and there?"
A sort of Z shaped flash of little stars on each side at the back, and a little twinkle of three on the bottom of each front door and the hatchback. It's been an excellent car. I'm going to miss it.

I think the Hyundais are actually manufactured in India so they do well too. And so will the environment - the emission is low enough for the £35 annual road tax.

That's a shame about missing out with the 53 plate, but my guess is that there are some bargains to be had on newish cars. People who might have previously bought them have gone for brand new with the scrappage, so perhaps it's worth looking around?

yes, there's some rather good deals out there.
I think to be honest my problem is working out whether I want to go for something a little silly (something sporty like a bmw Z4 - which are quite affordable now for what they are) or something sensible (like a golf or mazda 3). I don't buy new though, can't afford it and (without the scrappage scheme) you can lose quite a bit of money.

We'll see. Need to do it soonish though as got 71,000 on my almera and it'll really lose value once it hits 75,000

Oh go for silly every time! Sensible is for other people. I much admire a collegue who bought herself a very expensive pre-retirement convertible sports car after years of sensible choices to suit her family. Now she can suit herself. She presses a button and the roof folds back. She says her grandson is fascinated because granny has a Transformer for a car!

And that has reminded me of my very first student car, a Triumph Herald Convertible. What was yours?

A Herald! Woo!
Had an old friend visit me on sunday as he was in the area for some Triumph classic car owners club and he turned up in a rather rusty, very overladen 1200 Herald in white (and brown, and silver gaffer tape, and...) I was impressed he'd driven about 100 miles to get to mine and another 100 back and it didn't break down

Me? I had 'bikes as a student, including my Honda CB550 to which are attached many stories, not least the fact it was bright yellow with flourescant pink wheels (and yes, that was my choice, everyone had black or green bikes at the time so I wanted to be different).

Didn't learn to drive till 97/98 ish and first car was a beige nissan bluebird which was a bit knackered but great fun on the M6 cos everyone thought you were a minicab so you could cut them up no problems!

Hiya, psychology question - you any good with stats? Especially the dreaded ANOVAs? Only I think I may be doing a 2x2x2 ANOVA for my write up and not sure how to graph it!
If not your thing, don't worry but thought I'd ask!

Stats for psychology in general, yes, Sign test, chi-squared, Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon, t-tests, Pearsons and Spearmans. But ANOVA no, I've never done one. Sorry! I can't even think of anyone on here who might be able to help.

Is this the write up from your residential week?

yep, sorry, didn't notice this reply!

think I have it sussed, the stats look ok - it's just interpreting what they mean!

ah - you mentioned Chi-squared?

In a 3x3 Chi squared such as

Downhill Uphill Horizontal
Aisle11
Bag1625
Locker43


whaddaya do about the 2 blanks? Cos SPSS kicks up an error saying it doesn;t like them (On at least 1 case the weighted variable was 0,negative or missing).
There was a 4th row which was all nulls (no one picked that category) so that has been 'collapsed' into the 'Locker' values. Well, deleted actually!

Is this where you 'collapse' the data and basically add column 1 to column 2 and do it that way?

Sorry to butt in and ask this, puzzling me (and will help me be in good books if I can get an answer to it )

Don't worry if you don;t have time though - just being cheeky really!

I never answered this, did I! I'm sorry! I assume you sorted it out?

I was just reviving an old thread to ask if you'll be at the London meet next weekend?

I did indeed resolve it!
And not only that but I got 85% (a distinction in OU speak) for the project write up (I made a very simple error in analysis of existing research which didn't affect the results, but did, of course, indicate a lack of detail in research). Got a pass grade 2 (merit) overall for the module. Currently studying the next module, social psychology and failing to do the work for the project for that. I'm a numbers and logic guy, the whole phenomenological/discursive/psychoanalytical psychology is a maze of incomprehension to me! Show me facts!

Unfortunately not going to be at the meet this year as it is the weekend before the project proposal has to be in (in for the 19th May) so will be spending that weekend furiously making stuff up in the hope I can blag my way through this course!

Hows you keeping?

Well done on the 85%!

Social psychology is "fluffy" I agree, but in terms of thinking about how naive scientist would explain what's going on, it's more relevant perhaps. I must admit I do like teaching social cognition, although in fact there's not much I don't like teaching. I was recently asked to deliver a workshop about "what happens in the brain at night" to 4-8 year olds and I had loads of fun planning and teaching that!

I'm sorry you won't be at the meet again. Is there no way you can award yourself Saturday off? Although this may mean inventing a time machine.

I agree it has its place. They're big on the whole 'critical perspectives' stuff and the first 2 assignments have basically been making us write an essay to say wonderful and illuminating these critical perspectives are and that the scientific method can't answer everything and in fact is merely a product of the paternalistic, misogynist enlightenment movement and has now run its course. Oh and squeezing feminism into every single topic. Which is odd cos they're also big on situated knowledges (without, seemingly, realising that under their rules the critical perspectives and their arguements against hard science psychology are also situated).

Maybe I just need to get into it a bit more but there seems to be as much, if not more, time spent validating these approaches than actually explaining them and why they are useful and what results they have provided. After all, you can critique something all you like, but that doesn't make your approach any more valid. Only results do that.

I'd love to pop down on the saturday, but yes, I'm afraid a would be required! Have yourself a good time though!

Love to hear what you had to say to the kids about the brain at night! Wouldn't know where to start with that one, sounds fun! Bet you got some interesting questions.