Friday, 12 April 2024
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Hello. All is well. Continuing with chapter two, we learn of different research methods, ways to collect information. We're introduced to four methods: Clinical studies, naturalistic observations, surveys, archival research. I assume these are common methods in all social sciences, not only psychology.

Clinical or case studies gather information by observation of one or few individuals. You can obtain a lot of data but the ability to generalize the findings to a larger segment of the population is limited. 

Naturalistic research is also observational but takes place in natural settings to ensure valid and accurate data. When people know they're being watched, they tend to change their behavior due to social awareness. Therefore, we go undercover. We blend in and inconspicuously observe the people in their natural habitat, while tempting, ideally without live commentary I suppose. Only practical, cost and time difficulties are discussed. The book uses an example of secretly recording in restrooms to see if people wash their hands, which I think should raise discussion of legal and ethical concerns, a bit puzzled it isn't. Perhaps I missed it or it's discussed later.

Thinking of how we treat other animals for scientific experimentation, the growing dismissal of scientific endeavor (not sure if true, but I sense it a bit from online reading), I find it relevant to at least mention public concern as a factor to consider. If people lose trust in the practices of scientific institutions, their discoveries become meaningless. Again, we're back to productivity vs. resilience. While we may be tempted by a short-term increase in the rate of progress by dismissing public concern, long-term scientific progress may halter due to loss of confidence or trust. I've read a little about the process of receiving grants for research. Due to its competitiveness, I think it may over prioritize productivity. Could be interesting to look into.

Then we've got surveys, lists of questions, usually with quantitative answers choice I think, done electronic or in person. They allow for a larger sample, the subset of the population surveyed, allowing for more generalizations. The downside is that the data is highly quantitative and again, due to our social function, people may not answer truthfully. The book doesn't mention it, but I think also, people may have different understandings of the questions, or be influenced by the options available. I have a dislike for surveys or tests in general, as I find them highly misused, however, they do have valid use cases if used appropriately. I think the misuse stems from our general bias for quantitative data, stemming from our need for absolute certainty, resulting in a too reductionist understanding. It's good in moderation. Surveys are useful for spotting trends. We have three common, basic statistical measurements: mode (frequency), mean (average), median (middle). Mean is the one we're most familiar with, but can be misleading due to outlier bias, e.g. median vs. mean household net worth.

Archival research is using existing data sets. Usually combining multiple data sets to find relationships and patterns, e.g. relationship between formal education and unemployment. Inconsistencies between data sets, how they're collected, can muddy insights. The data will also not be specific to what you may be trying to make sense of, not specific enough for your hypothesis.

The book also talks about the difference between longitudinal and cross-sectional research. Longitudinal is when you collect data from a set of people over a time period, e.g. following the same people throughout their lifetime. By cross-sectional research, you collect data from multiple sets of people, e.g. collect data from people in different age groups ad hoc. The latter may introduce cultural or generational bias.

In the secondary book, we read about different ways of thinking, specifically visual thinking. We have two visual pathways ways. The upper, dorsal, processing object resolution. The lower, ventral, processing spatial resolution.

Engineers tend to have relative higher spatial resolution while artists tend to have relative higher object resolution. Should I stop overusing the word relative? Hehe.

The author scores high in object and low in spatial resolution. This conflicts her as she is a scientist not an artist. Her explanation is autism. That she doesn't have an emotional response to what she visualizes, allowing her to see things for what they are.

My assumption is that the emotional response is first of all an abstract construction, which includes tangible manifestations of affective feeling. 

I previously said my memories commonly contain other people together with an affective feeling. If we think of affect alone, it represents the basic physical sensation which is combined with other senses making an emotion. The reason I said affective feeling instead of emotion for my memories, is because I first and foremost experience the valence and arousal, I have to reason for longer an emotion which doesn't come intuitively to me.

Many emotions I don't understand like jealousy. I'm not saying that to sound good, haha. I can intellectually understand it, but it doesn't make sense for my brain as an emotion to reason regulation. Jealousy feels like delusional thinking, unpractical thought pattern. Perhaps why I could get rid of anxiety so quickly is because my emotional responses are more plastic, as they're more intellectual constructions? It's not that I can't have poor emotions, they're just more malleable for me at the expense of execution time.

Perhaps my brain stores a bunch of relative simple senses because it can't abstract complex senses due to dysfunction in hubs connecting senses. Maybe you can look at abstraction in the brain having two fundamental levels. Sense level (intuition) and concept level (intellect). 

Sense level abstraction is relative rigid and fast interconnection of tangible senses, prone to firing together instinctively. Intuitive patterns, the building blocks of concept patterns. 

Concept level abstraction is relative plastic and slow combination of intuitive patterns, or patterns of patterns.

I'm mostly saying the same thing I've said before about intuition and intellection. I just found it confusing to use the word concept for both levels, differentiating between low-level and high-level concept abstraction. So, my brain has more basic sense patterns, with potentially an over representation of certain sense types, therefore my concept patterns are combined by a lot of more basic sense patterns, making me slower to find useful combinations but allowing for more variation. 

Note, the two levels is a distinction I make, both have levels within them. The abstraction within these two levels is multidimensional.

Perhaps the differences in sense abstraction represents ASD, and differences in concept abstraction represents IQ? Savant syndrome could represent having a relative high one-dimensional sense abstraction, enabling high function in some tasks regardless of IQ. This is just me thinking out loud, I have no idea how accurate or useful this model is.