An honorarium is often a small payment for services that might otherwise be done for free or for a much larger amount. Think of it as a token payment of appreciation.
Past experience with hybrid classes has shown that on the average 2 assignments a week is about right for most students. The problem is that there are many additional assignments that would enrich your learning in this class. I don't necessarily like the concept of extra credit (if you ask I'll be happy to tell you why) and I can't afford to pay you too much for doing these additional assignments because many students won't be able to find the time resources to do them and I don't want to blow out the grade curve.
So what I am willing to do is offer an honorarium as a token of my appreciation for doing these additional assignments. They will typically be worth 2 points. If you like you can incorporate this assignment into your Topical Blog Assignment by listing it as one of your references (in this case it is OK to 'double-dip').
For this week's honorarium assignment I would like you to go to the following site and read through the introduction and the instructions for the online lab experiment.
http://people.usd.edu/~schieber/coglab/WebersLaw.html
IMPORTANT: When you click on the button at the bottom of the page to "RUN THE EXPERIMENT" you may be asked to log in. If you log in as GUEST you should be able to get in. You will also need a computer with up to date Java plug-ins.
The experiment takes about 15 minutes - perceptually it seems like forever : -) but don't give up and don't just start clicking on buttons to get it over with because we want the data it provides you when you are done.
When you are done, try graphing your data based on Weber's Law. If you can print out the data and bring that to class that would be great and we can try to graph it in class.
After all that, since most of the work was doing the assignment. For this blog post, just say I did the experiment and briefly discuss your experience.
I finished the method of constant stimuli experiment. It was a very easy experiment to finish, and seems to relate well to Weber’s Law. This was a bit time consuming and while doing it I really needed to pay attention. After the results I think it was noticeable that at times I was distracted. I also thought for me it was easier in identifying the difference if the lines were smaller, but the larger the lines became it was harder for me. I believe this issue is also discussed in the text.
When I worked with Dr. MacLin I ran thousands of trials of constant stimuli experiments to look at how my responses to the stimuli changed as the intensity of the stimulus changed from one end of the continuum to the other. We were working with faces and the perception of race, which was quite interesting. Science takes times and many trials. Good work maintaining and finishing.
After completing this experiment, I feel as though I have a better grasp on JND and how it works. However, because of the length of the experiment, I found it hard to concentrate on the task and I saw the repercussions of this in my results. It was apparent that I zoned out a few times, and it seemed that the more I looked at the lines, the more they all looked the same. I wonder if the amount of time one is exposed to these variables has an effect on the outcome of the just noticeable difference.
Adaptation absolutely effects the way you perceive these things. Your sensitivity changes over time over prolonged exposure to stimuli. The fact that you felt it getting taxing is probably a result of fatigue, which means there were probably too many trials with not enough breaks.
That was absolutely grueling. They should include a loud noise every couple of trials just to keep the participant alert. My data was consistent with the general trend of JND. I notice smaller changes better when the line is small. If the lines are big, it becomes much harder to perceive smaller differences. Also, large changes look much more significant when it is between to sets of small lines.
You have an effect here of orientation playing a role as well. As you'll learn, neurons in the visual cortex are organized with respect to various orientations. So this definately influences you detection and perception of the JND between stimuli. These experiments can definitely getting a bit draining. Good work in completing it. I used to do stuff with psychophysics and still run through my friend's experiments looking at circles and lines and faces, and all kinds of stuff. It can get boring. Listen to music while you're doing these experiments (if allowed). It breaks up the monotony.
This experiment was incredible boring but it does show JND quite well. It was pretty easy to figure out the difference for most of the smaller lines but the bigger ones I had some trouble on. I feel like my results were effected by the fact I was bored and started clicking faster just to get done with. I didn't mean to do this but it was just kind of happening as I went through the experiment.
You started to fatigue. When people used to press the same button in some of our experiments, it was actually counterproductive for them because if it was a staircase method, then clicking the same button would not allow for a reversal which was necessary to finish and end the experiment. It was actually pretty amusing to watch someone come out of the testing room and say, "I think this thing is broken, it won't end!" I often felt sort of bad about it, but it got predictable and the fact that people are so predictable always amused me in some way. I'm probably just too jaded. Also, the fact that they thought just clicking would get them out of there faster actually was the behavior that kept the task going.
After completing the experiment, I noticed that my scores reflected Weber's Law. It is harder to notice small changes in bigger things than it is to notice small changes in small things. I mental noticed this as well while going through the expirement.
Good work retrospectively recalling your phenomenological experience.
After completing the experiment, I noticed that my scores reflected Weber's Law. It is harder to notice small changes in bigger things than it is to notice small changes in small things. I mental noticed this as well while going through the expirement.
After completing the experiment I noticed that I gravitated towards the line that was on the top as being the bigger one just because it was on the top. I noticed myself trying to correct for this. I also noticed the thing that other students also noticed. It was much harder to distinguish the larger line when the lines got bigger in size. This, as others have pointed out is related to Weber's Law.
Interesting to become aware of your experience of what you are detecting and perceiving.
I actually really enjoyed this experiement. I am currently studying to take the DAT (Dental Admissions Test) and a portion of the test is the Perceptual Ability and this experiment reminded me a lot of that. Though after awhile it was extremely hard to tell the difference, I still tried to remain concentrated.
This will be good practice for such tests. You start to become really good at psychophysics experiments after you become trained. Once you do you are known as a trained observer. Trained observers usually run thousands of trials on these types of experiments.
This task was not very fun so I was happy when it showed how you did at the end. At first I was unaware of what the numbers really meant until I read the book, finding that out and discovering what it means to perception was neat. I also liked how it led to the psychophysics discussion in class, that was interesting to learn about.
It is always fun when something comes full circle.
That was a marathon! It was difficult to concentrate, but I think I did a fairly decent job. My results seemed pretty odd though - if we do graph them in class I'd be interested to compare mine to the rest of the class.
Definitely takes a certain number of trials to examine the data in any meaningful way. That would be cool to compare to others. There will be some variability.
After doing the experiment I thought it was difficult to pick the longer line but then I had a better understanding of Weber's Law. My scores reflected Weber's law and it was easier to determine smaller lines! The power of perception is shown from this experiment.