Investigating human behavior Professor Andrew Howes Dr Ben Cowan School of Computer Science University of Birmingham
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Investigating human behavior
Professor Andrew HowesDr Ben Cowan
School of Computer ScienceUniversity of Birmingham
contents
• Ethics
• Assessment 1
• Structure of a paper
• What makes a good report?
• Cargo Cult Science
• A good example for HCI: Fitts’s Law
ethics
Nuremberg code (1947)
• start of modern ethics.
• response to the Nuremberg trials.
• ethics not easy: e.g. Nazi doctors could try to adopt a Utilitarian (John Stuart Mills) defense -- they were saving soldier’s lives.
• The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
• The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society...
• The experiment should be ... based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history ... [based on theory].
• The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
• No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
• The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance.
• Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject
• The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons
• During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end...
• During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage...
ethics
• Participants are NOT crash test dummies.
Today there are many codes and guidelines
• Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth.
• British Association of Social Workers - Code of Ethics.
• British Educational Research Association - Ethical Guidelines.
• British Psychological Society - Code of Ethics and Conduct.
• The Chatham House Rule.
• ESRC Research Ethics framework.
• National Children’s Bureau Research guidelines.
• (see http://www.rcs.bham.ac.uk/ethics/links/index.shtml)
safety guidelines
• Social Research Association - Code of practice for the safety of social researchers
• Universities & Colleges Employer Association - Safety in fieldwork and guidelines for working overseas.
Legislation
• Data Protection Act 1998
• Equality Act 2010
• Human Rights Act
• Mental Capacity Act 2005
• NHS Act 2006 (section 251)
• Police Act 1997
• Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
• Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks - Eligible positions requiring CRB
ethics are not easy
• do not be complacent.
• do not make the mistake of believing that you know it all.
• academics employed by a university are obliged to consult an ethics committee.
• marketers and private individuals are not!
deception
• One ethical consideration is that participants should not, where possible, be deceived.
• Yet, many scientists would claim that for many psychological and sociological experiments, the less participants know the better. If a participant knows the desired outcome of the experiment then that is likely to affect their behavior.
• For example, consider a study of bystander apathy (see Piliavin & Charng, 1990 for a review). We might be interested in the conditions under which a member of the public would help a bystander in need. E.g. a drunk who had fallen over; or a well-dressed business person who had fainted?
• To study bystander apathy we cannot even inform participants that they are in a study prior to observing them without biasing the study! So we try and build an ethical reason for deceiving someone.
• Nearly all psychological experiments involve some level of deception.
debriefing
• while deception is sometimes consider necessary participants should not stay deceived.
• they should be debriefed.
How would you design the following experiments?
• You want to know whether fear of spiders is innate (present at birth) or whether it learned.
• You want to know whether spam emails can induce stress.
• Can a robot entertain a child as well as a parent? For how long?
• Do computer games make people aggressive?
Little Albert
• So as to test whether fear was innate or conditioned through learning John Watson (a behaviorist), used a 9 month old child as a subject.
• Watson began the experiment by placing Albert in the middle of a room. A white laboratory rat was placed near Albert. Albert was not scared.
• Over a period of two months Albert was then exposed to various things without any sort of conditioning; a white rabbit, a monkey, masks etc…
• Then Albert was again placed in a room with the rat. However, this time, when the rat was touched by Albert, Watson would make loud sounds behind him.
• When this occurred, Albert would get frightened and begin to cry. Watson continued to do this until eventually, Albert became distressed whenever exposed to the rat.
• Eventually, Albert associated anything fluffy or white with the loud noise.
• Albert was never desensitized to his fear.
Assessment• Assessment 1
• Evaluation Methods and Statistics
• Deadline: end of Week 6, Semester 1.
• Conduct an investigation, and write a report, concerning the claim that the use of facebook is correlated with bonding social capital.
• Collect data from participants using a scientific methodology. You may wish to use a simplified version of the questionnaires used by Ellison et al. (2007). If you wish to use a different method then consult with one of the class coordinators.
• You may use your classmates and friends as participants.
• Make sure that your study conforms to the requirements for ethical and safe research as outlined in the lecture.
recall the following study from lecture 2:
Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, Cliff Lampe
The Benefits of Facebook ‘‘Friends:’’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (2007) 1143–1168
Hypothesis
• Intensity of facebook use will be positively associated with individual’s perceived bonding social capital.
• In other words, intensity of facebook use will be correlated with bonding social capital.
• ... which means that individuals who make more use of facebook will have higher perceived bonding social capital.
intensity of use...
• In the past week, on average, approximately how many minutes per day have you spent on Facebook?
• 0=less than 10, 1=10-30, 2=31-60, 3=1-2 hours, 4=2-3 hours, 5=more than 3 hours.
• For each of the following statements rate how strongly you agree (where 1 is strongly disagree, 4 is neutral, and 7 is strongly agree.
• Facebook is part of my everyday activity.
• 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 7.
• Facebook has become part of my daily routine.
• 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 7.
social capital...
• If I needed an emergency loan of $100, I know someone at UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM I can turn to.
• 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 7.
• There is someone at UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM I can turn to for advice about making very important decisions.
• 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 7.
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−2 −1 0 1 2
02
46
810
intensity
bonding
correlation
• The results indicated that intensity of facebook use and bonding social capital were correlated, r(N) = .XX, p < .XXX.
• the v alue of ris a measure of the strength of the correlation, i.e. the strength of association between the two variables.
• the value of p is a measure of the significance of the finding, or in other words it is the probability that we can reject the hypothesis that there is no correlation. The smaller the value, the less likely that we obtained the result by chance.
The report
• You should write your answer in the form of a brief scientific report. The report should be no more than 1500 words long but should have an Abstract, and Introduction, an Experiment section (including Method and Results), a Discussion, and References.
report structure• Abstract. No more than 100 words. Describes the hypothesis and state whether or not
it was supported. The abstract not include statistics.
• Introduction: No more than 400 words. Describes the motivation for the study. Includes a literature review.
• Experiment: 600 words. Contains a Method and a Results section.
• Method: Contains all of the information required to replicate the study. Including the experimental design, details about the participants and how they came to participate, how they were paid (or not), and how they were instructed. Also includes details of the apparatus.
• Results: A report of the outcomes of th statistical analyses. Does not include a discussion of the implications of the results.
• Discussion: 370 words. A summary of the important results and a statement of whether or not the provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that was stated in the Abstract and Introduction. A discussion of what might have been done differently. If the results were not significant then should discuss why not. Should discuss possible future work.
• Conclusion: 30 words. A brief statement of the take home message.
report format
• References and citations must be in APA format and are not included in the word count.
• Use a 12 point Times font with 1.5 spacing.
Writing a report
how to write an assessment report
6.1.3 Abstract
The abstract should provide a stand-alone overview of the entire report. Specifically it should present the background to the investigation, the problem, the aims, how the investigation was undertaken, and the outcome.
References should be avoided in the abstract.
Three elements are essential to an abstract:
• A statement of the problem (the objective of the work)• An explanation of your approach to solve the problem
The principal result(s)
Introduction and background
This section is concerned with presenting a critical survey of background relevant to the area of investigation.
What is not required is a textbook presentation of the theory and practice of a much wider topic area than required to understand the particular study. The selection of what to review should be guided by a clear understanding of the aims and requirements of the experiment. The literature should not simply be re-presented but where possible also critically analysed.
The source for the background is published material, in general, journal and conference papers, theses, research monographs, textbooks. Web sites, blogs etc. should be treated with caution.
Chapter 3: Methods
Fully describe the research methods. How many participants did you use? Who were they? How were they sampled? How did you design your questionnaire? What materials did you use? The specific content of your methods section will depend on the details of the study that you conducted.
sampling method, number of participants, location, payment, excluded participants, experimental design, independent and dependent variables, number of trials etc. etc.
Chapter 4: Results
What are the findings of the study?
