It appears that Oprah is backpedaling on 'The Secret' somewhat after a viewer with breast cancer wrote in saying that she's decided to forgo treatment and use 'The Secret' instead.

Oprah Clarifies Her Thoughts About The Secret

After watching the DVD and seeing The Oprah Show about The Secret, Kim wrote to Oprah after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Three doctors told Kim she would have to have a partial radical mastectomy of the right breast and treatment. Kim writes that "after much thought, I have decided to heal myself." Her letter caught Oprah's attention, and she wanted to talk to Kim.

Oprah tells Kim she believes that The Secret is merely a tool; it's not treatment. "The medical community, as we know, have been able to perform what some people call miracles," Oprah says. "And while you're taking advantage of that, think as positively [as you can]. Think about attracting healing to yourself, think about the goodness that the healing will bring to yourself."

Posted by Mark at 11:21 AM | Permalink
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Posted by Mark at 07:01 PM | Permalink
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I'm practicing to see how concisely and informally i can explain my honours thesis topic. Here goes:

People think that they're more likely than average to experience good things, and less likely than average to experience bad things. It's a wide spread bias. We call it 'unrealistic optimism'

It might be partly wishful thinking.

My supervisor showed that people are more optimistic about the possibility of something bad happening, and less optimistic about the possibility of the same thing not happening. The former is scarier, and hence people think more wishfully. We call this, 'the valence effect'

Another guy reckons that people might just rate anything that you ask about as more likely for the average person, because the average person makes you think about a group. And when you think about a group, you sometimes accidentally overestimate things. This is because the size of the group tricks you. It's not your fault, it's a quirk of the human mind. This would also explain 'the valence effect', but has nothing to do with wishful thinking.

My thesis project tests between these two possibilities.

The End

That is the absolute quickest I can do it. And i'm leaving A LOT out.

I think it might need some pictures to explain it better.

Posted by Mark at 06:05 PM | Permalink
Tags: honours psychology thesis unrealistic_optimism

I'm doing honours in psychology at Deakin Uni this year. I'm not sure if i've mentioned that on the blog before.

My thesis project relates to health behaviour, health cognition, and health education -- a rather healthy topic all round. As I go along, I'll try my darndest to write a bit about it.

In the mean time, I'm busy trying to prepare some questionnaires.

So far I've learned that psychological research is 10% inspiration, 90% typesetting.

Nevertheless, i'm enjoying myself.

Posted by Mark at 08:23 PM | Permalink
Tags: honours psychology research

It is coming up to exam time. It seems to me, that a large part of the stress of exam preparation is working out what to study first, and what to study most. If you really want to give yourself an ulcer adopt the view that you should know every topic equally and perfectly well. A more realistic outlook is that jumping through academic hoops is messy business - you have limited time, and limited resources. Personal productivity is an ebb and flow of priorities and energy levels.

Over the past couple of years, i've been developing a theory of exam preparation efficiency, which I will now outline for your consideration and evaluation:

STAGE 1 - The most advantageous study activity you can engage in at any moment is learning, studying, or practicing something you don't know. The less you know it, the more overall value you get out of each minute spent on it.

An example: Ian Thorpe is competing in a triathlon. He has an hour to spend training. As a champion swimmer an hour in the pool might improve his overall race time by a fraction of a second. Ian however, has never before ridden a bike. An hour spent learning to ride, may save him hours during the race. At least now he wont fall of his bike as half as much.

This holds true where the topics, areas, or skills contribute equally to the aggregate result. Furthermore, itonly holds true while your energy level and resources are equally suited to learning or practicing the available options (for example: while stats may be my weakest subject, it may not be my most efficient option until I have a calculator available)

STAGE 2 - The second most valuable study activity you can engage in at any moment, is identifying things you don't know. That is to say, second priority is hunting for Donald Rumsfeld's 'unknown unknowns'.

Some things are more unknown than others, and so, it is efficient to put them in order of least familiarity. Time spent in this hunting and ordering phase, is only efficient to the point that the extra value you will obtain from studying the idenitified areas in the right order, exceeds the time you are spending putting them in order.

It is only efficient to move from stage 1 to stage 2 when your top stage 1 priority is already more familiar than the things you'd be likely to find in stage 2, or when your energy level and resources are more suited to stage 2 than any stage 1 studying.

STAGE 3 - The third most valuable way to spend study time is over-learning things you already know well. A change from stage 1 to stage 3 is only warranted when you need a moral boost from reminding yourself that you have mastered some areas. A change from stage 2 to stage 3 is only warranted when stage 2 processing finds few remaining 'unknown unknowns'.

(STAGE 4 (the unofficial stage) - when all else fails, post something on your blog)

But if you can neither understand or remember any of that 3-stage mumbo jumbo, here is the take home message: be content that you're doing things in the right order. You're maximising your knowledge, not perfecting it. If you have to sleep, or eat, or give someone first aid, that's fine too. Because you're still doing everything in the order of contextual importance.

Posted by Mark at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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I'm in the mood for matrices.

There's some things in life that you don't necessarily appreciate when they're there, but that you miss when they're gone. Then there's the things that you enjoy when available, but don't bother you by their absence. And there's the ones whose presence cause pain, and whose absence delight.

