Class 6 Problems & Hypotheses NOTES: Grazing Task Due Today Quiz 1 on Thursday (9/26)

1. Class 6 Problems & Hypotheses NOTES: Grazing Task Due Today Quiz 1 on Thursday (9/26) 15 Multiple Choice; 15-20 min. to complete From Class 1 through Class 7

2. Amazing Graze Comments? • Past Comments • Appreciation for how far field advances, but also • Recognition of how certain questions/topics endure for decades • Poignancy of being first to read article buried for decades • Conversational tone of earlier writing • Slow and inefficient compared to web searches • Luxury of wandering and exploring; sitting in the space, ambience of old journals. • Finding out own true interests by the kinds of journals/articles selected • Humbled by sheer mass of past and current research

4. Outline of Events in Prisoners of Silence • Shown the tragedy of autism • Introduced to Facilitated Communication (“FC”) • Doug Bicklin like miracle worker • Excitement among clinicians, parents • Autistics appear liberated, do remarkable feats • 3. FC leads to criminal investigations of abuse • Epidemic of sexual assaults on autistics, conveyed • via facilitators. Gherardi family—father accused of abuse. • Prosecutor in Maine asks key question: • 5. Howard Shane conducts---an experiment! Controlled, replicated, • falsifiable. FC is bogus. • Response of FC community to Shane, related studies? • Once new explanation (FC = snake-oil) appears, previous “difficult facts” make sense, such as? How does this fit with Kuhn? Is communication from Betsy or her facilitator?

5. Questions Created by FC Debunking • Were facilitators aware of their influence? • Why were so many messages sexual? Abuse related? What would Sigmund Freud say? • Why do parents, trained professionals accept FC? • Why is FC community so hostile to scientific inquiry? What would Leon Festinger say? • What distinguishes “believers” from “non-believers”? • Why were anomalies ignored (not looking at keypad, self-taught language skills)? Relates to blind sight?

6. Class 6: Problems and Hypotheses Main Point: How to get from “Huh?” to a hypothesis.

7. The Attributes of Science Kerlinger & Lee Concerned with discovery, and new ways of seeing. Would Popper agree? Would Kuhn agree? Explores questions empirically—strives for reliability Assumes objective reality Accurate measures Controlled designs Replicable Falsifiable Investigates relations between variables Is A related to B? Does A cause B? Is relation between A and B determined by C? NO YES

8. Attributes of Science, continued Self-correcting Open to public scrutiny Subject to peer review Recursive (theory  hyps  observations  theory) Amoral Meaning what? Moves by small steps and also by huge leaps Who else makes this point? Concerned with validity of statement (true/not true), not whether statement is good or bad Kuhn : generative crises

9. Steps in Scientific Method • Identify Problem • Construct Problem Statement • Form Hypothesis • Deductive and Inductive Reasoning

10. Steps in the Scientific Method 1. Identifying problems “There is a troubled, perplexed, trying situation, where the difficulty is, as it were, spread throughout the entire situation, infecting it as a whole”. EXAMPLE: Some people believe that the way to cope with bad events is to act in a positive manner, and your feelings will follow. Others say you should express your negative feelings in order to get over them. Problem: How can both explanations be true? Problem identification is therefore an emotional event.

11. “Emotional Events” That Prompt Discovery

12. Schema Violation, Emotions, and Discovery A fizzy soft drink, rival of Pepsi Coke A short funny story with a punch line. Joke Blue/gray vapors emitted by fire Smoke Mighty tree that shed acorns Oak The white part of an egg Albumin

14. Gut Feelings in the Desert:Antoine De St. Exupery and the Dragon Fly I shaved carefully in a cracked mirror. From time to time I went to the door and looked at the naked sand. For the moment everything was all right. But I heard something sizzling. It was a dragonfly knocking against the lamp. Why it was I cannot say, but I felt a twinge in my heart. I went outdoors and looked round. The air was pure. … Over the desert reigned a vast silence as of a house in order. But here were a green butterfly and two dragonflies knocking against my lamp. Again I felt a dull ache which …came up from the depths of me. Emotional reaction to schema violation. Research Stage?

15. St. Exupery in the Desert, continued Something was calling to me from a great distance. Was it instinct?I climbed a dune and sat down face to the east. If I was right, the thing would not be long in coming. What were they after here, those dragonflies, hundreds of miles from their oases inland? Problem statement Research Stage? Wreckage thrown up upon the beach bears witness to a storm at sea. Even so did these insects declare to me that a sand storm was on the way, a storm out of the east that had blown them out of their oases. Hypothesis Research Stage? What filled me with a barbaric joy was …that I had been able to read the anger of the desert in the beating wings of a dragonfly. St. Exupery, A. (1939). Wind, Sand, and Stars. Research Stage? I’m published! I’m published!

16. EVOLUTION OF PROBLEM STATEMENT I. I’m about to fly across the Sahara, I’ve done it a 100 times, but something is bugging me. What is happening? 2. Those insects bumping against my lamp are bothering me. How come its happening? 3. Wait a second! I'm in the middle of the barren Sahara; what are a moth and a dragonfly doing out here? 4. What would it take to transport insects hundreds of miles from their native environment? Now put this into a succinct problem statement: 5. Does the presence of insects in the remote barren desert indicate the advent of a windstorm?

