Great interview with PhD student Martijn Balsters

Dear followers,

I have noticed that a great part of my followers are University students. In general all University students will be introduced with research during their study, whether they like it or not ;-).
In order to help you I have set up an interview, together with my fellow student Nelly Drenth, with Martijn Balsters. Martijn Balsters has a lot of experience as a researcher, at this moment he is a PhD Student at the University of Tilburg. Martijn Balsters is doing research for the Psychology department and is specialized in psychonomics/neuroscience, he was willing to gain us an insight into his daily work.

The most recent publications of Martijn are:

- Balsters, M.J.H., Krahmer, E.J., Swerts, M., & Vingerhoets, A.J.J.M. (2010). Measuring potential cues for depression in adolescents. In A.J. Spink et al. (Ed.), Proceedings of Measuring Behavior 2010 (pp. 239-242). Wageningen: Noldus Information Technology.
- Krahmer, E.J., Schaafsma, J., Swerts, M., Balsters, M.J.H., & Vingerhoets, A.J.J.M. (2010). Non-verbal responses to being ignored: Evidence of cognitive deconstruction? In S. Ohlsson & R. Catrambone (Eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci) (pp. 2542-2547). Austin: University of Texas.

When Martijn was asked what he liked most about being a researcher, he answered that you have a lot of freedom and you are able to be occupied creatively. You are allowed to come up with new things as long as it is in line with your research assignment. Because you, as a researcher, discover some things that no one has discovered before, which are mostly very small things of course, that can help in future diagnoses it gives you a great kick, this really motivates Martijn.

Advice from Martijn to all students who have to do research in future:

- Like your research subject

- Be patient

- Work structural

- Don’t take everything to serious

Great advice I think, when we keep this in mind while preparing and doing our research it must turn out successfully! To watch the whole interview you can find the video below. Unfortunately YouTube did not allow us to use the music we wanted in our video, nevertheless it is still interesting and enjoyable.

Decision making

Since the day that we were born we have to make lots of choices every day such as, “What shall we eat tonight?” “Shall I go to Portugal or Spain this summer?” “Shall I go to work by train or by car?”. Happiness involves making good choices, but we do not always make choices that maximize our happiness.

While there are many rational reasons for people to choose to buy a particular product or service, it's often our emotions and personal biases that drive us. We often make predictions of how we will feel in future, there a few major biases in the way we predict our future emotional states, for instance:

1. The projection bias:  
I’m sure you are familiar with this bias, you’re dealing with this bias when you’re going to the supermarket when you are really hungry and you can’t help yourself of buying some kind of junk food or buying way to much food. Afterwards you are wondering why you have bought it.

2. The memory bias:

When people make decisions about the future they naturally use events from the past. Unfortunately the type of memories we retrieve to make decisions about our future happiness are often biased to unusual examples that are either very positive or very negative.

3. Belief bias:

People tend to accept any and all conclusions that fit in with their systems of belief, without any deep consideration of what they are actually agreeing with.

To see if you, my followers, are good at making decisions I have a little test, a “selection task” (Wason’s ,1968);

Below you see 4 cards, with on one side a letter and on the other side a digit. There is one rule attached, if a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side.

Which cards should be turned to validate the rule???

You can find the answer at the end of this blog.

To be honest, I think most of you did not answer this question correctly. Humans perform very poorly on this kind of logical reasoning task.

Another test that you will probably do better is this one;

Again, you find 4 cards below. Now consider the following 4 cards, with a person’s age on one side, and a person’s drinking behavior on the other. There is also one rule again; if a person is drinking beer, then the person must be over 19 years of age.

Which cards to turn to validate this rule?

In general, people find it easier to solve this test, because it is linked to more realistic scenarios. When people have a sort of bonding with the question it is easier to answer correctly.

Unfortunately we will never be good at decision making but let's make the best of it :).

Correct answer ‘selection task’ Wason’s (1968) is: A and 7

Source: Emiel Krahmer & Marc Swerts, University of Tilburg

Cockroach Hall of Fame

When I lived in Malta, I came in contact with cockroaches for the first time in my life. When I saw the first one (in my apartment!) I thought immediately; oh god, so this is an cockroach. Before I knew I had seen over a hundred cockroaches. Seriously, I can hear them running through my apartment or on the street at night brr. I had never been so scared of an insect before, no not even of spiders. When I was watching videos on YouTube today, I run into this video below.

The video shows an interview with Michael Bohdan, the owner of the cockroach Hall of Fame & Museum. To him, cockroaches are the most beautiful insects on earth. At this museum they have a lot of cockroaches, including the biggest cockroach on earth and 25 dressed-up cockroaches, such as a Marilyn Monroe cockroach. Can you believe that? (these dressed up cockroaches are all dead by the way).

Enjoy watching, please do not watch before going to bed. Before you know you are dreaming about it ;-)

Why do we dream?

This morning when I woke up I was thinking about a dream I've had. The question that popped up in my mind was; Why Do We Dream? Does the actual content of our dream mean something? I couldn't help myself to check on the Internet.

Have you ever thought about it too? Watch the video below, it helps you to understand what dreams are, why we have them and how we might depend on them for our survial.

Sweet dreams followers !

Baby laughing hysterically at ripping paper

Hi all,

I think most of you have seen the video about a baby that is laughing hysterically at ripping paper. Have you ever wondered why a baby screams with laughter about the sound of ripping a piece of paper?

Discovery Channel explains, watch the video below to find out.

April Fools' Day

Has anyone tricked you or have you tricked anyone with a joke today?

Today it is April 1, also known as April Fools’ Day. In the Netherlands and elsewhere, such as in France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Brazil and Canada, the jokes last all day. However, traditionally in some countries such as New Zealand, Ireland, the UK, Australia and South Africa the jokes only last until noon, persons who plays a trick after noon is called an ‘April Fool’.

The history of April Fools’ Day will always remain vague. Another nonfoolish holiday such as Halloween has a more attractive and clear history than April Fools’ Day. There isn’t really a ‘first’ April Fools’ Day and no one knows exactly where and how it all begun. However, most people say it all started in 1582 in France.

Other Fools’ Days;

- Iranians play pranks on each other on the 13th day of the Persian new year, which falls on April 1 or April 2. This day is called Sizdah Bedar.

- In Spanish-speaking countries, similar pranks are practiced on December 28, día de los Santos

Inocentes, the "Day of the Holy Innocents".

- In Scotland April Fool's Day is celebrated for two days. The second day, which is called Taily Day, is devoted to pranks involving the posterior region of the body. The origin of the "kick me" sign can be traced to this observance.

Do you know any fun jokes? Don't hesitate to share !!

Funny April Fools Prank: