Human Psychological Research Research Articles

A New Remote Guided Method for Supervised Web-Based Cognitive Testing to Ensure High-Quality Data: Development and Usability Study.

BackgroundThe global COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a fundamental reexamination of how human psychological research can be conducted safely and robustly in a new era of digital working and physical distancing. Online web-based testing has risen to the forefront as a promising solution for the rapid mass collection of cognitive data without requiring human contact. However, a long-standing debate exists over the data quality and validity of web-based studies. This study examines the opportunities and challenges afforded by the societal shift toward web-based testing and highlights an urgent need to establish a standard data quality assurance framework for online studies.ObjectiveThis study aims to develop and validate a new supervised online testing methodology, remote guided testing (RGT).MethodsA total of 85 healthy young adults were tested on 10 cognitive tasks assessing executive functioning (flexibility, memory, and inhibition) and learning. Tasks were administered either face-to-face in the laboratory (n=41) or online using remote guided testing (n=44) and delivered using identical web-based platforms (Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, Inquisit, and i-ABC). Data quality was assessed using detailed trial-level measures (missed trials, outlying and excluded responses, and response times) and overall task performance measures.ResultsThe results indicated that, across all data quality and performance measures, RGT data was statistically-equivalent to in-person data collected in the lab (P>.40 for all comparisons). Moreover, RGT participants out-performed the lab group on measured verbal intelligence (P<.001), which could reflect test environment differences, including possible effects of mask-wearing on communication.ConclusionsThese data suggest that the RGT methodology could help ameliorate concerns regarding online data quality—particularly for studies involving high-risk or rare cohorts—and offer an alternative for collecting high-quality human cognitive data without requiring in-person physical attendance.

Вклад В. Н. Панфёрова в развитие петербургской психологической школы и антропо-психологической теории Б. Г. Ананьева

The Saint Petersburg psychological school was established more than a century ago, and Vladimir Panferov’s scientific research represents a noticeable phenomenon in its modern stage of development. The foundations of this scientific school were laid by Vladimir Bekhterev at the very beginning of the twentieth century. The central stage of its development was determined by the versatile talent and extremely productive activity of Boris Ananyev. The general ideological core of the Saint Petersburg psychological school is anthropologism, the adherence to the anthropological principle, according to which an individual’s mental and psychological content cannot be assessed without studying the whole “person” or “individuality” polysystem. Anthropologism formulated as an anthropological principle is implemented in the form of an integrated approach to the study of mental content in concrete scientific research. The idea of a comprehensive study of man and his behavior was produced by Bekhterev and embodied in the system of institutions created by him and in his generalising works on reflexology. Similar research continued at the Brain Institute after Bekhterev’s death despite a harsh criticism of his works. In the 1940–1950s the core of the Saint Petersburg psychological school moved to the Leningrad State University (now St Petersburg State University) thanks to the efforts made by Boris Ananyev and his colleagues. Here Ananyev organised first a department (1944), and later, in 1966, the Faculty of Psychology. He revived Bekhterev’s branch of psychological research, creating research programs, institutions and teams to implement an integrated approach to research in human psychology in order to develop psychological knowledge and practice. Ananyev’s anthropo-psychological theory of was further developed in the methodological works of Vladimir Panferov. He designed new schemes that systematised modern general psychology. This new systematisation created by Panferov became the foundation for education psychologists training at Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia – a training in the spirit of anthropologism established by the Saint Petersburg psychological school. Professor Panferov’s anniversary celebrated this year promotes the discussion of his research and his organisational contribution, as well as the future of this scientific school.

