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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday December 19 2018, @04:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-seem-to-recall-something-like-this dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Unrelated events are linked in memory when they happen close together

When two events occur within a brief window of time they become linked in memory, such that calling forth memory of one helps retrieve memory for the other event, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. This happens even when temporal proximity is the only feature that the two events share.

"Our research shows that people are constantly recording information about the order in which events happen, even if those events are unrelated. They can then use the order to help search memory," explains psychological scientist M. Karl Healey of Michigan State University.

In one online study, Healey and coauthor Mitchell G.Uitvlugt collected and analyzed data following Election Day in 2016. The study participants had 7 minutes to recall as many election-related news stories as they could -- for each story, they also drafted a short newspaper-style headline.

Healey and Uitvlugt identified actual news stories that corresponded with the headlines generated by the participants, noting the date that the stories appeared. For their analyses, the researchers did not include stories that were not associated with specific election-related events. This process yielded 7,759 headlines from 855 participants.

The researchers then calculated a lag score that measured the transition, in days, from one headline in a participant's story sequence to the next.

The results showed that participants tended to recall stories in time-based clusters: Short transitions between stories (0 to 10 days) were much more common than would be expected according to chance. Furthermore, long transitions of more than 50 days were less frequent than one would expect by chance. The analyses showed that what participants remembered wasn't due to news events naturally clustering close together in time but rather the clustering of stories together in memory.

Is this what makes positive reinforcement effective?


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:02PM (22 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:02PM (#776437) Journal

    Oh yes, the "It's common sense thus can't be wrong" method to science that tells us that electrons must be particles, because how could they possibly be two places at once?

    It's almost like science is a process that verifies the validity of hypotheses, not comes up with new shit out of nowhere.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:08PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:08PM (#776439)

    The problem is that you can ask of the Universe nearly any question you like.

    There needs to be a spam filter, and I submit to you that a governmental granting body is not sufficient for that purpose; I submit to you that such an organization will never be sufficient until its source of funding is strictly voluntary trade rather than coercive taxation.

    • (Score: 5, Touché) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:16PM (15 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:16PM (#776442) Journal

      But, get this. For psychology. This person's field. The full mechanism of memory store and recall is a fundamental and unanswered question.

      And get this too. For being a complete dumbass. Your field. The mechanism of ultracrepidarian peanut gallery commenting is well understood: complain about everything mindlessly regardless of relevance or accuracy.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:35PM (14 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:35PM (#776457)

        Why must you force other people to pay for said research?

        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:46PM (13 children)

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:46PM (#776471) Journal

          Because nothing is better than taxing whiny right wingers for the advancement of society?

          It's win-win, an awful fuck has less, and the scientific knowledge humanity has on hand increases. I mean for the sake of "fairness" I also have to pay taxes, but it's not really an undue burden or anything. Nowhere near the totally pointless wealth extraction that "rent" functions as.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:52PM (12 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:52PM (#776474)

            Here's the asymmetry:

            • You want to steal from me.
            • I want to leave you alone.
            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:58PM (11 children)

              by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:58PM (#776477) Journal

              The first one is true. For a particularly facile and dimwitted definition of "steal".
              The second is a lie.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:02PM (10 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:02PM (#776481)

                Just because you want to steal from others doesn't mean that I want to do so.

                • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:33PM (9 children)

                  by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:33PM (#776508) Journal

                  You said you want to leave me alone, but you'll shoot me or call the evil tax funded cops if I walk on "your" land unfairly granted to you by an evil interventionist government and take a perfectly natural dump there every day.

                  note to readers, I am not actually a left-anarchist, but their beliefs make a great deconstruction of the completely retarded views of an caps

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:13PM (8 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:13PM (#776534)
                    • Interaction between 2 individuals can be governed by rules to which those individuals have agreed in advance; property can be defined by such agreements, making property voluntary. Certainly, interacting in a way that is not well defined by such an agreement opens one up to the anti-profitable scenario of equally ill-defined retaliation; property is necessarily the basis of civilized society.
                    • Enforcement is not only part of such an agreement, but is a service; like any other service, it need not be provided by a government (i.e., by an organization that funds its activities through coercion, otherwise known as "taxation").

                    So, your analysis is poor; I reject each premise of your argument.

                    Infinite recursion (e.g., contract-enforcers all the way down) can be implemented as iteration (contract negotiation/dispute-resolution in a market).

                    • (Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:40PM (7 children)

                      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:40PM (#776549) Journal

                      I don't respect your voluntary agreement that you own your property. It's actually mine. Who's to say I'm wrong? You, the guy with shitpiles all over your lawn?

