Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Questioning research methodology & other notes

The November 2007 issue of the research journal Dyslexia raises some interesting questions about the applicability of a model of controlled empirical studies to research into dyslexia treatment methods. In an article entitled What kind of evidence do we need for evaluating therapeutic interventions?, Mary Haslum of University of the West of England, Bristol, points out that pitfalls in attempting to structure a controlled study, noting that researchers do not even agree on the definition or diagnostic criteria for dyslexia. She suggests that a more realistic approach to research would be to develop more systematic criteria for evaluating qualitative research based on case studies.

Ina separate article along the same lines (Criteria for Evaluating Interventions), T.R. Miles, with his characteristic delightful style, begins by noting the perils of the placebo or Hawthorne effect, and somehow meanders to a point where he notes the failure of any studies to account for the possibility that some participants have extra-sensory perception (ESP). [Note: with few exceptions, most scientific researchers produce journal articles that are tedious at best, and often border on incomprehensible. Miles is one of the very consistent exceptions -- always lucid, and quite often entertaining and imaginative both with his use of language and the avenues he chooses to explore.] In the end, Miles provides a set of reasoned examples that similarly challenge the idea that dyslexia research can or should be limited to the "gold standard" of the controlled study, while also urging an awareness of the various factors that can lead wishful thinkers to misinterpret the significance of their data.

Citation: Dyslexia, Volume 13, Issue 4 (November 2007)

Sunday, October 28, 2007

The merging of Perceptions

An interesting new study -- researchers have found that the visual perception/interpretation of gender is affected by hearing. They played pure tones within the frequency range of male or female voices at the same time that subjects were looking at digitally morphed androgynous faces, and found that the faces were identified with as female when accompanied by the feminine frequency (160 to 300 Hz) and male when accompanies by the lower male frequency (100 to 150 Hz). However, the subjects were unable to determine whether the tones themselves were female or male when presented with paired tones; in that setting they simply chose based on the relative pitch of the two tones, regardless of actual range.

The study: "Auditory-Visual Cross-Modal Integration in Perception of Face Gender," published in a recent issue of Current Biology. The study's co-authors are investigators at Northwestern University's Visual Perception, Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory: lead author Eric Smith, graduate student, Marcia Grabowecky, research assistant professor of psychology, and Satoru Suzuki, associate professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern.

Web link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/86668.php