Greetings all. Once upon a time and far away I was a psychology graduate student, and it strikes me that Stardust@Home has a huge data base that might be usefully mined for information about perceptual processes. 19,000+ participants, thousands of judgements about individual movies, and tracking of individuals' performance over time might make this pile of data a goldmine about visual pattern recognition, visual problem-solving, attention, judgement, the process of learning a complex visual task, etc. Many participants have commented on the training process, how feedback is given, and how that has affected their learning. Perhaps the training process could be made different for different people to see what the important parameters are. There are bound to be some Superstars in terms of accuracy and productivity--what makes them different? Then there are all the social and emotional aspects. Who signs on to a project like this, why do they do it, and what keeps them motivated and involved? Are "dusters" from different places around the world different in any ways? There's a world-class Psychology Department at Berkeley. Someone from Stardust should contact the Psychology department chairman, tell him/her what you're doing and what information you have, and see what comes from the collaboration.
Best wishes, Domelsmith
Perceptual Psychology Data Base
Moderator: DustMods
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Domelsmith
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:53 pm
- Location: Temple, Texas
Hi Domelsmith - don't know if you've seen this thread: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... sc&start=0, which discusses (amongst other things) the rather daft theory that this has in fact just been a psycho-social experiment from the beginning!
Barring that, I'm sure you're right about there being useful data to be gained from the project other than the purely cosmic dust issue; Nikita has some interesting comments to make.
Barring that, I'm sure you're right about there being useful data to be gained from the project other than the purely cosmic dust issue; Nikita has some interesting comments to make.
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Domelsmith
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:53 pm
- Location: Temple, Texas
Thank you. No I haven't done nearly enough browsing in the Forum, and hadn't seen the conversation. There seem to be a lot of thoughtful people amongst us 19,670. I once spent about 6 months recruiting 30 participants for a psychology experiment, and the thought of 19,000+ people volunteering to work on a scientific project just takes my breath away.
Best wishes,
David Domelsmith
Best wishes,
David Domelsmith
It is amazing, especially since this got media attention, but not much. It is something to be proud to tell others about, even years later. We are doing a one of a kind project here. I am so excited to be a part of it and look forward to hearing what new developments result from it!
From dust we come
Interesting Statistics
I joined this a few days ago... Here are some interesting numbers.
As of this writing there are 19,649 volunteers.
I do not think this number has changed since I joined.
I reached 100 real movies tonight.
To get to the 100 real movies level, I was subjected to 36 calibration movies. This equates to a 73 percent real movie screening, roughly 1 out of every 4 movies was a calibration movie.
In reaching the 100 movie level, I surpassed 9,686 other volunteers with a lowly score of 36 (0 incorrect). This means that roughly 10,000 people saw this as either a hoax or a waste of their time. I know that if I am going to scan movies for someone - my time is worth more than 73 percent of the movies being real. I smell a hoax or a study of some kind. AND... Certificates for training, reaching 100 movies, and .... making the top 100? It would appear that they only expected people to make it to 100 real movies. Any thoughts???
BTW: At a 73 percent ratio, the top score would have to have viewed 106,544 movies (that's alot).
As of this writing there are 19,649 volunteers.
I do not think this number has changed since I joined.
I reached 100 real movies tonight.
To get to the 100 real movies level, I was subjected to 36 calibration movies. This equates to a 73 percent real movie screening, roughly 1 out of every 4 movies was a calibration movie.
In reaching the 100 movie level, I surpassed 9,686 other volunteers with a lowly score of 36 (0 incorrect). This means that roughly 10,000 people saw this as either a hoax or a waste of their time. I know that if I am going to scan movies for someone - my time is worth more than 73 percent of the movies being real. I smell a hoax or a study of some kind. AND... Certificates for training, reaching 100 movies, and .... making the top 100? It would appear that they only expected people to make it to 100 real movies. Any thoughts???
BTW: At a 73 percent ratio, the top score would have to have viewed 106,544 movies (that's alot).
Weldon
Hi Weldon!
This discussion was carried on at the thread indicated by JSMage above. Bryan has tried to help answer any and all questions. We have also had this project reported in several reputable news sorces. See this thread:
Media coverage of Stardust & Stardust@home
Either you believe it, or not.
But really, why would anyone go through so much trouble for a hoax that could easily be disproven by going to NASA or Planetary Society for confirmation? Why would NASA jeopardize their image at a time when they want all the public support they can get? Why would UC Berkeley and their Space Science Labs attach themselves to a project that was an experiment? Lastly, looking at the posts from the Stardust Team, they are answering very precise questions from dusters. If this is an experiment, they would be spending a lot of valuable time being able to answer those questions in depth and accurately for nothing. It would have to be the most elaborate experiment ever created.