Author gender identification from text

Text is still the most prevalent Internet media type. Examples of this include popular social networking applications such as Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook, etc. Other web applications such as e-mail, blog, chat rooms, etc. are also mostly text based. A question we address in this paper that deals with text based Internet forensics is the following: given a short text document, can we identify if the author is a man or a woman? This question is motivated by recent events where people faked their gender on the Internet. Note that this is different from the authorship attribution problem. In this paper we investigate author gender identification for short length, multi-genre, content-free text, such as the ones found in many Internet applications. Fundamental questions we ask are: do men and women inherently use different classes of language styles? If this is true, what are good linguistic features that indicate gender? Based on research in human psychology, we propose 545 psycho-linguistic and gender-preferential cues along with stylometric features to build the feature space for this identification problem. Note that identifying the correct set of features that indicate gender is an open research problem. Three machine learning algorithms (support vector machine, Bayesian logistic regression and AdaBoost decision tree) are then designed for gender identification based on the proposed features. Extensive experiments on large text corpora (Reuters Corpus Volume 1 newsgroup data and Enron e-mail data) indicate an accuracy up to 85.1% in identifying the gender. Experiments also indicate that function words, word-based features and structural features are significant gender discriminators.

GPS Technology and Human Psychological Research: A Methodological Proposal

Animal behaviorists have made extensive use of GPS technology since 1991. In contrast, psychological research has made little use of the technology, even though the technology is relatively inexpensive, familiar, and widespread. Hence, its potential for pure and applied psychological research remains untapped. We describe three methods psychologists could apply to individual differences research, clinical research, or spatial use research. In the context of individual differences research, GPS technology permits us to test hypotheses predicting specific relations among patterns of spatial use and individual differences variables. In a clinical context, GPS technology provides outcome measures that may relate to the outcome of interventions designed to treat psychological disorders that, for example, may leave a person homebound (e.g. Agoraphobia, PTSD, TBI). Finally, GPS technology provides natural measures of spatial use. We, for example, used GPS technology to quantify traffic flow and exhibit use at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Interested parties could easily extend this methodology some aspects of urban planning or business usage. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v1i1_wolf

GPS Technology and Human Psychological Research: A Methodological Proposal

Animal behaviorists have made extensive use of GPS technology since 1991. In contrast, psychological research has made little use of the technology, even though the technology is relatively inexpensive, familiar, and widespread. Hence, its potential for pure and applied psychological research remains untapped. We describe three methods psychologists could apply to individual differences research, clinical research, or spatial use research. In the context of individual differences research, GPS technology permits us to test hypotheses predicting specific relations among patterns of spatial use and individual differences variables. In a clinical context, GPS technology provides outcome measures that may relate to the outcome of interventions designed to treat psychological disorders that, for example, may leave a person homebound (e.g. Agoraphobia, PTSD, TBI). Finally, GPS technology provides natural measures of spatial use. We, for example, used GPS technology to quantify traffic flow and exhibit use at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Interested parties could easily extend this methodology some aspects of urban planning or business usage. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v1i1_wolf

GPS Technology and Human Psychological Research: A Methodological Proposal

Animal behaviorists have made extensive use of GPS technology since 1991. In contrast, psychological research has made little use of the technology, even though the technology is relatively inexpensive, familiar, and widespread. Hence, its potential for pure and applied psychological research remains untapped. We describe three methods psychologists could apply to individual differences research, clinical research, or spatial use research. In the context of individual differences research, GPS technology permits us to test hypotheses predicting specific relations among patterns of spatial use and individual differences variables. In a clinical context, GPS technology provides outcome measures that may relate to the outcome of interventions designed to treat psychological disorders that, for example, may leave a person homebound (e.g. Agoraphobia, PTSD, TBI). Finally, GPS technology provides natural measures of spatial use. We, for example, used GPS technology to quantify traffic flow and exhibit use at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Interested parties could easily extend this methodology some aspects of urban planning or business usage. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v1i1_wolf