                      Your entire ideology is built on a lie. All of it. Some of mine is, but your delusion that mutual 2 party agreement creates permanent universally recognized ownership is insane.

                      Utter insanity. Complete batshit. Go home and rethink your life from the bottom up level nutso.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:54PM (6 children)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:54PM (#776557)

                        You can interact with another individual in any way that you wish. But, again, as already stated, it is dangerous to behave in a poorly defined way, because the consequences will also be poorly defined. There is profit in agreement, and that is why agreements have value and are therefore largely "anti-fragile".

                        I never claimed "permanent universally recognized ownership". In fact, I spoke explicitly of iteration, including negotation, enforcement, and dispute resolution. I am the one who is explicitly recognizing that utopia is a fantasy, and that because men are not angels, one should avoid a monopoly (particularly a monopoly that is imposed violently).

                        • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:04PM (5 children)

                          by deimtee (3272) on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:04PM (#776577) Journal

                          There will always be a strongest individual or strongest group. Ultimately your contracts will have to be enforced by it/them or the contracts are meaningless.
                          That individual or group will claim a monopoly on force and become the ruler. This is unavoidable.
                          The better forms of government attempt to mitigate this by making everyone part of that strongest group.

                          --
                          If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:21PM (4 children)

                            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:21PM (#776584)
                            • What keeps Tyranny at bay is competition; what keeps the United States on the straight and narrow, despite its immense power, is not democracy but rather the fact that the citizenry is well armed, and poses a deadly competition to would-be tyrants in the centralized government(s).

                              That is to say, it is not the form of the government that is important, but rather the underlying separation of powers, the most real of which is the threat of violent revolution. After all, as we all know, Hitler was ultimately democratically elected, as were many dictators. This is why many Jews are vehement supporters of the 2nd Amendment.

                            • You contradict yourself:

                              • A strongest group will always arise, and then force its will upon others.
                              • Everyone can be made part of this strongest group group.

                              That makes no sense.

                            • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:51AM

                              by deimtee (3272) on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:51AM (#776665) Journal

                              I deliberately never said democracy. I said "better forms of government". You are projecting.
                              You also take nuanced statements and rephrase them as absolutes.

                              You contradict yourself:
                                      A strongest group will always arise, and then force its will upon others.
                                      Everyone can be made part of this strongest group group.
                              That makes no sense.

                              Neither of those statements is what I wrote.

                              The current government in most countries will not brook any challenge to it being the ultimate authority. But most of those countries are happy for their citizens to be part of that society, and to institute a more or less fair system of rights and duties as part of citizenship.

                              --
                              If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:23AM (2 children)

                              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:23AM (#776674)

                              What keeps Tyranny at bay is competition

                              In other words, as capital is accumulated into fewer and fewer hands, the result is a lack of competition and therefore tyranny. This is the inherent contradiction that makes capitalism's descent into a fascism inevitable.

                              I probably won't get to Proudhon before the end of the year, but I'm hoping he has something more interesting to say than you do.

                              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:33AM

                                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:33AM (#776681)

                                In other words, as capital is accumulated into fewer and fewer hands, the result is...

                                Ever more bureaucratic inefficiency and waste, thus setting the stage for the next step.

                              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:15AM

                                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:15AM (#776695)

                                You're admitting that capitalism will fail... by resulting in government.

                                Not exactly a stellar case for yourself.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:39PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:39PM (#776463)

    Another strawman.

    Here is the difference: People actually did/do think it plausible that electrons are/were particles. No one has ever thought that events that occur near together are not linked in memory. It is a totally bullshit exercise to "test" this hypothesis.

    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:55PM (3 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @07:55PM (#776475) Journal

      That's not reasonable at all. Association hypothesis was(and still is) pretty-well dominant.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:00PM (#776478)

        Then they should test the association hypothesis, not the opposite of it that no one believes (which is what they did). They are just lazy and its easier to test "zero association" than think about what the association hypothesis entails and come up with a meaningfully precise prediction.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:02PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:02PM (#776480)

        you make that sound like something's wrong with it. in code, certain things have to co-exist; alcoholics and dis-integration; cars and engines.. that sort of obvious thing is easy to see and rationalize, but leave techne for psyche and you will risk dying of astonishment if you learn to see how unrelated things cluster themselves around as little as a single mis-understanding.

        also plato. hah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @08:12PM (#776494)

          Im the OP AC, and I just want to say this post reads like gibberish.