Dr Saloni KrishÂnan — RoyÂal HolÂloway, UniÂverÂsiÂty of London
We conÂstantÂly learn words from conÂtext, even in the absence of explicÂit rewards or feedÂback. In adults, intrinÂsic reward expeÂriÂenced durÂing word learnÂing is linked to a dopaminÂerÂgic cirÂcuit in the brain. The expeÂriÂence of reward is also linked to enhanceÂments in memÂoÂry for those words. In this regÂisÂtered report, we examÂine if adoÂlesÂcents aged 10–18 report enhanced reward or enjoyÂment, and ensuÂing memÂoÂry benÂeÂfits, when they sucÂcessÂfulÂly learn words from senÂtence conÂtext. We have testÂed 300+ chilÂdren so far. In addiÂtion to talkÂing about develÂopÂmenÂtal change in reward expeÂriÂenced durÂing this periÂod, I will focus on some of the advanÂtages and chalÂlenges of conÂductÂing this research online.
Full TranÂscript:
Over to you Saloni
0:02
HelÂlo, sorÂry, I just switched off my phone, which is why you probÂaÂbly saw me disÂapÂpearÂing. So hopeÂfulÂly it’s not too noisy. And you can hear me niceÂly and clearÂly. So I have a terÂriÂble honkÂing cold. It is, luckÂiÂly not COVID. But I don’t recÂomÂmend any sumÂmer cold. So if I kind of doze off in the midÂdle, you’ll know why.
But I wantÂed to tell you about some work that I’ve been carÂryÂing out in my lab over the last two or three years. What are the I guess I would define myself as a develÂopÂmenÂtal cogÂniÂtive neuÂroÂsciÂenÂtist. And so in genÂerÂal, I tell peoÂple that I like to put kids in scanÂners and find out what’s difÂferÂent about their brains. Of course, over the last two years, because of a cerÂtain virus, it’s been incredÂiÂbly difÂfiÂcult to do anyÂthing like that. So a lot of my research has kind of pivÂotÂed to be online. And I’ve been tryÂing to use, parÂticÂuÂlarÂly gorilÂla to kind of delivÂer and ask interÂestÂing new quesÂtions that didÂn’t necÂesÂsarÂiÂly involve putting chilÂdren in scans.
So today, we’re talkÂing about the role of reward in adoÂlesÂcent word learnÂing. So I guess I want to start off by makÂing a pitch givÂen that this is a fairÂly diverse audiÂence in terms of why vocabÂuÂlary is imporÂtant. What one reaÂson is that we conÂstantÂly encounter and learn new words through our lives. BrexÂit, you probÂaÂbly didÂn’t realÂly know about BrexÂit, pre 2015, COVID defÂiÂniteÂly didÂn’t know about that pre 2020 kroÂner, we kind of encounÂtered these new words all the time. And we also know that chilÂdren with readÂing and lanÂguage disÂorÂders can strugÂgle with word learnÂing, parÂticÂuÂlarÂly acquirÂing youth from logÂiÂcal forms, that we don’t think like vocabÂuÂlary knowlÂedge are a preÂdicÂtor of school sucÂcess, and evenÂtuÂalÂly also life achievement.
So it seems that folÂlow this process around kind of acquirÂing new words is realÂly, realÂly imporÂtant. And lots and lots of researchers focus on kind of difÂferÂent aspects of this probÂlem. So most theÂoÂries focus on how words on them. So like, how do you assign a speÂcifÂic word to a speÂcifÂic object? But one of the things that I realÂly care about and startÂed to care about a lot in the last few years is why do we learn new words? Why do we inherÂentÂly find this interÂestÂing, excitÂing? Why do we seek this out?
