Physician heal...

Just looking at a version of the Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE),* a simple test used in clinical settings to assess possible cognitive impairment. The following does not bode well for patients' scores.

* Folstein, M.F, Foltein, S.E., McHugh, P.R. (1975) Mini-mental state: a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatric Research, 12, 189–98.

Extravagant claims for big data

Concise review by Tim Harford of the promise of big data and how it can go awry, citing inaccuracies that emerged in the celebrated Google Flu Trends, possibly because Google's own search engines may have been prompting searches, even when the searcher's own symptoms didn't suggest flu. According to an analysis in Science, in 2013 this led to an over-estimate that almost doubled the actual data on the incidence of flu. Harford also covers the problem of multiple comparisons which can yield patterns that, although significant, are spurious. While comparisons that fail to show effects remain in the desk drawer.

Related, but not quite: xkcd's 'little data' representation, Frequency.

Lent calendars

Looking at Christian Aid's Lent calendars for grown ups...

and for children...

... and think the kids are getting a better deal. (Clever idea, though.)

The file drawer problem

The Economist's recent article How science goes wrong is a useful reminder of publication biases in science. It recently came up in a discussion at work, which took me back to Rosenthal's paper on 'the file drawer problem' (null results in science are seen as boring and unpublishable, so tend to get filed away, while the study or its analysis is tweaked to produce something that shows a significant effect). Rarely mentioned in research methods teaching.

Rosenthal, R. 1979. The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results. Psychological Bulletin 86/3, 638–641

Dopplr's passing

Engaging social travel service, which never became an app and, sadly, faded. Neatly documented by one of its founders, Matt Jones.

How long should a MOOC be?

This the Wall Street Journal's 'report card' on MOOCs, bringing together various analyses of how they're used. Interesting to see the note of Philip Guo's research on the attention span of MOOC students. 6 minutes seems the optimum time for the lecturer to make their point.

[Via Seb Schmoller]

Nominet UK's top 100 social technology enterprises

An eclectic list, presented idiosyncratically (the tiled layout, amongst other things, limits each entry to four classification categories; if tile size is of significance that beats me). But an interesting few moments' browsing. Charlie Leadbeater's description of the selection process provides some useful background.

Making air safety information palatable

Virgin America's recently released air safety video is getting a bit of press at the moment. Fun on first viewing but even then, too long. Thomson's approach (as a holiday company, aimed at a different audience) is probably equally grating after too much exposure but, at least, is shorter.

I can imagine they both hold the viewers' attention longer than a flight attendant miming to a voice over, but wonder if anyone has tested information retention as a result.

Another day at the office

Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading. June 2013

Believing myself to be an efficient-ish sort of person, I imagine I screen out irrelevant detail when searching for information on the web. But, as advertisers know so well, extraneous information impinges on the consciousness of even the most focused researcher. Which is why, I suppose, I was so distracted by the banner image (above) on the web site of the Oxford Institute for Science, Innovation and Society. The dome of the German Reichstag (below) seems a surprising choice... or have I missed some linking significance?

The impact of introspection on preference choices

Van Gogh's Irises, from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Tom Stafford gives a commentary on 1993 research by Tim Wilson and team, showing how getting people to introspect on their reasons for preference choices can shift the choices people make. When asked to select between a set of fine art or cartoon posters, students who were required to introspect about the reasons for their choice were more likely to select cartoon posters than those who were not required to introspect. Wilson concluded that because it was easier to make concrete, positive statements about the cartoon posters than about the art posters, the students tended to select them to (subconsciously) avoid cognitive dissonance. When contacted some weeks after the study, students in the experimental group were less likely to have put the poster they had selected on their wall than those in the control, who had not been required to give reasons for their choice (and were more likely to have chosen a fine art poster).

Worth bearing in mind when carrying out studies of visual attributes, as I so often do, that require participants to explain their preferences and choices.

[via Mindhacks]

Writing for the web

Some of our recent work at Centre for Information Design Research for GOV.UK has just been published and blogged. We looked at GOV.UK's internal guidelines for text preparation for the web and provided research background that either supported their guidelines or suggested different approaches to presenting information. Many government web sites are not just providing information, but explaining to people how to do things (make applications, check eligibility, provide evidence etc.) and it is this 'reading to do' that needs particular support in carefully crafted text that is comprehensive but also navigable and concise.

Rockets (and other things) made simple

Robert Krulwich describes xckd's rocket diagram (all explained in words within the most frequent 1,000 used in English) as 'Deep Simple' and wishes there were more accessible explanation around. I was surprised to see 'space' in the top 1,000 words (it's well in, according to the Corpus of Contemporary American English at 522), whereas moon is down at 2471 (and, yes, given that we're diurnal, sun comes in at 1239).

Obama Romney campaign spend

Thought provoking. Though you may need anti-glare glasses.

Interesting postscript in John Naughton's Observer column on the Obama campaign's use of data to track and tailor their message to specific supporter groups. Presumably also to raise funds.

[via Fast Company]

Olympic information access

Interesting slide presentation by Alex Balfour on use of digital media during the London Olympics. It is a bit of a PR piece but the build up to the heart of the presentation, showing development of digital media use during the lead up to the Olympics, is a useful reminder of how access to information has changed over the past seven years or so.

Scepticism and phone launches

[via John Naughton, and even more poignant in the light of today's brouhaha over Nokia's bicycle video]

Standardising patient charts

The Royal College of Physicians has announced a standard, National Early Warning Signs (NEWS), chart to be used across the NHS, to monitor the vital signs of seriously ill patients, in order to detect any deterioration rapidly and reduce medical errors. No one could doubt the sense in this. Deciding what measures to include in the chart, and how those measures are combined into a score, has been the work of a large committee of medical and patient care and safety practitioners, and the chart itself (above) has been designed in collaboration with an e-learning consultancy. With all the input, such a shame to have missed the potential contribution of an information designer or forms designer who could have increased the chart's legibility and usability.

[via BBC News]

On social science writing

Neuroskeptic, generalising a little unfairly, shows how it shouldn't be done...
In a somatic society which promotes visible, idealized forms of embodiment, men are increasingly being interpellated [sic] as image-conscious body-subjects. Some research suggests that men negotiate appearance issues in complex and varied ways, partly because image concerns are conventionally feminized. However, little research hasconsidered how overweight men construct body projects in the context of weight loss, or how men talk to each other about weight management efforts.


... and how it can be
Modern men face a dilemma: society tells them that they ought to have an attractive body, but they are also warned that being concerned about beauty and body image is a feminine trait. However, little research has considered how overweight men think and talk about weight loss.

[via Dorothy Bishop]

Sontag on aphorisms

Maria Popova at Brainpickings brings together some of Susan Sontag's thoughts on aphorisms, which she (Sontag) describes as impatient thinking. I liked Sontag's characterisation of typical aphoristic subject matter:
the hypocrisies of societies, the vanities of human wishes, the shallowness + deviousness of women; the sham of love; the pleasures (and necessity) of solitude; + the intricacies of one’s own thought processes.
John Naughton cites Auden and Kronenberger as counter-evidence. Maybe the exception that proves the rule, or just a complete non-alignment of two very different perspectives.

Granularity at BBC weather

BBC Weather have just released a new, fine-detailed forecast, available in two formats:

Graph, which will be interesting to see when there is a wider temperature range:

...or (should you think you need it) table.

According to Jo Wickremasinghe, product manager for BBC weather, all made possible by richer data, available to the Olympic torch relay and now, kindly, made available to the rest of us.