And so on and so forth...until you do the only sensible thing - decide to draw up a matrix.

Here's how it works: the rows represent how a phenomenon affects you in its precence, while the collumns represent how it affects you in its absence.

My problem is, i'm having difficulty thinking of items for some of the cells. Perhaps some of you in the blogosphere will have some ideas? Where for example should I place sex?

Perhaps I could turn this into a blog meme. It's the kind of thing that is going to vary from person to person, and so, has self-expression potential. Download the matrix as a word file, and fill it in for yourself. Then send it on to 10,000 of your closest friends in the next 5mins, and 7 of your wishes will come true...and then perhaps Charlie won't die this time.

Posted by Mark at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: charlie matrices pleasure

I think Psychology has an advantage in the competition for amusing abstracts.

BBC NEWS | Health | Hunger dictates who men fancy

A study of 61 male university students found those who were hungry were attracted to heavier women than those who were satiated.

The hungry men also paid much less attention to a woman's body shape and regarded less curvy figures as more attractive.

The study appears in The British Journal of Psychology.

Posted by Mark at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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I listened to a great podcast last night. It was from Radio National's program The Philosopher's Zone. They played a lecture by Douglas Hofstadter about consciousness (in the cognitive science sense of the word). The audio and transcript is available via this link:

Philosophers Zone - 15�July�2006� - How many of me are there?

The thing that struck me most was his idea of 'distributed souls'.

Now I want to go on to the last part of the talk, which has to do with what I call distributed souls. And it depends on the notions that I've just given you. Here is my first basic idea. Other souls, not just my own, live in my brain. I'm No.1 in my own life. This may be the closest person to me, so that's No.2 and so forth. And so that's simply saying that there is a representation that I have of other people inside myself that includes their own sense of 'I'. It's how I understand them, it's how I relate to them, it's how empathy works. Now obviously there are different-sized representations, and if I just walk by somebody down the street, basically I create a pinpoint that almost has no representation whatsoever.

I really like this idea. It's really very pretty, but it doesn't rely on anything fancy. In fact, it is kind of intuitive.

If my sense of self comes through a process of self reflection, of observing and predicting myself, then of course, others will have a sense of me as well. So, as Hofstadter goes on to argue, by forming relationships we distribute our own identities.

To get to know someone then, is to rent out part of your brain. To let them live in the back room of your cognitive house.

The metaphor is the reverse of how we usually talk about relationships. We talk about 'letting someone in' to mean self-disclosing. But from this distributed souls perspective, letting someone in is what happens when you listen and observe. When you reveal your own self, then you're splitting a part of yourself off to live in someone else.

(Ren: Not unlike a horcrux, no?)

You could think of blogging as a self distribution strategy. The representation is going to be smaller, and less detailed, but you're getting into brains far and wide.

Posted by Mark at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: conciousness identity psychology

Do you ever write notes on your hand? Shopping lists, phone numbers, todos?

It seems like an inefficient way of remembering important things, but in the absence of another system, it is better than nothing. Certainly it brings a whole new meaning to the term PDA - Personal 'Digital' Assistant

But it occurred to me today, that the humble hand does in fact encompass many of the qualities of a good organization system. What does the hand have to teach us?

1 - It's always available. This allows us to jot down an idea the moment it occurs to us. A good system needs to be able to capture any information quickly and easily. The hand is good in this respect. It's always 'handy'.

2 - It is difficult to lose, barring unexpected amputation. Fans of David Allen's book Getting Things Done (GTD), will know the importance of having a 'trusted system'. That is, a system that you can rely on to keep the information and give it back to you when you need it. Unlike a PDA, the human hand is unlikely to get stolen or misplaced.

3 - It can grab your attention. Because it's attached, you will see your hand and be reminded multiple times. This extends the trustworthiness of the system. You can trust that anything written on it will come to your attention sooner or later.

On the other...hand:

It is of limited capacity, even if you do have big hands. The GTD philosophy emphasises complete capture. All of the little reminders in your life should be in one system and out of your head. Only complete capture is effective for reducing stress.

It is short term, unless you use permanent marker, or stop washing. Reminders relevant to next week will have worn off by next week.

But most importantly, your hand isn't context sensitive. It will remind you to 'buy milk' all day, even while you're not near any kind of milk outlet. You'll get used to the note, and fail to notice it when there is an opportunity to act.

Posted by Mark at 06:24 PM | Permalink
Tags: gtd hand lifehacks productivity

I'm begining a new experiment.

At regular intervals through the day, I give my current mood a rating out of 10. The scores across each day are averaged, and then I graph them. Here are the results for the past few days.

Some initial qualifications:

- averaging for each day probably hides a lot of the variability. I'm rarely sad or elated for the whole day. However, since I sometimes miss the scheduled data entry time, or enter it in late, i felt that an average might be better.

- The rating is an evaluation of the pleasentness of my mood. Now, some of you might well point out that mood doesn't vary along a single dimension. Feeling fatigued is pleasent late at night before you go to bed, and feeling alert is pleasent in the middle of the day. I'm not dealing with these issues. I'm collapsing everything down into one subjective rating

- The face validity of the question I ask myself - "how are you feeling?" - may be way too high. I may distort my rating and try and aim for a certain score. Also, the act of observation may affect my mood. But, that's fine with me.

