December 18, 2007Monkeys have college kids' skillsA Duke University study shows that college students and monkeys have about the same math skills. Hmmm. Maybe that's the reason for the low grades you've been posting. Basically, the researchers put two monkey against a couple dozen Duke students to see who outperformed each other. The task was to mentally add two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different screen, news wire Reuters wrote. In an interview with the wire service, researcher Jessica Cantlon said, ""It shows when you take language away from a human, they end up looking just like monkeys in terms of their performance." |
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Rhode Island native and Virginia Tech reporter Greg Esposito posts on everyday college life, trends and issues affecting the 35,000-plus students in the New River Valley and beyond.
Tim Thornton, who is old enough to have children attending college, is still taking classes and is still fascinated by colleges, the students who populate them and the bureaucrats who operate them. His reporting beat is Radford University.
West Virginia native Anna Mallory blogs on student life topics at Virginia Tech, Radford University, New River Valley Community College -- and beyond.
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Comments
[December 19, 2007 10:23 AM]
Ed S.No mention of the other processes/thoughts that were going through the heads of the monkeys and students at the same time.
In fact, the link in this article said nothing about pitting monkeys against students. The link I read noted monkeys were shown dots on a screen and rewarded for choosing a correct answer. Nothing about students.
Assuming there was a study pitting monkeys against students, one must also look at the level of concentration on the task between the two sets. Monkeys rewarded with a sweet drink may make them focus on the task. If I'm choosing dots on a screen simply to "out wit" a monkey, I'm likely not to concentrate on the study that much. Give me a few hundred bucks for each correct answer, and you may have a more accurate study.
[December 19, 2007 11:52 AM]
Anna Mallory : →http://blogs.roanoke.com/campuswatchEd, the article I linked to from Rueters said, "Her study pitted the monkey math team of Boxer and Feinstein -- two female macaque monkeys named for U.S. senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California -- with 14 Duke University students.
"We had them do math on the fly," Cantlon said."
I believe the link I added actually went directly to page two of that article.
I apologize.
Here is the link from the beginning. http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSHUN82107120071218?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Is it your thinking that many a study are skewed?
[December 19, 2007 4:38 PM]
RudyMost academic studies/research are Ponzi schemes. The procedures and methods are almost always orchestrated to provide the results desired by those financing the study, usually with the intent of legitimizing some money-making enterprise of dubious merit. That's just part of the reason academic journals are written so terribly.
[December 19, 2007 4:52 PM]
Ed S.Anna--
No apologies necessary. I finally realized we were talking about different links. I went to the first link at the Duke site.
Without access to the actual study (methodology and conclusions), it still appears that it does not take into account other factors that I mentioned before.
I would say that many studies you read about in the press are skewed. If the study isn't skewed, the use of the results usually are. It's application of the results in a manner they were not intended (not necessarily this case, but look at the application of studies in political contexts).
In this case, i would definitely say it does not conclude the students and monkeys have the same math skills. I would say it shows that the students and monkeys can count a short flash of dots on the screen about the same. Maybe the students fared better because they could also think about the party the night before, the text next month, and whether or not they had laundry money that week. Will we ever know if the monkey thought any more than the possibility of a sip of Kool-Aid?
I don't mean to belittle the study or results at all. Just a friendly reminder to always think behind the numbers, and try to understand how the methodology could skew the perceived results.