GPS Technology and Human Psychological Research: A Methodological Proposal

Animal behaviorists have made extensive use of GPS technology since 1991. In contrast, psychological research has made little use of the technology, even though the technology is relatively inexpensive, familiar, and widespread. Hence, its potential for pure and applied psychological research remains untapped. We describe three methods psychologists could apply to individual differences research, clinical research, or spatial use research. In the context of individual differences research, GPS technology permits us to test hypotheses predicting specific relations among patterns of spatial use and individual differences variables. In a clinical context, GPS technology provides outcome measures that may relate to the outcome of interventions designed to treat psychological disorders that, for example, may leave a person homebound (e.g. Agoraphobia, PTSD, TBI). Finally, GPS technology provides natural measures of spatial use. We, for example, used GPS technology to quantify traffic flow and exhibit use at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Interested parties could easily extend this methodology some aspects of urban planning or business usage. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v1i1_wolf

GPS Technology and Human Psychological Research: A Methodological Proposal

Animal behaviorists have made extensive use of GPS technology since 1991. In contrast, psychological research has made little use of the technology, even though the technology is relatively inexpensive, familiar, and widespread. Hence, its potential for pure and applied psychological research remains untapped. We describe three methods psychologists could apply to individual differences research, clinical research, or spatial use research. In the context of individual differences research, GPS technology permits us to test hypotheses predicting specific relations among patterns of spatial use and individual differences variables. In a clinical context, GPS technology provides outcome measures that may relate to the outcome of interventions designed to treat psychological disorders that, for example, may leave a person homebound (e.g. Agoraphobia, PTSD, TBI). Finally, GPS technology provides natural measures of spatial use. We, for example, used GPS technology to quantify traffic flow and exhibit use at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Interested parties could easily extend this methodology some aspects of urban planning or business usage.

Translation among research paradigms in animal psychology

Species comparison, whether explicit or implicit, is an essence in animal psychology but the role of species comparison differs among research paradigms. For example, associative learning and neuroscientific research examines proximal causes of behavior, and different species are compared in order to test the generality of mechanisms. Comparative cognition, on the other hand, examines what natural history influences cognition, and different species are compared in order to hypothesize ultimate causes that explain species difference found under experimental circumstances. Finding a synthesized interpretation of species difference across multiple paradigms does not facilitate better understanding what species similarities (and differences) mean. Instead, I discuss that more translation should be done between the paradigms. Translation brings critiques and novel ideas from one paradigm to the other, yet preserving ideas in each approach. It, therefore, allows us to interpret psychological phenomena from multiple perspectives, and thus provide novel insights to each other. Translations among the diverse paradigms within the discipline of animal psychology will also provide unique perspectives to research in human psychology.

NEWS AND COMMENT ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD : DTI seeks views on software and business patents

Text is still the most prevalent Internet media type. Examples of this include popular social networking applications such as Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook, etc. Other web applications such as e-mail, blog, chat rooms, etc. are also mostly text based. A question we address in this paper that deals with text based Internet forensics is the following: given a short text document, can we identify if the author is a man or a woman? This question is motivated by recent events where people faked their gender on the Internet. Note that this is different from the authorship attribution problem.In this paper we investigate author gender identification for short length, multi-genre, content-free text, such as the ones found in many Internet applications. Fundamental questions we ask are: do men and women inherently use different classes of language styles? If this is true, what are good linguistic features that indicate gender? Based on research in human psychology, we propose 545 psycho-linguistic and gender-preferential cues along with stylometric features to build the feature space for this identification problem. Note that identifying the correct set of features that indicate gender is an open research problem. Three machine learning algorithms (support vector machine, Bayesian logistic regression and AdaBoost decision tree) are then designed for gender identification based on the proposed features. Extensive experiments on large text corpora (Reuters Corpus Volume 1 newsgroup data and Enron e-mail data) indicate an accuracy up to 85.1% in identifying the gender. Experiments also indicate that function words, word-based features and structural features are significant gender discriminators.

MEDES clinical research facility as a tool to prepare ISSA space flights

This new multi-disciplinary medical experimentation center provides the ideal scientific, medical and technical environment required for research programs and to prepare international space station Alpha (ISSA) missions, where space and healthcare industries can share their expertise. Different models are available to simulate space flight effects (bed-rest, confinement,…). This is of particular interest for research in Human psychology, physiology, physiopathology and ergonomics, validation of biomedical materials and procedures, testing of drugs, and other healthcare related products. This clinical research facility (CRF) provides valuable services in various fields of Human research requiring healthy volunteers. CRF is widely accessible to national and international, scientific, medical and industrial organisations. Furthermore, users have at their disposal the multi-disciplinary skills of MEDES staff and all MEDES partners on a single site.