I'll keep you posted

Posted by Mark at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Tags: mood psychology psychometrics

I'm very impressed with these neurotransmitter earrings. They are so nerdy, i love it! There's seretonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA and glutamate. It would be nice if they had oxytocin - the cuddle hormone.

They've got keyrings for the guys. But, they're not as good. I feel a little bit left out.

Find more at www.madewithmolecules.com

Posted by Mark at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Tags: earrings gifts jewelery neurotransmitters

Off to an exam in a moment. I've packed my 2b pencil.

I have this personal theory that exams are actually not the performative part of the semester.

It is really the preperation that is the performative aspect, because that is where your grade is really determined. So I figure, to stuff up an exam, I really have to have been stuffing up consistently for the past 13 weeks. And if that is the case, then it is too late for me to do anything about it an hour out from the exam. As long as I stay calm and concious in the exam, then the preperation does the rest.

So that is how my delusional little mind operates for things like this.

Posted by Mark at 01:46 PM | Permalink
Tags: exams productivity study

Get things done with structured procrastination - Lifehacker

Stanford philosophy professor John Perry describes how he manages to be a productive procrastinator by structuring his to-do list to compensate for procrastination.

Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things… [b]ecause they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact.

Structured procrastination, as the author suggests, means that you intentionally place items at the top of your list that aren’t actually all that important so that you end up getting all sorts of things done while avoiding the “important” tasks at the top of your list. This method sounds an awful lot like setting your alarm clock a half hour fast so that you can get places on time, which seems to really do wonders for some people.

The whole setting your watch forward thing seems to stupid to me. The only people I know who do that, end up assuming that they set it forward more than they actually did - they end up even later.

I'm a big fan of fooling myself. But I am skeptical about how well this structured procrastination would work. Still, I might just give it a try.

Posted by Mark at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: lifehacks procrastination structured_procrastination

Download as a pdf

Unit: HPS771: Research Methods in Psychology A

Topic: Results From The Lecture Attedance Study / Inferring Causation: An Analysis Of The Logic And Conventions Of Research Design

Full text under the fold

Continue reading "Assignment - Inferring Causation: An Analysis Of The Logic And Conventions Of Research Design" »

Posted by Mark at 03:50 PM | Permalink
Tags: assignments causation pdf psychology research

This week I've been reading about introversion and extroversion. I'm always fascinated by this, as I, dear reader, am a proud introvert.

In looking for an image for this post, I came across a wonderful article. If you are an introvert, then you'll want to read it; it's our manifesto. If you're an extrovert, then I beg you, please read it to gain a better understanding of me and my kind.

Caring for your introvert

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands--and that you aren't caring for him properly. Science has learned a good deal in recent years about the habits and requirements of introverts. It has even learned, by means of brain scans, that introverts process information differently from other people (I am not making this up). If you are behind the curve on this important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

continue reading

I used to mistake introversion for antisocialness. But it's a completely different thing.

As Dr Nic explained in his lecture yesterday, introverts have a low stimulation threshold. Just a little bit of social contact, and we're operating at our peak.

I like a good conversation. I like doing things with friends. And after it's done, I think:

"I can't wait to get home, and enjoy the socialising I've just done in the privacy of my own home...alone with a cup of tea, some music, and an internet connection. Ah, now that's the good life."

Posted by Mark at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Tags: antisocialness introversion my_personality personality psychology

My theory is that you can tell if you're a perfectionist if someone says to you "gee, you're such a perfectionist", and you think "Oh, if only I was a perfectionist! Then i wouldn't have to settle for all the crap that I seem to settle for. I wish I was a perfectionist." It's an untested theory, but i like it nonetheless, nearly as much as I like the above picture.

Posted by Mark at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: perfectionism

I've been doing my best to implement my Stimulating Breaks policy. Between writing assignments i've been watching the Harvard Positive Psychology lectures that i've mentioned earlier. It may seem strange that i'm taking breaks from doing psychology assignments by watching psychology lectures, and i do feel a tad guilty to be spending time on a unit that i'm not doing at a university that i don't go to. But, nevertheless, it seems to fulfill the 'break' criteria, in that feels like a break. This is probably because, it's voluntarily chosen, and there's no pressure (no exam, no assignments, nothing to live up to)

Anicdotally, the stimulating break seems to be having a recharging effect. I hypothesise that because it gives me something important yet low-stakes to think about that is outside of my uni commitments. I seem to have any time for other projects and hobbies recently. Either i'm a very slower reader and assignment writer, there's a temporal anomoly over our house, or the workload for the units i'm doing is quite a lot.

But back to the Harvard PP lectures. I like them a lot. It's a very interesting area, and one i'd potentially like to get into. I think what I like best about it, is that it deals with some of the most touchy-feely philosophical concepts of all time, but in a rigerously empirical way. So it bridges, academia and pop-psych very nicely.

Posted by Mark at 04:59 PM | Permalink
Tags: mood positive_psychology stimulating_breaks time_management

I had one of those oh-how-ridiculously-obvious-why-didn't-i-think-of-that-before moments today.

