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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2485 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 16, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Someone who wouldn't have moved on from pocket watches

Studies of wrist phrenology suggest flaccid, watchless wrists are a sign of a weak mind. I’m sorry.

There's only three types of people who don't own watches: hippies, women, and people who spend too much time looking at their smartphones.

too much time looking at their smartphones

I see, seeker, that you are yet to learn the ancient art of taking your phone out of your pocket to check the time and then putting it back in again.

I prefer the more traditional technique of picking it up, checking the time, putting it down, immediately forgetting the time, picking it back up again, checking for new messages, putting it back down, and still not knowing the time.

This sounds like me going to the kitchen to look at the thermometer outside its window. Walk in, look, walk out, realize you haven't actually read the temperature.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-walking-through-doorway-makes-you-forget/

i'd bet like 99:1 this isn't a real effect in the real world with a significant effect size, given the replication crisis, cuteness, and general implausibility. people are smart! if doorways consistently caused forgetting, people would compensate! Even optical illusions can't trick people consistently - if you walked through a corridor with one of the depth illusions 1k times you'd just ignore it

I noticed it myself though. Like, browse the webs on the toilet, make a mental note to look up something when back at the computer, completely forget because of the doorway on the way.

Yeah, but ... a lot of non-replicating psychology bits are things the experimenters 'noticed themselves'. growth mindset is something hundreds of thousands of people noticed for themselves. Or see the people who are confident that zinc cures colds 15 minutes after you take the zinc because they felt it happen (biologically implausible), etc.

I have a bunch of complicated but untested ideas about why that happens but w/e

If you're actually willing to bet a substantial amount at 99:1 I'll happily take the flip side of that bet, conditional on us being able to work out an experimental procedure we both agree on (but I'd expect that we could in fact come up with such a procedure).

I probably wouldn't take you up on that at 4:1 though. 99:1 is just a really extreme odds ratio.

"In the real world, with significant effect sizes" were important qualifiers there - so if it replicates but doorways make you 3% more likely to forget (instead of like 30% as in the study) wouldn't count, and I'm not even sure what to think about video game doorways having similar effects to real world doorways. I wouldn't offer 99% on video game doorways, or it at any effect size. And a real world experiment would need blinded randomization of some sort. I mean, I guess you could randomly generate some colored shapes on your computer, tab to notepad, walk around a room / through a doorway and back, and come back and write the guesses into notepad. But you'd need a lot of trials, and that sounds annoying. I'd consider the bet IRL, but anonymity concerns mean I probably won't online, I wouldn't even accept free money on this name,

A quick look at google scholar - most of the work on this topic is done by Gabriel Radvansky and co, who've published a lot of work on this topic in all sorts of subgroups and permutations. Aside from him, three papers from different groups - lawrence finds it works if yoiu imagine the doorways too (totally), mcfayden et al finds "Across this series of experiments ... we observed no significant effect of doorways on forgetting". Also, from that paper, "To follow up the null effect of shift, we computed a set of Bayes- ian paired t-tests (using JASP v0.9.2.0, default Cauchy prior width = 0.707) and found that there was suffi- cient evidence for the null hypothesis for there being no effect of shift on associated (BF01 = 3.870) or dissociated (BF 01 = 3.590) probes.". "Follow-up Bayesian paired t-tests supported the null hypothesis for there being no effect (as opposed to an underpowered effect) of shift on the bias parameter for associated (BF01 = 4.693) or dissociated (BF01 = 4.710) probes." Their experiment 2 appeared to find a doorway effect, but they dissect the data and say it's for another reason - doorways increased 'false alarm rate to negative probes'. So idk. It's funny how Radvansky and friends have so many positive results, but when narrowed down to other groups one quickly encounters negative results.

99% is an extreme odds ratio, but there are a lot of cute little psychological effects like this (being in a red room? it makes you ANGRY!). And, I don't like bayesian epistemology really, but even if you have a 10% (still quite low) prior on these cute effects being true, over thousands of effects some psych prof's hallucinating, that's still a lot that end up true. Not that experimental psychology is all bunk - stuff like you color the word 'red' green and it takes longer to say it are much more plausible.

More comments

Nothing, really. The whole watch/brand name item as positive status symbol culture is mostly dead anyway, I include it somewhat tongue in cheek because it is something first time watch buyers think about. I like what I like because I like it, though I'm not conceited enough to think I'm totally free of these tendencies.

On the other hand, I think the brand idea lives on in the negative. if I see someone driving a non-hellcat non-ram Dodge car, I adjust my estimate of their general competence downward slightly. Notice how everyone can argue about mechanical v quartz, vintage v actually working, high class brand v generic; but we all agree Invicta is for morons.

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