If that doesn't help you and others to believe in this project, then consider yourself part of a very well organized and well constructed rat experiment and help out science that way!
Oh, and try to stump Zack and the gang, so far, they've answered questions without a hitch!
This discussion was carried on at the thread indicated by JSMage above. Bryan has tried to help answer any and all questions. We have also had this project reported in several reputable news sorces. See this thread:
Media coverage of Stardust & Stardust@home
Either you believe it, or not.
But really, why would anyone go through so much trouble for a hoax that could easily be disproven by going to NASA or Planetary Society for confirmation? Why would NASA jeopardize their image at a time when they want all the public support they can get? Why would UC Berkeley and their Space Science Labs attach themselves to a project that was an experiment? Lastly, looking at the posts from the Stardust Team, they are answering very precise questions from dusters. If this is an experiment, they would be spending a lot of valuable time being able to answer those questions in depth and accurately for nothing. It would have to be the most elaborate experiment ever created.
If that doesn't help you and others to believe in this project, then consider yourself part of a very well organized and well constructed rat experiment and help out science that way!
Oh, and try to stump Zack and the gang, so far, they've answered questions without a hitch!
From dust we come
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Domelsmith
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:53 pm
- Location: Temple, Texas
Weldon: Welcome to Stardust! This is a real space science project. Before you get too disenchanted, try looking around a few of the other forums, where people are helping each other out and showing each other what they've found. Also, if you go to "My Events", you can see what proportion of people are agreeing with you when you think you've found a particle track.
I had the same reaction you did when I first started and was zooming up through the rankings. I'm guessing that about 3-4,000 people are doing much of the total work, and that a lot of beginners find it too tedious, boring, unsatisfying, etc., and quit. Perhaps they are the "normal people" ! However, I've been associated with several other scientific studies, and they all are similar to Stardust@Home in requiring lots of tedious, boring, repetitive, unsatifying, mind-numbing, etc. data collection. But, scientists keep at it because there are moments of joy and excitement when you find something new or put old facts together in a better new way. I'm participating 1) because I believe science and Advancement Of Knowledge is important and most people in the world don't care, 2) I like the visual problem-solving (I also hunt for fossils, like to look at wood grain and topographical maps, and look for insects in amber).
The ranking system makes sense, there are just a lot of people who haven't looked at many films. Up where I am now (rank about 1114, score 1050, 4400 total films viewed), I move up a rank for every 1-2 point increase. If you go to "Community" then "Rankings" and look at the top 100 people, you'll see that it takes 20-100 or more points to move between ranks up there.
Best Wishes,
David Domelsmith
I had the same reaction you did when I first started and was zooming up through the rankings. I'm guessing that about 3-4,000 people are doing much of the total work, and that a lot of beginners find it too tedious, boring, unsatisfying, etc., and quit. Perhaps they are the "normal people" ! However, I've been associated with several other scientific studies, and they all are similar to Stardust@Home in requiring lots of tedious, boring, repetitive, unsatifying, mind-numbing, etc. data collection. But, scientists keep at it because there are moments of joy and excitement when you find something new or put old facts together in a better new way. I'm participating 1) because I believe science and Advancement Of Knowledge is important and most people in the world don't care, 2) I like the visual problem-solving (I also hunt for fossils, like to look at wood grain and topographical maps, and look for insects in amber).
The ranking system makes sense, there are just a lot of people who haven't looked at many films. Up where I am now (rank about 1114, score 1050, 4400 total films viewed), I move up a rank for every 1-2 point increase. If you go to "Community" then "Rankings" and look at the top 100 people, you'll see that it takes 20-100 or more points to move between ranks up there.
Best Wishes,
David Domelsmith
Just to correct some numbers
Hi Weldon, welcome to the forumWeldon wrote:BTW: At a 73 percent ratio, the top score would have to have viewed 106,544 movies (that's alot).
The 106,544 movies that the top scorer has viewed has bothered me. I realize this is a rough guess but a closer guess would be 308,293.
I take it that 106 544 are real movies only. Is that right?
If I could I would like to do three things: 1. readjust your figures, 2. make an estimate of movies that the top scorer has viewed, and 3. later.
1.To begin with 77977 cals divided by 27 and then multiplied by 73 = 210 826, not 106 544.
77977 divided by 27 equals 2888.037.
2888.037 times 73 =210826.
2. 202 067 real movies
-2.- 77 937 Cals
-2.- 28 289 Bad Focus(which are real movies)
__-308 293
These numbers were scaled up from my recent actual numbers - with Bad Focus estimated
at 14% of real movies, which we talked about on another thread. 308293 minus the cals, 77937 equals 230356. Then 230356 divided by 308293 and times 100% = 74.7% which is close to 73%.
3.The third thing is to expect my own math to be corrected if faulty.
Thanks,
fjgiie