Getting your ideas

Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

Announcements

Labs this week– Library instruction - room 164D– Section 2 Thursday at 3:30– Section 3 Thursday at 4:30– Section 4 Friday at Noon– Section 5 Friday at 1:00– Remember to bring your library worksheet (from your lab

manual).

Want research experience – My lab:

http://www.psychology.ilstu.edu/jccutti/cutting/lab290/psycholinglab.html

Announcments

Your Class Mallard Page:– Go to your class syllabus page:

• http://www.psychology.ilstu.edu/jccutti/cutting/psych231/fall2003syllabus.html

– Click on Class Mallard Page link– Login: your ULID– Password: your Soc Sec # (no dashes, just

numbers)

Where do ideas come from?

Research is often driven by curiosity. – We typically study things that we’re

interested in. • “Here [is] a first principle not formally

recognized by scientific methodologists: When you run onto something interesting, drop everything else and study it.” (B. F. Skinner, 1956)

Idea origins

Common Sense – things that we all think are true

• Treat others as you want them to treat you– Nice social psych experiment, does this work?

• But note: a lot of our common sense is contradictory

– absence makes the heart grow fonder– long distance affairs never last

Idea origins

Common Sense Observation – both of others and of yourself

(and maybe even of animals or kids).•Direct observation - includes public observation, self observation, observing children, observing animals•Vicarious observation - what somebody else has observed

Idea origins

Common Sense Observation Past research – find out what research has

already been done and ask yourself “what don’t we know still” (or perhaps better “what do we NEED to know that we don’t already know)

• follow-up studies, expanding the past research in more detail or new directions• improvements on past research studies, maybe you think the past research had some serious flaws or limitations

Idea origins

Common Sense Observation Past research Identify a problem – perhaps there is an

important problem or issue that needs a (or some) solution(s).

• WWII - why do our planes keep crashing?• Led to early cognitive theories of attention

Idea origins

Common Sense Observation Past research Identify a problem Ask the Experts – basically boils down to

putting your trust in somebody else who says that they know what the research

Idea origins

Common Sense Observation Past research Identify a problem Ask the Experts Stick with it and get lucky

–Pavlov was working on dog digestive systems. Noticed dogs salivated when put into their harnesses prior to being fed. This observation and the subsequent work led to groundbreaking work in how animal (including humans) learn - classical conditioning

Classic barriers to good research ideas I’m not smart enough.

– Yes you are, but it may be hard work

Classic barriers to good research ideas I’m not smart enough. Somebody else must have already done this.

• review the literature, if somebody has done it remember two things:

– replication is an important part of science– perhaps there is a new angle to add to the

research idea

Classic barriers to good research ideas I’m not smart enough. Somebody else must have already done this. I don’t know how to pursue the idea.

– again, review the literature, how have others examined similar issues

Classic barriers to good research ideas I’m not smart enough. Somebody else must have already done this. I don’t know how to pursue the idea. It’s too simple, something must be wrong.

– Parsimony (simplicity) is generally a GOOD thing

Classic barriers to good research ideas I’m not smart enough. Somebody else must have already done this. I don’t know how to pursue the idea. It’s too simple, something must be wrong. The idea will take too much work.

– don’t be afraid to work hard, sometimes you can think of ways to

– simplify things to reduce the workload

Classic barriers to good research ideas I’m not smart enough. Somebody else must have already done this. I don’t know how to pursue the idea. It’s too simple, something must be wrong. The idea will take too much work.

Our goal is that you come away from this course with the knowledge and ability to see past most if not all of these pitfalls.

Are my ideas good?

Evaluate your idea – Focus: Is your idea specified enough to be

manageable– ROT rule:

• Replicable - one time deal?• Observable - can you measure it?• Testable - can you test it & can you falsify it?

Replication

Many interesting results are not accepted until they are replicated – Cold fusion - the answer to all of our energy

needs• The results were never replicated and are not generally

accepted by the scientific community

– Extrasensory perception (ESP)• Some proponents claim that ESP only occurs under

certain unknown conditions and that it is impossible to predict when the conditions are right.

Observable

Many interesting questions may not be examined experimentally because they aren’t directly observable. – Do dogs think like humans?

• Since we can’t directly observe a dog’s thoughts, we can only make inferences about their thoughts via their behavior

– Is my experience of the color red the same as yours?

Testable Many interesting hypotheses are not testable

until they are further specified– There is no relationship between brain size and

intelligence• Stated as a negative, experimental method is designed to

look for evidence of the existence of things

– Is abortion wrong? Are drugs evil? • Tests opinions which aren’t answerable with experimental

methods

– Meditation affects how good one feels about oneself.• Which direction? What counts as meditation? How much

meditation? What does ‘feel good about oneself” mean?

Example: A research idea

How do people remember?– This is a pretty big question– To begin to answer it we’ve got to Focus

• break the general idea down into smaller more specific ideas & to develop theories as to how & why

– Then we can begin using experiments to test parts of the theories

Focusing the idea

– What does memory involve?• Encoding - getting the memories in• Storage - keeping the memories• Retrieval - getting the memories out

– Are all kinds of memory the same?• Procedural vs. declarative memories• Pictures vs. words

– How long do memories last?

Evaluating the idea

– How do we observe memory?– Can we re-do the experiments, do we get similar

results?– Are our predictions testable?

This week’s labs

Library instruction - room 164D Section 2 Thursday at 3:30 Section 3 Thursday at 4:30 Section 4 Friday at Noon Section 5 Friday at 1:00 Remember to bring your library worksheet.