As you know, I have my filemaker todo list system, and my busyness prediction algorithms and all that. It's all very overly structured, but I still make a point of including plenty of breaks and fun and relaxation. It seems like a really good idea, right? Breaks to look forward to and to motivate me, and to clear my head. So every couple of hours I play some Mario Kart or watch some Biggest Loser or catch up on some RSS feeds.

But i'm starting to realize that those distraction breaks are all very well, but they're not rejuvenating or happiness enhancing. Perhaps a good break really should be quite stimulating, even if I am tired from writing assignments and getting 'stuff' done. I've been putting all of my little personal projects on the back burner, so that I can focus on uni stuff...but as much as uni is my main priority at the moment, putting all my eggs in one basket doesn't make for a balanced lifestyle.

So this week, while i've still got 2.5 assignments to go...i'm instituting my new stimulating breaks policy...and i'll see how it goes.

Posted by Mark at 09:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: breaks mood stimulation time_management

Over the past week, i've been thinking a lot about telepathy - the kind of telepathy as explored in various types of science fiction. And i've been developing a few ideas about how telepathy might work if it was a real, common, species wide evolved ability. In the next little while I want to write up a special feature blog post on the topic. But first, i want to gather some more examples of telepathy as depicted in film, television, literature, etc.

In your opinion, dear reader, what are some of the best examples of telepathy in scifi? Please let me know.

My basic framework is that telepathy is usually depicted as either just another form of communication - as hearing people's voices in your head. Or as a direct transfer of thoughts - the my mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts thing.

SUPPLEMENTAL: I should clarify, that i'm not talking about ESP or anything like that. The question isn't about the paranormal, but about whether evolution could produce an organism capable of telepathy and how that would work?

Posted by Mark at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Tags: sci_fi telepathy

QJ.NET - Nintendo DS - 24/7 Coverage of the Latest Nintendo DS News - Nintendo DS' Brain Age to make brain "brainier"

Nintendo is about to evolutionize gaming. Brain Age, a DS game borne on the research of Ryuta Kawashima, is set to develop the IQBrain Age (what does IQ stand for again?) of the player (now parents wil surely love this! You wish). Japanese-neuroscientist Kawashima has theorized that rapid activity by the brain thru simple yet continuous problems is better than concentrating on a single, complex feat. Even better than, let's say, reading a book (Parents: What a letdown...).

Applying that principle, Brain Age was created. The game includes nine different tests, ranging from absurdly basic questions to insanely tricky ones. Simple math problems are a norm but from time to time, a real fiend-of-a-task pops up, like when it flashes a grid of numbers for one second, then hides the digits, you are then to place them back in their former position in the grid, in ascending order. After the game is played, the game will then determine your "brain age"; 20 is the best you can have, because that is supposedly the age the brain is at its best, (I doubt that, cause I'm 20, uhm, nevermind). Ironically, as you play the game longer -- which means as you grow older -- your brain age gets younger, now I have a gift for my botox-loving aunt.

When this, and Brain Train for DS, comes out in Australia in June it would be fun to run a little experiment with an appropriate sample size and an appropriate measure of improvement.

PS. According to Dr K, brains are at their fastest at aproximately 25, not 20.

Posted by Mark at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Tags: cognition ds games iq neuroscience nintendo nintendo_ds psychology

At yesterdays personality lecture, Dr K was talking about CBT and the thought counting technique. It reminded me of my old 'thought canceling' thing from last year. Now that I think about it, it is pretty much exactly the same thing.

They were good times. It was amazing how well it worked. But i got so good at it, that i went without clicking for a few weeks and then forgot about it. Maybe I should get back into it. The trouble is with finding a good counter.

A quick google reveals that hand tally counters are sold as laboratory equipment. The trick is finding something small and discrete. It would be a bit disconcerting for people if I start clicking wildly every time they walk into a room.

Posted by Mark at 12:17 PM | Permalink
Tags: cbt dr_k tally_counter thought_canceling uni wishlist

After approximately 18 years of being a student in some form or other I like to think that i've learned a few things about memorising. I quite enjoy that element of being a student. In VCE, when we did pseudo in class exams/essays, I enjoyed writing them at home over the weekend, and then memorising them before regurgitating them in class. I quite liked memorising scripts back during the good old drama major days too.

I don't seem to have any freakishly amazing memory abilities. But being a somewhat systems oriented person, I quite enjoy coming up with innovative strategies for learning stuff. That's been half the fun of going back to uni to do psych.

Yet it occurred to me today, that after all these years of trying to become a memory ninja, it's not the kind of skill that's going to be ready for much longer. As i've written before, life in 21st century is an open book test. But more importantly, if my goals work out, i'll be doing research oriented things soon, which i'm assuming don't really require a lot of memorisation.

At my french class the other night, it came up that we're at the stage where we can do VCE french if we want. Ell and I were talking about it on the way home. Something the idea tickles my fancy. Language learning is all about being a memory ninja. It'd be an interesting juxtaposition doing VCE french and psych honours at the same time.

But would I have the time? And is there really that much point? Je ne sais pas.

Just thinking out loud.

PS. the idea of memory ninjas is related to a post i read on 43folders.com about email ninjas

PPS. I think this may be one of the nerdiest posts I ever done. Nerdy as opposed to geeky.

Posted by Mark at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)
Tags: career french memory ninja

I just discovered that Harvard has the video of some of their lectures available online. In particular i discovered the video for an entire course on Positive Psychology, something i've been interested in for a few months now.

I've got plenty of my own lectures to go to, but i'm going to have to watch these. The lecturer, from what i've watched so far seems like a very good speaker.

I find it amazing, that anyone around the world can now virtualy attend Harvard for free. The internet rocks.

Streaming lecture videos from Harvard's positive psychology course

I want to go to Harvard.

Posted by Mark at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: harvard positive_psychology pp psychology

Not that I have dinner parties, but I feel like studying psychology has impaired my ability to have an opinion.

Everyone is interested in psychology. Everyone is a human and/or spends a lot of time around them. We all carry with us our own little theories of what make people tick. Interest in people has survival value. So I would argue, that it's probably the most talked about scientist. Certainly, people gossip far less about particle physics or oceanography.

Sometimes I get carried away. This past year i've quite taken a liking to empiricism. All of this reading about research methodology and the scientific method is sinking in. The science geek in me has awakened. I like to be accurate. But as a student at the bottom of the academic mountain, there's a strong feeling that what I don't know yet stretches out to infinity. And whenever a issue of human behaviour comes up casually in conversation, I feel like I need to call time-out, consult a few journal articles, and then come back in a week with my opinion. "Meet me in the library in an hour, and we'll finish our conversation there".

It's getting kind of ridiculous. And after all, untested personal theories are a natural part of life. It's half the fun. There's always that terrible safe position of "it's a complex interaction of many factors, and depends on the circumstances", but I don't want to say that. So my new weeks resolution, is to adopt random philosophies in all my conversations and see what happens.

Confucius says: "Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, see to the (be?) worthy of being known."

Posted by Mark at 10:08 AM | Permalink
Tags: empiricism opinions psychology resolutions

WikiHow has an article suggesting a method for making decisions quantitatively. It reminds me a bit of my excel decision making algorithm.

How to Make a Decision Using a Quantitative Scoring System - WikiHow

1. Write the question you’re trying to decide, e.g. "Which car should I buy?"
2. Write up to five must-have qualities (e.g. Mileage, style, size, etc.) using too few qualities will not provide an accurate depiction of the item. If you have more than five qualities, the value of the score can get diluted, so think hard about what really matters to you. Leave the nice-to-have qualities aside, or you might get distracted and make a decision based on unimportant factors. Make sure the qualities are non-overlapping (e.g., mileage, purchase price, expected resale value, and reliability are all "cost of ownership" issues) otherwise you essentially double-count the same underlying attribute.
3. Rate the importance of each of these qualities on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of how important each is to you (e.g. if reliability is far more important than anything, it gets a 10, if mileage is the second most important but really not nearly as important as reliability you might give it a 5 or 6, and so on).
4. List your options (e.g. Nissan Sentra, VW Jetta, etc.).
5. Provide a score on a scale of 1 to 10 for each quality you put down for that option. Do this for all options you put down (e.g. if the Sentra gets 25 MPG, and you think that is pretty good, give it a 7, and if a hybrid gets 35 MPG, give it a 9). This is a subjective scale, so it’s up to you to score it as honestly as possible to make the best decision by the end of this.
6. Compute scores for each option by multiplying the quality score you gave your option with your target quality score, the one you created in Step 3 (e.g. Nissan Sentra’s MPG rating is 56: 8 [the importance of good MPG, to you] x 7 [how well you think this car rates in that area]). Do this for all qualities listed in all your separate options.
7. Sum up the scores for each quality for a total score for that option. Do this separately for all options you listed.
8. Compute the "perfect score" by creating an option that gets all tens.
9. Divide each option’s total score by the "perfect score" and multiply by 100 to give you a simple 1-100% total. The option with the highest percentile score (compared to perfection) is your best choice.

However, by the time you go through all these steps, you may have been killed by a bear.

Posted by Mark at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: decision_making lifehacks quantitative wikihow

Last night, before I went to sleep, I remembered that I was supposed to contact Adam. It's the kind of thing I should have written down, to remind me the next day Little things like that slip through the cognitive cracks. However, I didn't have a pen or a pda available.

So, I started chanting "adam, adam, adam" to myself while visualising myself picking up my mobile phone and turning it on. I imagined how it would feel in my hand, and the satisfying click of the power button. Still chanting "adam, adam, adam".

This morning, I woke up with no memory of anything Adam related. Until I went to turn my phone on, and right on cue my reminder went off. "adam, adam, adam".

Posted by Mark at 09:27 AM | Permalink
Tags: memory reminders

Something that drew me into studying psychology was the terminology. There was a kind of scientific poetry to the language of certain theories and paradigms. One term I came across in the early days was 'cognitive architecture'. I had no idea what it meant, but I liked the sound of it.

'Cognitive architecture' makes me think of an organic cathedral made of neurons - a massive structure half building, half rain forest. Visitors to the cathedral are invited to lie on the floor and stare up at the light refracting through the ceiling. Some say that if you look very carefully, you can make out faint archetypal images - constellations made of brain cells.

The above image is adapted from thePaul De Koninck Laboratory

It is a 'dissociated culture of rat hippocampal neurons' with a few special effects that I added in Photoshop.

