Comments on: The psychophysics of policy positions

By: Adversários e Inimigos | the worst kind of thief

Adversários e Inimigos | the worst kind of thief — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 06:15:19 +0000

[...] o texto dela me lembrei de um outro do Mind Hacks, que propõe um modelo de experimento para estimar a capacidade das pessoas identificarem a que [...]

By: Blogroll Review – Part 5 « The Situationist

Blogroll Review – Part 5 « The Situationist — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 04:03:03 +0000

[...] of psychology, the authors sometimes post their own thoughts on the subject. In a post on The Psychophysics of Policy Positions, for instance, the authors explain a particular psychological method for testing the accuracy and [...]

By: Blogs on Law & Mind Sciences « Law & Mind Sciences

Blogs on Law & Mind Sciences « Law & Mind Sciences — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 01:42:51 +0000

By: tomstafford

tomstafford — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:01:23 +0000

@lester – thanks for the keyword. I’ll look it up. I still suspect that there is something special in measuring people’s actual ability to distinguish manifesto statements from different parties, rather than having an expert or some such code different manifestos for ‘true’ position.

@mrm this relates to your point, I’m suggesting taking judgements from people, not their opinions via a questionnaire – so maybe it would get around some of the suspicion of the answers people give to questionnaires

@ben I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I haven’t published anything about this research. It is a suggestion.

As for comparing between the senses, I promise that the Weber Fraction will do this for you. It is a measure of the change in stimulus intensity needed to make a stimulus just noticeably different. Weber (1795 – 1878) found that this amount is a percentage of the current strength of a stimulus – so you notice a small increase in light in a dim room, but not a small increase of light in a bright room (although the change in the stimulus is constant, the proportional change in the second case is much smaller and hence now below the Weber fraction for being a perceptible difference). Incidentally, this is why you can see the stars at night (on their dark background), but you can’t see the stars during the daytime (on their bright background). They are still “there”, just as luminous, but not visible because the proportion different from the background is not large enough during the day.

By comparing Weber fractions, say for intensity of white light with intensity of white noise, we can get a comparison of sensitivity between different senses. Now it isn’t the only way of comparing, but it does allow you to put them on the same scale.

By: Lester Spence

Lester Spence — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:10:35 +0000

Political scientists already have a measure that does what you want. It’s called “political sophistication”, and it’s a simple measurement that addresses the degree to which people’s ideas about a given party’s platform actually FIT that platform. If you’ve access to JSTOR, go there and do a keyword search.

By: mrm

mrm — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:07:04 +0000

My problem here is with taking the opinions seriously in the first place, and not seeing them for what they: facile, half-baked, off-the-cuff (one hopes) and unthought-out comments.
Maybe this is the problem with questionnare-type data; I for one refuse them wherever possible because I cannot answer them as they are intended to be answered.

Or am I being facile etc etc? I suspect myself of a little knee-jerkiness, here.

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:23:47 +0000

No, “weber fraction” doesn’t apply. I was doing psycho-acoustics in the 70s, FWIW … the early days of FM Stereo.

It seems you totally ignored one question and then totally mis-read the other.
Yes, 1 dB is the least perceptible change.

But what I questioned was your comparing sensitivity of hearing to sensitivity of site … cross-sense comparison.

It seems to have plenty of time for supporters, for those who flatter. But you don’t seem to have any time at all for substantial questions.

You wrote ““We do this by presenting many small fragments of the manifestos and asking a participant to judge which party they are from. By gathering many many judgements …” and I ask where your work has been published, if at all. No reply.

Where was this work done? In what lab? With what organization?

This is legitimately interesting. But I think you just made it up.

Gedanken?

p.s. linking to Wikipedia but not to your work … then writing “Google Weber fraction” … that’s contempt. Yes, I know, most folk couldn’t care less. But some of us do.

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:16:14 +0000

re: “would address the assumption that people are voting according to what politician’s say, rather than what they’ve done” … this ship sailed years ago.

Measuring an audience during a Ronal Reagan speech it was found that individuals experienced a positive reaction even when the “great communicator” was describing policies with which they disagreed.

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:11:05 +0000

Yes, right … will google.

My question was more about your work, the work you describe in the item, why your stuff is self-referential but not re-entrant.

By: Tom stafford

Tom stafford — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:36:47 +0000

@Jake yes, agreed – that’s why m. Greene’s suspicion would be so interesting if confirmed! Finding the d’ would address the assumption that people are voting according to what politician’s say, rather than what they’ve done (or other factors like tribal loyalty)

@ben google the Weber fraction!