The resident researcher in social ethical perspective

Wicker and Sommer (1993) propose an interesting alternative to the conventional career path of academic social scientists. In my commentary on their proposal I reflect on what I understand to be the goal of their model in terms of the core values of community psychology. While emphasizing community-based development, I concentrate on the social responsibility of researchers in relationships with other citizens by drawing from overlapping historical, epistemological, and ethical critiques of psychologists' scientific foundations and their social roles as scientists (Danziger, 1990; Prilleltensky & Walsh-Bowers, 1993; Sampson, 1991; Sullivan, 1984; Walsh, 1987; Walsh-Bowers & Danziger, 1991; Wine, 1989). My premises are that, like all scientists, psychologists socially construct their research methods from historical antecedents, and that the conduct of human psychological research is an inherently relational activity. My initial reaction to Wicker and Sommer's article was, haven't community psychologists, like Jim Kelly and Don Klein, already been practicing resident research? For another example, I am aware of my colleague, Ed Bennett's (1992) work on community-based economic development in his home region of rural southwestern Ontario. When I recognized that Wicker and Sommer were speaking with an environmental psychology voice, their argument for applying scientific scrutiny to familiar people and settings on a long-term basis became clearer. In their presentation the authors note that training in and the practice of social research emanate from the traditional framework of generating universal laws of human behavior according to the hypothetico-deductive, statistical model of making science. But in other nations qualitative and action-research approaches based on a different paradigm have been taught and practiced by community-minded psychologists for several decades (e.g., Serrano-Garcia, 1990;

Sex bias in psychological research. Progress or complacency?

A total of 4,952 articles published in 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1990 in the areas of developmental, clinical, physiological, and social psychology were reviewed for the purpose of assessing various indicators of sexism in human psychological research. Significant changes in sex of first author, sex of participants, sexist language, and inappropriate generalization indicated that sexism has clearly diminished in the past two decades. Despite these improvements, however, the data revealed continued evidence of discriminatory practices, suggesting that efforts to eliminate sexism must be strengthened if psychology is to be a nonsexist discipline.

Volunteer bias in the psychophysiological study of female sexuality

Volunteer bias occurs in all areas of human psychological research, limiting the ability of researchers to generalize results to the population at large. In this study, volunteers were compared to nonvolunteers for a study of female sexual response that utilized psychophysiological measurement of sexual aroused. All potential subjects completed questionnaire measures of sexual experience, current sexual activities, sex guilt, sexual arousability, and repression‐sensitization. Subjects then either volunteered or declined to participate after a full description of the research and recording instruments. Univariate analyses showed significant differences between those subjects who participated and those who did not on 27 of 37 variables studied. These variables were then subjected to a factor analysis and scores on the resulting nine factors were entered into a discriminant function analysis to predict volunteer status. Volunteers were found to have greater noncoital sexual experience, greater masturbatory experience, less sexual inhibition, and more experience with unusual sex. Implications of these findings for the study of sexuality are discussed.

The Effects of Habituation, the Feldman-Mittler Methodology, and Studio Activities on Expanding Art Preferences of Elementary Students