Posted by Mark at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: cathedrals cognitive_architecture design images neuro_art neurons neuroscience photoshop psychology

(Ok, so I stole the title of this post from Lee)

I just got back from uni where I met with my 'mentees' for the first time. It seemed to go pretty well. I think I did ok. They were very nice, and I just hope that i'll be useful for them. I didn't really know what to say, so I just rambled on...

An unrelated side note: I noticed that Greg Tooley has a really cool PDA/Phone...it might be an HP, i didn't get to ask him. But it's funny how techy things like that catch my attention.

Speaking of tech, after I had 'coffee' with my fellow mentors, I went and used my nintendo to look for wifi signals at Deakin. There appears to be a Deakin wifi network. Hoorah!

So, I think that settles it. I'm going to get a new pda that is wifi enabled. But should I get a LifeDrive or a TX? I rely on you, my faithful readers, to decide for me.

Anyway, i'm glad I signed up for mentoring, as it should be an interesting experience.

Posted by Mark at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Tags: deakin greg_tooley lifedrive mentoring pdas tx uni wifi

Everyone seemed to like the giant bunny, so I thought i'd post more humorous animal photos. This monkey, however, is completely unrelated to the content of this post.

I got an email this morning from Dr Tess from the school of psych at Deakin. It was a group email, asking for people to be peer mentors. So I emailed back and said I'd like to know more. She rang me and explained that for the first 5-6 weeks of semester 1, I'd have to make myself available for a small group of first year psych students, in case they want to ask for advice or something. I thought to myself, well, i'm already Jenko's enrollment officer, so how hard can it be.

I said i'd give it ago. The best part is that i'll get a reference out of it, and it goes towards my reputation in the faculty, so hopefully in a year or so they might give me a job or something. I wanna get in with the cool kids (or at least the cool academics). I also had the idea that it might be handy to get on a faculty commitee somehow; and this might give me some sort of way in. I've goto go to a training session....that might mean socializing...but oh well.

I've also had a lot of trouble with my tute sign ups. OSCAR has a design flaw. Grad Dip units don't get their tutes allocated properly. I was surprised, however, that with just a few emails i got everything fixed up real nice in under 24 hours. Psych faculty actually check their email.

Posted by Mark at 09:10 PM | Permalink
Tags: deakin dr_tess mentoring monkeys psychology uni

What a legend! Ren took me up on my Big 5 Personality Traits Challenge and did the test based on her knowledge of me.

Here are the scores side by side:

(just to make it clear, both columns are an evaluation of me. One from my own perspective; one from Ren's)

SELF | REN

o - 80 | 80
c - 89 | 94
e - 31 | 83
a - 83 | 94
n - 18 | 55

It's amazing how close the scores are on most of the personality traits. 'N' stands for neuroticism (aka anxiety or nervousness or cautiousness); i was quite surprised at how low I scored myself. Ren's evaluation of my neuroticism seems to be more like me. (by the way, neuroticism sounds really bad, but it's not really. Nothing wrong with being cautious.)

What i find REALLY interesting is the discrepency on 'E' - Extraversion. I'll have to give that a lot of consideration; i've always considered myself to be quite introverted, and to think that might not be readily apparent.

Thanks heaps for doing that for me, Ren.

Of course, this is just one piece of data. I should get more people to take the test on my behalf. It might also be useful to redo the test on different days to test for 'test-retest reliability' (I learn't that from psych)

For those who are interested, these big five personality traits (openess to experience, concientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) are considered to be the five basic building blocks of personality. They represent the most popular and dominant model for studying personality differences in contemporary psychology . While there are many different ways in which we describe the personalities of people we know, it is thought that all of these characteristics are derived from different mixes of the big 5 traits. For example, shyness could be a combination of low extraversion and high neuroticism. These Big 5 traits were discovered via various statistical procedures that smart psychology professor types can do.

That said, i'm not too sure about the validity of this particular big 5 test, although i did find it via the UCLA Berkley Psychology Faculty website.

Take the test yourself at outofservice.com/bigfive

Posted by Mark at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: big_5 extraversion my_personality neuroticism personality psychology psychometrics ren

This story from the ABC is very close to my heart. I always said the internet was good for more than just porn and chain emails.

Internet brings people closer: study. 26/01/2006. ABC News Online

Not long ago, the Internet was decried by dissidents of the online revolution as a threat to society, sure to split families, fracture friendships and turn users into computer crazed geeks.

That is not how things are unfolding, according to a new survey which has found that far from driving people apart, new tools for email, online phone calls, webcams and instant messaging are bringing them closer.

The Pew Internet and American Life project research, one of the first studies to uncover such a trend, finds people are increasingly turning to the net for help at a crisis point in life, or to seek a new job or home.

Posted by Mark at 09:55 AM | Permalink
Tags: internet news_stories social_networks

This big 5 personality trait test is a pretty good one. I think the results seem a lot like me. As opposed to that other one i did a few months ago that said I had syphilis.

I'm a O80-C89-E31-A83-N18 Big Five!!

One thing I would be very interested to see, is what scores i'd get if someone else filled on the test on my behalf. To see if my self-perception is similar to the image i project.

If you know me, click here and do the test for me, based on what you know about me.

Then send me the results. I won't know specificaly what you put down, so it wont be awkward.

Then i'll do you, if you like.

Posted by Mark at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: big_5 personality_tests

You may have noticed that recently i've gone crazy on tagging. I tag everything on this blog, I have a tag cloud here, and I also use del.icio.us.

A tag in del.icio.us led me to this fascinating article about the psychology of tagging. Here's some of the diagrams, but read the article:

A cognitive analysis of tagging

In summary, tagging is fun, useful, and easy because it's only a two step process, unlike categorisation.

Posted by Mark at 08:26 PM | Permalink
Tags: cognition psychology semantic_networks tagging

I just posted this on the PsychoBabble messageboards (you know the Deakin Psych Book Club thing that i do now):
-----
A few more comments

Earlier, Lee said:

1. The author, Matt Ridley, alternated between determinism and free will through the book, at times he implied that we had no choice, at others that the genes responded to environment. Happily he ended with a chapter on free-will and I felt (a little) in control.

On this topic, I really liked the point Ridley makes in the chapter on instinct abour determinism. There's been all sorts of extreme deterministic theories in psychology and the social sciences - Freud: early childhood determinism, Pavlov/Skinner/Watson/etc: conditioning determinism, Marx & Lenin: political determinism, etc. Logically, these perspectives are just as incompatible with free will as genetics and innateness. Ridley puts it more eloquently:

"In one of the great diversions of all time, for nearly a century social scientists managed to persuade thinkers of many kinds that biological causation was determinism while environmental causation preserved free will..." (pg 92)

So true. You tell it like it is, Ridley.

Personally, I feel perfectly cosy being 100% free-will free, as long I get to be a product of nature and nurture interacting. If I can't be magic, then I’m more than happy to settle for complexity.

I'm still only mid way through the book, so I reserve the right to change my opinion in a couple of weeks.

Here's a question for you all. Forget for a moment what is scientifically true about what causes human behaviour. What would you most like to be scientifically true about what causes human behaviour? Keep in mind you are permitted to violate the laws of physics and use as many miracles as you like in your answer.

On another topic, in the same chapter, I was intrigued by the idea of evolutionary psychology on a collision course with behavioural genetics. If a common variation in a gene that's linked to something (higher IQ, for example) was important, then it would get selected for and be species wide. Therefore, these variation in genes that behavioural geneticists find, by definition, can't be that important.

Have I got that right? My mind is struggling to digest this. For a moment I was going to cite the example of immune systems, where variation is itself adaptive and selected for to keep the germs confused. But then, that kind of variation isn't common variation, is it.....is it?...Hmmm.

Either the common variations are variations because they neither help nor hinder fitness, or the variation is itself adaptive... I can't think of any other possibilities.

Help!

Ok, that's all.

Posted by Mark at 01:24 PM | Permalink
Tags: behavioural_genetics deteminism determinism evolutionary_psychology genetics genome matt_ridley psychology

This morning I started looking at psychology career stuff again. I think that i've let the academic side of things, which i'm very comfortable with, lull me into a false sense of security. Infact, now that I think about, the reason I went back to uni was probably just so that I could go back to doing something that i'm good at, and avoid having to write resumés and go to job interviews.

So silly me starts to browse around the Australian Psychological Society website, then some other career websites, knowing full well, that slick graphic design and pastel tones make me nervous.

In light of this, some resolutions:

1) no more looking at slick graphic design and pastel tones

2) get career advice from real people...none of this generic crap

3) define clearly what i'm going to and not going to do re: career planning, so I can stop feeling like I should be chasing up every avenue.

Posted by Mark at 11:59 AM | Permalink
Tags: aps career deakin psychology resolutions uni

I quite like this lifehack for motivating yourself:

The Occupational Adventure (sm): 50 strategies for making yourself work

Pay yourself an hourly wage for time worked, and don't allow yourself leisure activities (movies, dinner out, etc.) unless you can pay for it with this writing money.

It's a similar idea to what I do at the moment with my finances. I create a virtual income for myself, related to, but less than my real income. For example, my pention gets divded up - some into virtual income, the rest becomes savings. My work income gets divded half and half between virtual and non virtual. And gifted income or money off the back of a truck goes completely into virtual income. Most of my day to day spending comes out of this virtual income, which keeps my spending in check.

For me, this works a lot better than a budget. With a budget, you're aware that it is a goal. However, with a virtual income, it becomes my only measure against which to asses my finances; my real income and bank balance are forgotten untill i look them up every couple of months.

The idea of paying yourself a virtual hourly wage, particularly if you work for yourself or you are a student etc, uses this same principal of a personal economy. Even though, in the back of your mind you know that it's just made up, it becomes real if its the only statistic you look at...particularly if you're the sort of person who likes lifehacks.

Posted by Mark at 06:51 PM | Permalink
Tags: finance income lifehack money procrastination productivity work

I've been reading up recently on Positive Psychology. To give a brief summary, it's the idea that good mental health isn't just the absence of bad mental health, but that hapiness and all the other good emotions are a phenomenon worthy of study in themselves. Anyway, someone in our deakin psych book club alerted me to this upcoming workshop in Melbourne with the father of positive psychology, Seligman. I wonder if I should go. It's expensive.

