--- "R.W. (Bob) Erickson" <roberte@ripnet.com> wrote:
One of the tools currently being used in the cognitive sciences is the measurement of reaction time to stimulus.
What's this? The cognitive equivalent to wacking someone on the knee with a rubber hammer to measure the mentak kick reflex of the subject?
It turns out that the length of time it takes to given situations is a credible proxy for how difficult the discrimination is to make.
For the individual subject. I would imagine that such testing would (among other things) allow some measurement of the thoughtfullness put into a response. Careful construction of the tests to control for various factors might then allow inferences to be made about the relative sophistication to be found in the cognitive structures involved in the test-response on a subject-by-subject basis.
Imagine a paranoia involving mysterious e-mail delays and the length of time it takes to catagorize
Imagine hordes of otherwise unemployable psychologists and cognitive psychologists deployed on mailing lists and Usenet, harassing the fuck out of `persons of interest'. Civil rights, for the majority of the civilian population, are entirely non-existent for all intents and purposes. I imagine that a great many self-styled scientists are happily engaged in the cultivation and acquisition of psycho-social data and knowledge, in public fora, without too much thought about the morality of their intrusive meddling in the commons. All in the name of science, of course. Regards, Steve ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca