Researching what we all ready know

More people research vision than all the other senses combined. That is ironic since we know the most about vision.

It is similar to business. People are more likely to start stores they already see, more willing to be the second coffee roaster than the first coffee roaster in town.

It is scary to deviate from the known, therefore the common. However in the unknown lies the most opportunity.

Evaluations from my first course

Teacher feedback is a hot topic in the field of education. I realize its value to both my students and me so I have built-in feedback mechanisms in all the courses I teach so I can make real-time corrections. They range from in-class polling to on-line surveys. I recently received the traditional end-of-term (aka, too-late-to-make-changes) evaluations from Sensation and Perception at Catholic University of America for the Fall of 2012.

Given it was my first course, there were rough parts. I over-estimated the knowledge students had coming in. I also over-estimated my ability to quickly and clearly cover the technical material. I need to slow down and elucidate. However, those peccadilloes were dwarfed by my passion and preparation. Care is my trump card.

Don't take my word for it. I will let the students speak for themselves: The evaluations from my course, including the negative ones. (The last one is open for interpretation.)

They show my potential for becoming a college professor. Now I am doing the hard work of actualizing that potential.

Picking projects

Given: All project resources are finite.

Do you choose the largest research project you have resources for? Call in all your favors. Push every piece of equipment and person to the limit.

Or do you choose the minimum project that you have resources for? Make something meaningful but leave something "in the tank" for the next project.

There are infinite places to choose along that continuum. I choose my place by remembering: Individual projects fail (regardless of resources), and I plan to have a long career.

Happy commencement?

Now is the time of year for speeches and platitudes. I have plenty of both, but I usually keep my mouth shut.

It is also the time of year for choices and advice. When students ask for advice, my first instinct is to give advice to myself in the past. My second instinct is to give advice to myself in the present. I stop both of those disingenuous instincts.

Instead, I ask questions. My favorite questions is "What would an ideal day look like for you in 4 years?"

Most people don't have an answer.

That seemly simple question is at the heart of life. A good life is a series of good days.

Tim Cannon, biohacker, talking to my Perception class

Tim Cannon of Grindhouse Wetwares recently spoke to my Perception class (PSYC 310) at The University of Maryland about his (literally) cutting-edge work.

No one picked him to do that work. His doesn't have a grant or an academic position. He decided to organize like-minded individuals and leverage current technologies to make the world a more interesting place.

Are your methods as good as your theories?

Humans are meaning makers. We find patterns and stories wherever we look, from a side-wise glance across a bus to who-sits-next-to-whom at a table.

That meaning making is a double edge sword in science. It helps draw the novel connections of scientific breakthroughs but also allows for wishful thinking about muddled data. The scientific method, research methods, and statistics are "catch trials" for that process. They help separate signal from noise and prevent scientists from being too human.

The scientific method, research methods, and statistics are considered the basic elements of research. They are taught first, followed by domain specific knowledge. Those basics are rarely revisited. The opposite should be true: Those basics should not only be revisited but continually honed.

Improvements in domain specific knowledge need to be echoed with improvements in the methods that create that knowledge.

Congratulations to my research assistants

Veronica Kwok and Hamza Raja capped off a successful semester of research with a poster about our decision-making project. They pulled a double-header, presenting at both the Psychology Department Research Fair and campus-wide Undergraduate Research Fair.

Veronica is starting her graduate studies in the fall at The University of Maryland. Hamza will be continuing his undergraduate studies.

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The problem of meaning in the connectome

Connectomics has the potential to move the field of neuroscience forward. It can enliven the static perfection of neuroanatomy and connect the isolated islands of activations from fMRI.

It faces the same challenge that all big data faces: There is no taste. The connectome needs curation. A human to decide which of the several trillion synaptic connections in the brain are important. Computers are superb at gathering the raw materials but are woefully poor at synthesis.

As data grows bigger so does the need for human discernment.