Positive Psychology: A special event with Martin Seligman Ph.D.

Dr Martin Seligman, founder of the Positive Psychology movement and best-selling author of ‘Learned Optimism’ & ‘Authentic Happiness’, will be holding special events in Sydney and Melbourne next February.

Posted by Mark at 11:18 AM | Permalink
Tags: pp psychobabble psychology seligman

There's a small geeky group of people, including myself, who continue to check the Intro to Psych B message board long after the unit has finished. Some of us had plans to start a psychology book club...terribly geeky, but terribly exciting.

Dr Greg, the unit chair, however, has plans to start a Deakin Psychology society - a sort of extra curricular forum for professional development and psych related chat. He has suggested that we incorporate the book club into that.

So i've volunteered to help organise the birth of this new Psych Society along with a few others. I'm quite looking forward to it. Hopefully it will get me in with the psych crowd.

There'll be a message board called PsychoBabble...and maybe, maybe, I can find an excuse to get a psych podcast started.

Oh my goodness! I am such a nerd, and yet, I wake up every morning feeling like i'm not being nerdy enough about psychology. I feel like, if i'm going to make a career out of this, I have to be the lord of the nerds.

Posted by Mark at 09:54 AM | Permalink
Tags: deakin greg psychobabble psychology

Hey hey. Semester 2 results were supposed to come out via sms at 6.00pm. But, mine came early.

I certainly can't complain. Same exact mark as last semester - 95 HD.

I had thought i would have gone down on last semester. I didn't think my lab report was as good, and my count of uncertain answers on the exam was higher than the previous semester. However, as us statisticians know all to well, it depends on what the average is. The stats component in psych this semester may have dragged down the average. Since the results are adjusted statistically, this makes everything relative.

It would be interesting to know exactly how the final marks are distributed, and what percentile each mark represents.

Technically, my goal was to improve slightly. So technically, i'm a great big loser....technically.

I don't want to be one of those assesment obsessed people. However, I don't have too much to brag about, so I might aswell get some millage out of marks every now and then...

Posted by Mark at 04:13 PM | Permalink
Tags:

I stumbled across someone's plan to do 101 things that they really want to do in 1001 days. She's tracking her progress on her blog.

The idea is an alternative to new years resolutions; i like the idea a lot. 101 things feels like a significant accomplishment, while the 1001 days is a large timescale, but not too large. Best of all, it's kind of there's something kind of poetic about the number 101.

I don't think i'll do this myself at the moment. I like to be able to add my todos as I go. However, if I ever find myself in need of a life overhaul, i think i'll give this method a go.

Daily Guilt � 101 in 1001

Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days

Posted by Mark at 11:07 AM | Permalink
Tags:

20Q.net

You think of an object and the A.I. will try to figure-out what you are thinking by asking simple questions. The object you think of should be something that most people would know about, but, never a specific person, place or thing. "A cat" is a good object, but "Pepper," my cat, would be a bad choice. You may answer Unknown to any question, especially if you do not understand the question or do not know the answer.

Posted by Mark at 06:30 PM | Permalink
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When i'm in a bad mood I like to go to Behavenet.com and read the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. (The DSM-IV is the official list of symptoms the Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists use to diagnose people with stuff). It's silly, but cathartic. Luckily, for all of the depressive dissorders i've read about so far, you have to be down nearly every day for a couple of weeks. So no diagnosis for me :-)

I'm lifting as of half an hour ago. And tomorrow, i'm sure i'll have a really very really wonderfully productive day.

Posted by Mark at 07:51 PM | Permalink
Tags:

Smart Mobs: Bluetooth scanner for remote stroke diagnosis

Bluetooth scanner for remote stroke diagnosis
The Era of Sentient Things
Posted by Gerrit Visser at 01:57 AM

BBC News reports that scientists of The University College London developed a portable brain scanner that uses Bluetooth radio technology. This could lead to stroke victims receiving treatment much more quickly.

The scanner would send the images via Bluetooth - which swaps data via short-wave radio - to a computer onboard the ambulance to allow paramedics to diagnose the cause of the stroke, or send it to consultants at the hospital if they are unable to identify it.

The Stroke Association called the project "promising".

Posted by Mark at 05:19 PM | Permalink
Tags:

I'm doing these because this weeks Psych readings are on personality theories.

Posted by Mark at 08:58 PM | Permalink
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Posted by Mark at 08:50 PM | Permalink
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A mildly interesting article about how restricted calorie diets is good for your brain:

Brain-FX: Eat Less for More Smarts?

When you overeat, you damage your cells faster. When lab animals are put on low-calorie diets, trimming 30 to 40 percent off their food intake, they live one-third to one-half times longer than expected! Such animals remain younger than their counterparts fed on a normal calorie diet. Everything about them is younger including their brains and memories.

For example, islanders on Okinawa for years ate a diet with 17 to 40 percent fewer calories than other Japanese, had 30 to 40 percent less chronic disease, including neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer�s.

This is kind of related to what I was reading in Cosmos magazine (the one that told me about Resveratrol).

I will ponder this over a doughnut.

Posted by Mark at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Tags: aging diets neuroscience nutrition psychology resveratrol