Week of Nov. 9

Lots of data collection going on these days. I was out at Stonehenge on Friday (always a stressful experience) - despite some trouble getting started due to the women being on a nature walk, I did manage to collect 7 participants worth of data. That's six extra for the face devaluation paradigm, and one solitary person for the Mondrian Value Learning. I was supposed to have an extra three, but two of them were embroiled in some sort of drama and one had a hugely hard time with the paradigm, so she didn't want to take part.

I am also running an extra 12 (or so) undergrads for my Mond Deval study. I analysed the data and it is looking a bit funny (ie. quite a few people appear to like the loss stimuli better than the gain, in opposition to my lovely pilot study) so I am also giving them a quick questionnaire about what strategies they are using. I hope this will help!

Angele has taken over the Hot or Not analysis. She has been having trouble with it, but I have gone over it with her quite a few times, so hopefully now she is able to do the analysis and report it. She was confused about how to report the statistical significance, so I will send her an example of that for reference.

Other than that I have been super busy with marking and work for my NEUR*6000 course. Two more assignments for that are due in November, though I have to say on the whole it is not as much work as I feared. (Luckily!)

Also, Alex, Asma and I are doing an inhibition/self-regulation study. My "job" is to enter all the questionnaires we will be using (self-regulation, social desirability, etc) into E-Prime. That is pretty much done and I think we will be ready to go with this one very soon.

Had a meeting with Mark yesterday, and this week I will be trying to a) reanalyze all the STC data, looking at RTs, ACC etc and also doing all the correlations, and b). start writing up the Hot or Not/Mondrian Deval stuff. I need to at least have an abstract by Dec 1 so I can apply for VSS. Gonna be a busy week.

Whoops, haven't updated for a while. This is due to insane busy-ness and not lack of things getting done, though. I've added a to-do list section to my wiki, which is invaluable in terms of keeping track of what is going on. So, from that list, here are things that got done in the last few weeks.


Week of Oct 19


Mondrian Value Learning

- Make Red+ learning

- make Red+ practice

- look at pilot data

- counterbalance devaluation - red go first



NEUR 6000
- start Research Proposal




TAing

- check re: what images they can use

- meet with groups 1 and 3



Other to dos:

- read articles from Karly

- update Fenske wiki on self-regulation paradigm

- email Jan

- make thing for Jan to read to women/send signup sheet



Week Oct 14

OGS

- Due TODAY - write up academic credentials thingy



NEUR 6000

- write presentation

- get fMRI background



TAing

- look over proposals

- info from Mark on what he is looking for?

- Mark 2360 exams

- mark 4600 exams

- email 4600 groups

- sort out lesson plan for Monday



Mondrian Value Learning

- new learning part

- devaluation part

- practice



Week of Oct 5



TAing:

- look at Wikipedia tutorial

- see if there are obvious gaps in the current Wikipedia info on Cog Neuro



Other to dos:

- start OGS

- Friday: send out article to lab (for next week's lab mtg)



NEUR*6000

- read through Dan Meegan paper

- start thinking of how to present

- seminar critique done/sent


Value Learning:

- get a few people to run through it

- analyse data





week of Sept 28



SD Review

- read through

- fix by Friday!



TAing:

- email Robin re: swapping invigilation

- deal with student emails

- make rest of groups



Other to dos:

- write Wiki article for TAbloid

- register for NACS?

- email Angele re: running the last of the Hot or Not

- get set up on SONA

- sign up participants for Friday



Value Learning:

- fix various bits and pieces of VL experiment

- make Yellow+ and Red+ versions


NEUR

- read articles for this week

So, quite a lot really. I am pretty pleased with productivity. I applied for everything I'm supposed to apply for, scholarship-wise, finished running Hot or Not, made and ran a pilot for the Mondrian Value Learning and analysed the data, made and started running the Mondrian Devaluation experiment, did a presentation for NEUR*6000, kept up with all my TAing stuff and did a few other little things like writing an article for TAbloid, the TA newsletter.

Next week our huge NSERC proposal is due for NEUR*6000. I have started, but don't really have a clear idea of exactly what experiments I will propose. As well, I want to get the rest of my data for the Mondrian Devaluation stuff collected this week. Right now with everything else that feels like a tall order, so it will be another busy one.

Oh, and of course the most exciting thing - we have results for both the Hot or Not and Mondrian Devaluation experiments - and looks like there's something there for both! Angele is in charge of doing some of the analysis for the Hot or Not, and I will finish up looking at the Mondrian Devaluation stuff once I have the rest of the participants run.

Meeting Sept 21

Sorted out TA stuff. To do:

- look at Wikipedia tutorial
- look at setting up group discussions in courselink
- see if there are obvious gaps in the current Wikipedia info on Cog Neuro

- talk to Amber Johnston about swapping invigilation

Other to dos:

- Make change form for Ben for Stonehenge and ask him to send it, otherwise we can't test out there anymore

- update change request for the Value Learning and send to Sandra (done)
- fix various bits and pieces of VL experiment
- make Yellow+ and Red+ versions
- get a few people to run through it
- analyse data

- get all data for Hot or Not, add to analysis and send to Mark
- speak to Angele about starting testing again

- finish NSERC proposal, send to Mark
- get Danae to read over?
- finish Contributions and Statements and send to Mark
- update resume

- speak to Karly about sorting out references for SD Review
- decide on EndNote vs. RefWorks

Whew! Looks like another busy week...

1st week of classes craziness

Good lord, it has been a busy week. I spent most of it feeling frantic, but everything is getting done so it is all good.

Very short meeting this week so we just dealt with the major issues.

1. TA stuff - signed and off to Robin

2. I don't seem to be listed as a student for some reason
- spoke to Robin about this and she thinks she may have got it sorted out. Robin is a star.

3. Value Learning
- Mark hasn't had a chance to look at the program yet. Hopefully on Monday.
- ethics change form needed

4. NSERC
- in progress, had a good discussion of what to write.


This week, I have written up an ethics change form, did a lot of work on the SD review and did more with my NSERC app. The SD review is now in Ben's court, which is a huge relief as I feel I've been doing all of it. He will add what he can before next Friday and then I will look it over one more time. I have also spoken to Karly about helping out with references, so will get that started too.

To do this week:

- NSERC research proposal fully written by Monday
- other bits of NSERC to be worked on during the week (CV, personal statement thing etc)
- TA conference all day Sat plus volunteering
- Sort out EndNote
- Speak to Karly about getting the references sorted
- find out about Helena's stuff about in utero cocaine exposure
- do all versions of VL exp't if approved
- write SD review abstract


To discuss with Mark on Monday:
- Go over ethics change form and submit
- Go over exp't and make sure ready to go
- Decide on exact procedure re: paying ppts
- NSERC: will have research proposal ready, so go over that
- ask re:NSERC letter of reference

Beginning of September

It has been a really good week, as I finally solved all the problems with the Value Learning E-Prime (thanks to Kamil and Mark) and have a version up and running. This is VERY exciting after weeks of staring at it wondering why it won't work properly. I am waiting to hear back from Mark on nitpicks and also the ethics situation, but as far as I'm concerned I think it is nearly ready to run.

Had a look at the data from the Hot or Not Inhibition study this week as well. If we remove one person who rated everyone of both sexes very low, we get significant differences between go and no go on the people who they are not attracted to, but non-significant on the people they are attracted to. However, our N is still pretty low so I will run more ppts to get us up to 24 usable ones. Then we should have a better idea of what exactly is going on.

In other news, heard from Jan at Stonehenge that things are crazy there right now and could I please not bother her for three weeks or so. (not in so many words!) Fair enough, so that project is on the back burner until the end of September.

We have a draft of the SD review!!!! Sort of. But I have been working quite hard on it this week and it is getting much more readable. Ben finally uploaded something, but I haven't really looked at it as have been working on fleshing out the final section on attentional training. Some quite cool experiments, but sadly not looking like the results are clinically applicable.

And finally, Christian stopped by and determined that my Python problems are something Mac-related. He is determined to find a solution. Once one is found, I will attempt to make the Value Learning experiment in Python as well (and then we will have a choice of methods).

To do*:

- try modifying E-Prime so that we can modify the win/loss contingency
- work on SD review
- NSERC proposal

* but I may be away portaging all next week, so not too much may get done.

Week of Aug 24

After the Week of Frustration last week, things are beginning to pick up. We have some data from Hot or Not, and are testing here and there.

Had a huge breakthrough in the Value Learning E-Prime programming today (thanks to my neighbour who knows Visual Basic) and now have a working version of a program that will present Gain and Loss stimuli, add five cents for a correct response, take five cents away for an incorrect response, and update the total after every trial. Victory! Still working on a version that will handle Neutral stimuli - hopefully that will be ready soon.

Spent a whole day yesterday with Ben working on the SD Review. We revised the outline to make more sense and flow better, and I am much happier with it now. There are a few sections where Ben has papers and just needs to add the info to the wiki, so am just waiting for him to do that and then I think we will have most of a draft. I feel like we are much further forward after yesterday.

Started brainstorming ideas for NSERC applications. I think I will end up pitching the Value Learning stuff. Need to work on this more next week.

Emailed Jan at Stonehenge twice, but no reply. I guess we will leave that for now.

Things I learned this week:

1. Tabbing matters when programming Inlines. Things that are tabbed in will run only in the current Procedure (local). Things that are flush to the left side of the window will attempt to run globally - ie. they will run through once when the experiment starts and not every trial.

2. Declaring everything as an integer = BAD IDEA if you are working with decimals.

From Kamil:


There are a series of different types:
Bit, or boolean (1 and 0, or true and false)
- Dim x As Boolean
Integer (+ve and -ve whole numbers)
- Dim x As Integer
Unsigned Integer (+ve whole numbers)
- Dim x As UInteger
Floating point values (decimal numbers)
- Dim x As Single
Double values (decimal numbers, higher precision, higher range)
- Dim x As Double
ETC...

Once again, floating point values are sufficient for basic calculations.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/47zceaw7(VS.80).aspx
Gives a detailed description of what exists, and what are the specifics of each.

Mark & Anne Meeting Aug 20: Week of Frustration version

- Went into long-winded explanation of recent E-Prime problems with script not generating

- Hot or Not:
- Stop testing now till students return
- For now, will not use people who indicated 4, 5, or 6 on the attractiveness scale because everyone is motivationally relevant to them
- will have a look at the data with Angele and show her how to analyse it

- Value Learning:
- having mega trouble getting Vision Egg to talk to my Mac
- have just tested the program using Asma's laptop, though, and the problem appears to be the code. Will speak to Christian
- New plan: keep working on Python, but also make a version in E-Prime just for the preliminary stuff
- 10 images per category (3 categories), each image seen 5 times each in learning
- testing will use both previously-seen and novel images
- ratings of 30 old and 30 novel images

- SD Review:
- going to meet with Ben next week to get this thing whipped into shape
- plan is to have a super detailed outline ready for Thursday so we all know exactly what we are saying

To do:
- brainstorm three ideas for NSERC
- start VL E-Prime program
- meet with Ben re: SD review
- email Jan at Stonehenge to ask about testing
- try to get Python stuff working (try on Windows side of testing Macs?)