One concern currently being examined in art education research is art preference and how it might be expanded. Some educators have expressed the belief that efforts toward expanding the range of art preferences should begin as soon as the child enters elementary school (Madeja, 1972; Pepper, 1949; Rouse, 1974). Unfortunately, while in college, elementary classroom teachers receive little specific training in expanding student preferences for works of art (Barkan, 1962; Eisner, 1972). Elementary classroom teachers cannot, therefore, be expected to institute an adequate program that requires specific training (Mittler, 1976c). The classroom teacher cannot turn to the art teacher for guidance because a trained, experienced art teacher does not even exist in many elementary schools (Engel, 1976). Even though most classroom teachers are not prepared to teach a program designed to expand the range of student art preferences, several leading authors have contended that attention must be directed to the task of preference expansion (Barkan, 1962; Kaelin, 1970; Smith, 1966). The problem facing art educators is to identify an effective approach to expanding student art preferences which could be easily understood and implemented by elementary teachers in their own classrooms. This study attempted to identify such an approach by examining three alternatives to expanding preference that have been advanced by writers in the field of aesthetics and art education: 1. Pepper's (1949) concept of habituation. This concept suggests that a student can learn to include an art work in his or her range of preferences merely by experiencing the work in his or her environment over a period of time. 2. The Feldman-Mittler methodology, an art criticism approach that can be used to expand art preferences. 3. Studio activity, an approach which suggests that a student who learns to produce art in different styles is more likely to expand his or her art preferences. In his book, Principles of Art Appreciation (1949), Pepper presented an approach to expanding art preferences that could be easily utilized by the classroom teacher. He introduced the concept of habituation which suggests that a student can overcome a dislike for a work of art and begin to like it merely by experiencing the work in his or her environment over a period of time. Pepper acknowledged that the age of the student could be a variable in habituation and suggested that the younger the child, the more effective habituation could be in encouraging preference for a work of art. The lower the grade level, the more beneficial habituation would be in expanding the range of art preferences. Philosophers and educators have repeatedly discussed the merits of frequent exposure to works of art, although they have not identified the process as habituation. Over 2,000 years ago, Plato stated that an individual could learn a great deal about art just by associating and spending time with it (Bloom, 1968). In the twentieth century, Barkan (1966), Munro (1930), and Stolnitz (1960) have stressed the importance of sustained contact with works of art. In the field of humanistic psychology, Child (1973) claimed that each person is an active agent who constantly interacts with the world around him or her and progressively formulates an understanding based upon this interaction. He stated that research in human psychology indicates that an individual's evaluations of art are greatly influenced by actual experience with works of art. Work in social psychology conducted by Sherif and Sherif (1967) also supports the assertion that familiarity is beneficial in encouraging favorable reactions to works of art. The consideration of values and morals in the selection of works of art is of great importance in classroom application of

On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford prison experiment

Research was conducted recently (August 14-21, 1971) in which subjects assumed the roles of ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’ for an extended period of time within an experimentally devised mock prison setting on the Stanford University campus. The projected twoweek study had to be prematurely terminated when it became apparent that many of the ‘prisoners’ were in serious distress and many of the ‘guards’ were behaving in ways which brutalized and degraded their fellow subjects. In addition, the emerging reality of this role-playing situation was sufficiently compelling to influence virtually all those who operated within it to behave in ways appropriate to its demand characteristics, but inappropriate to their usual life roles and values; this included the research staff, faculty observers, a priest, lawyer, ex-convict, and relatives and friends of the subjects who visited the prison on several occasions (for details see Zimbardo, Banks, Haney and Jaffe, 1973; Haney, Banks and Zimbardo, 1973). This research represents one of the most extreme experimental demonstrations of the power of situational determinants in both shaping behaviour and predominating over personality, attitudes and individual values. As such it extends the conclusions from Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience to authority (1974). But the ethical concerns voiced over Milgram’s treatment of placing subject-teachers in a conflict situation where they believed (incorrectly) that they were hurting another person are even more pronounced in the present case. Volunteer prisoners suffered physical and psychological abuse hour after hour for days, while volunteer guards were exposed to the new self-knowledge that they enjoyed being powerful and had abused this power to make other human beings suffer. The intensity and duration of this suffering uniquely qualify the Stanford prison experiment for careful scrutiny of violations of the ethics of human experimentation. The plan of this article is to: (a) Give a synopsis of the experiment to familiarize the reader with its basic features; (b) summarize one set of critical arguments levelled