So I guess the quesÂtion I’m going to be posÂing today is word learnÂing intrinÂsiÂcalÂly rewardÂing, because it’s not that someÂone comes and gives you five pounds, every time you encounter a new word, you learn a new word. So is there someÂthing that is an intrinÂsic driÂver from us, and if so, is word learnÂing intrinÂsiÂcalÂly rewardÂing for all groups. So I’m going to be talkÂing about one parÂticÂuÂlar parÂaÂdigm today, which is learnÂing words in conÂtext. This is not the only parÂaÂdigm that I’ve used. But in the interÂest of time, I thought it might be betÂter to kind of keep things kind of limÂitÂed to one parÂaÂdigm that I could explain well, so this was a realÂly, realÂly clasÂsic psyÂcholinÂguisÂtic parÂaÂdigm. It’s been around since the 70s. And it’s been used loads and loads of time. And the basic premise would be that we can learn the meanÂing of new words by the conÂtext that we occur in.
So if I give you the senÂtence view, counÂtries are now ruled by a side note site is not a real line of made up this mode. But the quesÂtion is like, you might be able to kind of guess maybe what the meanÂing of this word is. And if you see the next senÂtence in the palace, the lips, the king and the stage, then you might have a read like a much betÂter guess. And if you’re thinkÂing cytoÂsine someÂthing like a queen, then you will be right now lots of examÂples of how we do this sort of in the wild.
And again, lots of peoÂple have been realÂly interÂestÂed in sort of the diverÂsiÂty of the senÂtence conÂtexts that use a numÂber of encounÂters that you need, and so on. Well, one of the realÂly nice twists in this kind of parÂaÂdigm, I think, came from one of my colÂlabÂoÂraÂtors at NYU, Pablo Ripolles, who’s now an assisÂtant proÂfesÂsor at NYU. What he showed is in those kinds of parÂaÂdigms, when you learn what meanÂing from conÂtext, this is assoÂciÂatÂed with intrinÂsic reward, and he demonÂstratÂed this in mulÂtiÂple ways.
So he showed this that in terms of peoÂple’s behavÂiourÂal trainÂing, they tendÂed to share say that learnÂing these kinds of words was more pleaÂsurÂable relÂaÂtive to when they couldÂn’t extract meanÂing of words. Brain activÂiÂty and reward proÂcessÂing regions like the striaÂtum was highÂer when when you tendÂed to sucÂcessÂfulÂly learn the meanÂings of these words, unlike me, if you didÂn’t. ImporÂtantÂly, also, like you can also think about the effects of medÂicaÂtion. So a couÂple of its realÂly nice work lookÂing at levÂodopa, which had kind of increased reward responsÂes and RisperiÂdone which is going to inhibÂit risk reward responsÂes. And he was able to show that when you give peoÂple love dopa can boostÂed their learnÂing when you give peoÂple RisperiÂdone it,
4:55
kind of decrease or footÂstone VitoÂria can decrease that learnÂing Um, but the othÂer thing that’s realÂly, realÂly imporÂtant about this kind of expeÂriÂence of reward is that actuÂalÂly expeÂriÂencÂing that reward seems to fuel word learnÂing. So you get memÂoÂry benÂeÂfits from sort of encounÂterÂing, and enjoyÂing learnÂing a new word. So you’re much more likeÂly to rememÂber that ObaÂma had done a lot of this work in GerÂman. So all of his studÂies have been in GerÂman, and all of them had been with kind of neuÂrotypÂiÂcal adults.
But in my work, I was realÂly interÂestÂed in tryÂing to kind of open this up and potenÂtialÂly look at peoÂple, chilÂdren, chilÂdren with dyslexÂia, etc. And obviÂousÂly, being in the UK, my studÂies are in EngÂlish. So we did a sort of a couÂple of difÂferÂent studÂies to try and get a hanÂdle on codÂing and buildÂing on some of ButÂler’s work. So the first study I want to kind of give you a preÂamÂble onto is just to sort of say, what is the influÂence of modalÂiÂty on the sort of effects. And so he’ll probÂaÂbly done all of his work lookÂing at peoÂple readÂing these kinds of sentences.
We also know from the litÂerÂaÂture that actuÂalÂly when peoÂple lisÂten to the same kind of senÂtences, they also kind of extract words in the same way extract meanÂing from the same, right? So we hypothÂeÂsise that learnÂing new words would be intrinÂsiÂcalÂly rewardÂing in both creÂatÂing conÂdiÂtions as well as lisÂtenÂing conÂdiÂtions. And we sort of said that, yes, intrinÂsic reward will also be assoÂciÂatÂed with memÂoÂry benefits.
