Disqus - Latest Comments for bmevans

Re: Social interactions promote cognitive functions

stoweboyd — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:38:21 -0000

Might be interesting to study retention of information when presented with or without backchannel discussion of the material? My hunch is that people that can chat about the material that is being presented to them -- in realtime -- will remember it better.

Re: Social interactions promote cognitive functions

bmevans — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:37:24 -0000

I absolutely agree, Sanjay. That would be a really interesting study, and one that I really maybe ought to do! I would imagine that the people you interact with matter too: old, old friends vs. complete strangers; superiors vs. subordinates; people you converse with daily vs. people you converse with rarely (who are all nevertheless "friends").

The other question I'd like to explore is what "cognitive tasks" such interactions might facilitate. In Ybarra et al.'s study, the topic discussed in the social condition had nothing to do with the tasks they later performed. At the same time, the tasks they later performed were not very ecologically-valid. Does the effect hold when your task is writing a paper, preparing a presentation, performing data analyses, programming, etc?

Almost too many factors to do a real experimental study on...

Re: Social interactions promote cognitive functions

bmevans — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:28:53 -0000

There's a lot still to be studied about how people make use of online social spaces to for question-answering or problem solving. I'm hoping to explore some of them in my dissertation, though, so stay tuned!

Your book sounds interesting---especially the part about the value of small talk for relationships. In my current study, I'm looking at how people solve a problem using their social network, and most people have this little "social dance" at the beginning and end of their conversation. I find it really interesting because the question being asked is often pretty basic, like: "are you good at math?" And I'm seeing this between people who haven't spoken in a long time as well as with people who have spoken recently.

Re: links for 2008-10-04

bmevans — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:42:45 -0000

Wow, that's big news!

Re: Rocky Pose Innate?

bmevans — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:33:29 -0000

As an athlete myself, I have always felt that some "emotions" and "expressions" just can't be controlled when you're in the thick of it! I don't know why I am still somewhat resistant to ceding victory to the "innate" on these types of things. There is evidence afterall (though I haven't read the full story). But the notion of embodied cognition is very popular in Cognitive Science right now---the fact that we live in bodies like *these*, essentially---this story plays right into those themes.

Re: More on hyperconnectivity and six - or three - degrees of separation

MarkDykeman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:50:33 -0000

I can believe it. I think weak links (or initially weak links) provide ways for us to transcend our current social networks.

Re: More on hyperconnectivity and six - or three - degrees of separation

bmevans — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:52:50 -0000

It is interesting to consider how technology changes our access to people. One theory is that social networks let us maintain more connections with people we are distantly connected to---or the weak links. But the weak links often prove to be the most valuable resources for us (for getting jobs, new information, etc.) Dodds, Muhamad & Watts (2003) did a 6-degrees study with email exchanges (instead of phone or snail mail). They found that completed chains had an average length of ~4 links, but also that the most successful chains were completed through people's weak links!

Re: Allele 334: Is Pairbonding In Men Genetic?

bmevans — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:12:54 -0000

Love it! I saw this article too... In some ways it's not so surprising that a gene would influence pairbonding. Afterall, there had to be some genetic selection to keep males and females together making babies. On the other hand, this is another example of how human behavior is variable and complicated.

Re: What does getting smarter really mean?

MarkDykeman — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:56:28 -0000

Sure, why not? As long as you don't need blood and sleep deprivation isn't involved. You can reach me at contact AT broadcasting-brain DOT com.

Re: What does getting smarter really mean?

bmevans — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:15:33 -0000

Being objective is definitely hard, whether you are an active participant of the thing you study or not. There are some things you can only experience from participating yourself, though. And after that, I try to consider the behavior I observe from many different perspectives (and academic theories)...

In other words, yes, it's hard, but it's better than the alternative, I think!

(Do you want to participate in a study?)

Re: What does getting smarter really mean?

MarkDykeman — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:10:57 -0000

Out of curiosity, does participation in these sites make your research more difficult? Isn't it harder to be objective?

Re: What does getting smarter really mean?

bmevans — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:44:05 -0000

Friendfeed *is* interesting because people can dive deeper into topics through threaded discussions. It's definitely a site I'm hoping to study further for its "sensemaking" capabilities. (And of course, I participate on these social media sites myself!)

Re: What does getting smarter really mean?

MarkDykeman — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:32:11 -0000

Hello Brynn and thanks for stopping by. I suspected this topic would right up your alley based on what I read at your blog. A number of my readers and social media contacts dive frequently and sometimes deeply into social media streams. FriendFeed is a central place where many streams of data converge via RSS feed aggregation, but you're probably already aware of that.

Your point about being willing to put in time and effort to make productive use of these tools is well taken.

Re: What does getting smarter really mean?

bmevans — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:27:15 -0000

I work in a group at PARC is called "Augmented Social Cognition" and it's all about building technology (or web-based tools) that facilitate some aspects of cognition---in some ways, to make you "smarter." But that's not exactly the best term (as other commenters have discussed). Working hard or actually incorporating new ideas into your thinking is often what we mean by "smart" here.

Instead, my research has been focused on understanding how people find and synthesize new information (perform "sensemaking") because of its availability on new websites or through social interactions online. My instinct is that new web tools have the ability to augment human cognition but only where individuals are willing to put the time and effort in to make use of the new-found information. Maybe this makes us "smarter" or maybe it simply makes easier to find relevant information.

Playing the definition game can be tricky if you never make any headway. But I certainly like the discussion of what it means to be "smarter" because of social media.

Re: That Bird Can Dance!

bmevans — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:51:14 -0000

That's a great question! I do not know the answer, but I can imagine that it would be a complicated mix of culture and personality traits. But as the researchers commented in the article, (really) not much is known about how the human mind responds to music yet! Either we need more birds or more techno dancers to answer this question ;)

Re: Episode 1: Time to Get Pushy

daveman692 — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:24:18 -0000

I think some of the underlying principals between identi.ca and the DiSo project are quite similar. Both are looking at how to provide interoperability and social interactions in a decentralized environment.

Re: Episode 1: Time to Get Pushy

bmevans — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:10:53 -0000

Nice show! I especially liked the explanation of identi.ca---I didn't know that was how it's supposed to be used or that it might provide that functionality. (Sounds very DiSo). Also, as one of those "younger" folks John was talking about, I learned something important today about Gnip Gnop! Perhaps the only thing I learned today, so thanks :)