This absolutely beautiful blog post describes the author receiving an “alien in a can” at age 8 and was told to never open it lest the alien dies. He compares his experimentations to efforts in psych science to draw inferences about psych states. www.davis-stober.com/post/alien-i... - ThreadSky

eikofried.bsky.social • 487 days ago

This absolutely beautiful blog post describes the author receiving an “alien in a can” at age 8 and was told to never open it lest the alien dies.
He compares his experimentations to efforts in psych science to draw inferences about psych states.

https://www.davis-stober.com/post/alien-in-a-can

Comments

johanzvrskovec.bsky.social•487 days ago

This is my favourite part:
"Pre-registering my hypotheses, using sophisticated model selection methods, and replicating the experiment over and over doesn't help..."

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

I’d def use this as reading for students were I to teach a class on this. Introduces latent variables, causal inference, the coordination problem and other issues.

achetverikov.bsky.social•487 days ago

do I get it correctly that coordination is the same as operationalization?

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

Kellen 2012 is a paper that introduces the idea and it was really an eye opener for me (although I think there is space for a bit more accessible intro).
Coordination is the question what the relation is between the true thing and your measured thing; eg in psych we generally assume linear relation

achetverikov.bsky.social•487 days ago

thanks, I'll take a look

dbradley56.bsky.social•487 days ago

Do any quant psychologists think that the whole idea of "inside" is wrong? There is an important concept in contemporary psychoanalysis called "two-person psychology," and it says there is no "inside" when trying to understand other people. Is there something similar in quantitative psychology?

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

One of the core principles in quant psych are latent, ie hidden, variables. I think that’s what the analogy of the alien in a can gets at: it’s un observable directly like IQ and we can only observe consequences like behavior on IQ test items from which we then infer IQ.

dbradley56.bsky.social•487 days ago

Hmmm, that's interesting. As I understand Freud, he believed that latent constructs exist, too. Do you think it's correct to say that Freud's belief in hidden or latent variables is the same belief that quant psychologists have in hidden or latent variables?

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

Depends on the definitions of hidden.
But I guess most humans believe that others have thoughts and feelings and dreams that aren’t immediately observable (and in that way hidden). Saying those are unconscious is quite different I think.

aidangcw.bsky.social•487 days ago

I don’t think they are the same, but I don’t think there are any psychologists today whose primary interest is not in a latent variable. Whether it be happiness, depression, intelligence, attention, learning, motivation, etc. It defines the discipline.

ufeest.bsky.social•487 days ago

Cool. Thanks for posting. You might also like the "box project" as described in this paper:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/678240
I used this method once in an intro to philosophy of science, and it was a lot of fun

clintin.bsky.social•487 days ago

Thanks for sharing this. I will give it a read. It just lacks an alien :)

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

Dang didn’t know you’re here too would have tagged you otherwise :)

clintin.bsky.social•487 days ago

No worries

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

Oh interesting, thanks — seems v similar !

russpoldrack.bsky.social•487 days ago

Many thanks for this! I am currently developing a new undergrad methods course and there is some serious gold here! I wasn't familiar with the Kellen paper, that's a real gem.

eikofried.bsky.social•487 days ago

The paper was an eye opener for me but I do think there is space for a more accessible paper. It took me a good while to get through it.

russpoldrack.bsky.social•487 days ago

agreed

neurograce.bsky.social•487 days ago

I like the post but I feel like the idea of the alien actually makes the problem seem a lot easier than it is. The alien is a physical real thing, you just don't get direct access to it due to experimental constraints. The true problem of psychology is different because...

neurograce.bsky.social•487 days ago

the "things" you can't measure aren't things at all. They're constructs that are abstract descriptions of the functioning of the brain. So half the battle is deciding what to parcel up as a construct at all, then solving the coordination problem from there.

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