octern

276 reputation

bio	website
	location	San Francisco, CA
	age	34
visits	member for	1 year, 1 month
	seen	Mar 28 at 4:59
stats	profile views	6

I'm a hybrid programmer / web designer / psychology researcher. I'm currently doing internet-based psychological interventions with a University of California health research lab, trying to help folks learn skills for creating positive emotions and coping with stress effectively.

I also help non-technologically-inclined researchers and administrators manage and collate large datasets. Munging unruly text files may not be glamorous, but you'd be surprised how often it's what gets the science done.

	276 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 1 month
14 badges		location	San Francisco, CA		seen	Mar 28 at 4:59

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Mar 28	awarded	Commentator
Mar 28	comment	Practical Use For a Neuroimager You're allowed to edit your comment for a few minutes after posting, in order to correct typos and such. I believe the freeze after that is not "bad programming," it's a drama prevention device.
Mar 27	awarded	Yearling
Dec 28	comment	Improving Speed of Thinking Practice. Almost all activities or types of reasoning involve having a mental library of useful facts or related situations that is built up through experience. There is such as thing as "pure" intelligence, unrelated to domain expertise, but in almost all situations people who can find solutions quickly and confidently are ones who have put a lot of time and work into learning the field and stretching their capabilities.
Nov 26	comment	Why people choose “boring” colors for new cars? You might want to look into whether people typically buy anything in their favorite color (or anything other than clothes). This may not be a car-specific phenomenon.
Nov 21	comment	Why have historically most inventors been men? On the other hand, I don't think "inventors aren't average" allows you to dismiss neurological differences. If an achievement (or a disability) relies on a very extreme level of some underlying trait, then even a small difference in averages can make a large difference in the number of people who are at that extreme. This can also occur if the two groups differ in variance rather than average (e.g., males may have a higher rate of both extremely high and extremely low intelligence).
Nov 21	comment	Why have historically most inventors been men? I think sexism has to be the main answer. The historical differences between men and women in education, opportunity, and social standing are so huge that they're certain to dwarf any relevant biological or psychological differences. If current social trends continue, then maybe 20 years from now we'll be able to start tracking the sex of inventors and have it tell us something about inherent sex differences.
Nov 18	answered	Are there professional cognitive science test subjects?
Nov 17	comment	How well defined is ADD/ADHD? You're right, my mistake. I was thinking about the other question in the post, "Are there good reasons for picking out the behaviors associated with ADHD and giving them a name?"
Nov 16	comment	How well defined is ADD/ADHD? None of this answers the original question: Do these traits tend to cluster strongly? Is there reason to believe that they share an underlying etiology? etc.
Nov 13	comment	Cheapest way to measure arousal levels This is a clever idea, but if actigraphy-while-stationary hasn't been validated as a measure of arousal, then it's probably not a good idea for these purposes. You don't want to pair an already-controversial hypothesis with a measurement method that's also untested.
Nov 13	comment	How can I create computer based psychology experiments using OS X? You should specify whether you need psychophysics-level precision timing, or whether you just want to present stimuli. If it's the latter, then flash and all sorts of other roll-your-own solutions are fine. If it's the former, then you probably want something like psychopy, where the designers have already done a lot of the testing and the low-level black magic necessary to get precision timing of stimulus display and responses.
Nov 11	awarded	Supporter
Jun 2	awarded	Editor
Jun 2	revised	Is this optical illusion the visual equivalent of binaural beats? deleted 124 characters in body
Jun 1	answered	Is this optical illusion the visual equivalent of binaural beats?
Mar 27	awarded	Teacher
Mar 27	answered	How can one find out if he/she is brainwashed?