17. TRANSFORMING A PROBLEM STATEMENT INTO A HYPOTHESIS “The arrival of live insects within the desert interior is a precursor of high winds.” What does St. Exupery do to test this hypothesis? If he repeated 100 times, would prove hypothesis?

18. What’s The Rule? 3, 5, 7 13, 15, 17 Give me three new numbers that fit the rule. What is the rule? What’s my point? 3 increasing whole numbers Confirmation is seductive—becareful of self-confirming patterns. How to avoid this pitfall? How does this task relate to falsifiability? To experiments?

19. 2. Articulate problem “Without some statement of the problem, the scientist can rarely go further and expect the work to be fruitful” EXAMPLE: “Does expression of emotions promote coping?” • Hypothesis formation Hypothesis: A formal statement of conjecture, that can be stated in “If  Then” terms, or A  B terms. A (people who are emotionally stressed) B (will cope better if they express their disturbing thoughts and feelings).

20. 4. Reasoning and Deduction: If general hypothesis is true, then specific instances must also be true. Deducing specific from general allows for experiment design. GENERAL HYPOTHESIS: Expression of distress promotes coping. SPECIFIC INSTANCE: College freshmen will get sick less often if they express their thoughts and feelings about starting college. 5. Observation andInduction: If something is true in a specific instance, it may also be true in general. EXAMPLE: When I talk about my problems, I feel better. Maybe this is true for everybody.

21. Final Word on Benefits of Disclosure

22. FORMS OF HYPOTHESES "A" = Bugs "B" = Sandstorms "C" = Location aridness "D" = Wind-induced transport I. A B II. A  B III. (A X C)  B: IV. Bugs are related to sandstorms Relation Bugs predict sandstorms Causation Bugs & location aridness predict sandstorms Moderation Bugs predict sandstorms because the wind transports them. Mediation D A B

23. Proper and Improper Hypotheses Statements Unbiased classrooms lead to better interactions than biased classrooms. Improper Unbiased classrooms lead to reduced conflict than biased classrooms. Proper Healthy diets should emphasize fresh vegetables. Improper Proper Diets that include fresh vegetables will improve health. General rule: Avoid value statements, “ought, should, better”; focus on measurable, operational.

24. RELATION BETWEEN THEORY AND HYPOTHESES Example of Theory: Time Perspective (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999): People systematically differ in how they subjectively order time into past, present, and future. In other words, people can be characterized as “present oriented”, or “future oriented”.

25. Hypotheses that Derive from Time Perspective Theory Theory: People differ in time perspectives, and this shapes their behavior. General Hypothesis Future Oriented people are better meeting time demands than are Present Oriented people Experimental Hypotheses “Futures” will sign up for experiments sooner than “Presents”

26. Science and Facilitated Communication Facilitated Communication Studies Science Hypotheses arise form emotional problem, feeling of un-ease Problem statement Hypothesis statement, presented in falsifiable form Experiment framed Prosecutor worried about veracity of FC. OD Heck want to show that FC works “… were these communications coming from the autistic children?” If FC real, then it should work when the facilitator is blind to what the child sees. Facilitator and child see same vs. diff. pics; how is performance affected?

27. Framing of Facilitated Communication Experiments Kid Sees Facilitator Sees Cup Dog Cup I II Dog III IV X X 1. Which are the criterion cells? • If FC is valid, what are facilitator's responses in criterion cells? • How does this design relate to “falsifiability”?

28. Suggested Improvement to Facilitated Communication Experiments Kid Sees Facilitator and child are told: 1. Sometimes an object, sometimes a blank 2. Sometimes you’ll see same, sometimes you’ll see diff. Why might this be a better design? In actual FC, facilitator never sees competing object. If FC is very subtle, then create conditions that permit sensitivity

29. Science and Facilitated Communication Science FC Validation Studies Conduct objective, varied, and replicable tests Double blind study; picture naming, message passing, eyes on keypad Kids type w/o looking at keypad; Why autistics so verbally skilled? Why so many abuse cases? New hypothesis: FC a sham, new discrepancies become evident. How like Kuhn? Paradigm Shift New hypothesis has powerful social consequences Devastates believers; liberates kids, redeems "abusers" Serendipity (unexpected discovery) Unconscious drives overt behavior; Freud. What is "will"? D. Wegner

30. Null Hypotheses Defined: Null hyp. states that there is no relation between variables. Examples: Class size is not related to performance The sexes do not differ in aggression. Bugs do not predict sandstorms

31. Proper and Improper Use of Null Hypothesis Proper use of null hypothesis: As a contrast, foil, to hyp. we want to confirm H1: Smaller classes  improved performance Ho: Smaller classes unrelated to performance Dubious use of null hyp: As the object of research H1: Smaller classes are unrelated to performance Problems in trying to confirm null hyp: 1. Confirmation could be due to actual absence of effect OR 2. Confirmation could occur b/c study improperly done. THOUGH: Facilitated Communication studies aimed to disconfirm?