Discussion and conclusion
This section summarises the results, discusses them, outlines problems arising, speculates on further work and then concludes.
Conclusions should be appropriately qualified.
6.1.7 List of References
In various parts of the report you will need to refer to other people's work. This has to be done properly. Some guidance is provided here.
The name of a book is NOT enough.
It makes your report much more readable if the references contain the authors’ names. For example:
• If the cited work was produced by a single person, then the citation will be: (Smith, 1993) where 'Smith' is the surname of the single author and 1993 is the year when it is published
• If you have more than one citations from the same author and the same year, the citations should read: (Smith, 1993a, 1993b
etc. (see project handbook)...
How to describe previous work
case 1: Studies of the internet use by the elderly...
• Studies of the internet use by the elderly...
• According to Mellor, Firth and Moore (2008) elderly people report that the use of the internet was of great benefit. In their paper they report on a project that aimed to evaluate the potential of the Internet to reduce social isolation amongst the elderly, and thereby, improve psychosocial functioning.
• Twenty residents of a retirement village volunteered to be given access to, and training in, the use of computers and the Internet. After 3 months, they exhibited little change in measures of self-esteem, positive affect, personal well-being, optimism and social connectedness.
self reports suggest benefits
• However, they reported that they found the use of the Internet to be of great benefit.
• Over the 12 months of the study 12 participants discontinued their involvement for a variety of reasons.
• After 12 months, the eight participants who remained in the study again reported a range of positive outcomes however, quantitative survey data was again inconclusive.
• This discrepancy between the qualitative (interview) data and the quantitative (survey) data suggests that impact of the Internet on the wellbeing of the elderly may be more complex than suggested, and broader than was assessed psychometrically.
aside: how should we summarise these findings?
• We can summarise Mellor et al.'s (2008) findings in various ways. Some are accurate and informative. The previous summary (above) is ideal but in some circumstances it makes sense to say less, e.g. the following is balanced, neutral and informative.
• Mellor, Firth, Moore (2008) studied 20 residents of a retirement village who volunteered to be given training on the use of the internet. 12 participants dropped out but those who stayed reported that the use of the internet was of great benefit. However, quantitative analyses of the effects of internet use on self-esteem, positive affect, personal well-being optimisation, and social connectedness were not significant.
... want to say even less?
• Minimally you might say
• "Mellor et al. (2008) found that elderly people reported that the use of the internet was of great value."
• .. but this is biased by the absence of any description of the dropout rate, or the fact that the negative findings are not reported.
... even less?
• but contrast this to the awful...
• "Mellor et al. (2008) found that elderly people's use of the internet was of great value."
• There are just a couple of changed words but an entirely different meaning.
• This is just wrong but at least the reader can check your interpretation.
And then there is the truly awful:
• "Use of the internet is of great value to the elderly."
• There is a claim here, but there is
• no balance
• inadequate qualification
• no data
integrity
cargo cult science:
An essay by Richard Feynman
• “Pretty much for any aspect of human behaviour that you are interested in you will find an answer.
• One or other expert will tell you that people are not very good at reasoning, or that phonics is the best way to learn to read, ...
• People are sometimes told that there IQ is high or low ...
• It is very easy to be intimidated by experts.http://psybabble101.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
Feynman - Cargo Cult Science
• “I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people.
• “During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right.
• The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
what is missing?
• “It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science.
• “It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards.
• For example, if you're doing an experiment,
• you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it:
• other causes that could possibly explain your results;
• and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
• Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--
• if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.
will I get fewer marks if the experiment did not work?
Millikan’s experiment
• Millikan was interested in measuring the charge on an electron.
• but his initial measurement was a little low.
• According to Feynman, subsequent studies show a gradual increase in the measured value.
• Why didn’t they find the correct value immediately?
conclusion
• Ethics is a fundamental part of experimental design. Behaving ethically is difficult, requiring careful thought. It cannot be taken for granted.
• The assessment requires you to collect and analyse data.
• Science requires maximum integrity first -- not significant results.
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