Now, this was actuÂalÂly a project that underÂgrad stuÂdents are going HolÂloway carÂry out in 2020 2021. So this is obviÂousÂly someÂthing they have to do online. And it was pretÂty amazÂing for us that gorilÂla existÂed, that we could just go off and get this data because not a probÂlem at all.
So I want to tell you a litÂtle bit about the parÂaÂdigm. So as it as I’d hoped, demonÂstrate to you that you have these kinds of temÂplates, senÂtences, so you sort of have senÂtences where you encounter anothÂer word at the end, and they’re kind of paired up so you can extract the meanÂingÂful word. GenÂerÂalÂly, after peoÂple encounÂtered these words, they would have to type in a guess about what they thought the word was. And they would also have to give us a numÂber of readÂings. So like, How conÂfiÂdent were they? How tired were they can how much they enjoyed that parÂticÂuÂlar sentence.
Um, interÂestÂingÂly, we also had a realÂly good conÂtrol, which is m minus senÂtences. So in these senÂtences, these are basiÂcalÂly jumÂbled up senÂtences from anothÂer set of n plus senÂtences. But here, you canÂnot extract the meanÂing of a new word in this kind of realÂly good experÂiÂmenÂtal conÂtrol device, you’d have things like John needÂed a batÂtery for his bamÂboo, the teacher wrote the date on the bamÂboo. So it’s realÂly kind of hard to extract the meanÂing for the word sample.
7:41
We preÂsentÂed these parÂaÂdigms in in a KoreÂan conÂdiÂtion or lisÂtenÂing conÂdiÂtion, we also have a readÂing and lisÂtenÂing conÂdiÂtion, which is sort of akin to kind of thinkÂing about subÂtiÂtles. And this was a lonÂgiÂtuÂdiÂnal study in a realÂly, realÂly simÂple way we’re learnÂing study, because 24 hours latÂer, peoÂple have to comÂplete a recogÂniÂtion task on these words. It’s also not as easy as it looks. So with that, because what we actuÂalÂly did was we didÂn’t present these words sequenÂtialÂly. So you would tend to get a block of senÂtences. So you would encounter four difÂferÂent words. And then you would kind of encounter the pair for those words a litÂtle bit latÂer. So it wasÂn’t as trivÂial as it looks like in my kind of schematic.
But yeah, the main thing is we testÂed native EngÂlish speakÂing adults. And I can say more about this, but just to keep it brief. For the two of them this readÂing parÂaÂdigm 36 Did the lisÂtenÂing parÂaÂdigm. And 34 did the readÂing and lisÂtenÂing parÂaÂdigm. And I think our goal was just to get to above 30 In all of these conÂdiÂtions. So we were fairÂly hapÂpy with these numÂbers. So what would it be fine?
Well, so I want you to look at the kind of M P senÂtences which are shown in blue over here, enjoyÂment is on the x axis and learnÂing is on the y axis. And what you can very clearÂly see is that when peoÂple report greater enjoyÂment, they’re also showÂing KoreÂan learnÂing in the NP case. And this isn’t as much the case in the MM case, which is those kinds of conÂtrol senÂtences that I talked about.
So in genÂerÂal, when you can sucÂcessÂfulÂly learn a new word, but not in kind of these experÂiÂmenÂtal conÂtrol conÂtrols, you do read things as being more pleaÂsurÂable. I just wantÂed to overÂlay those same kind of curves, one on top of the othÂer. So this is only for the MP conÂdiÂtion where you can extract the meanÂing of the word. And I just wantÂed to show you how simÂiÂlar this was across the three conÂdiÂtions. So lisÂtenÂing, readÂing, readÂing and listening.
One of the othÂer things I wantÂed to show you is that on that recogÂniÂtion task again, so this is memÂoÂry rather than learnÂing on day one, and again, the more you enjoyed learnÂing that word and deed one, the betÂter you are at rememÂberÂing it. And this was recordÂed to the conÂdiÂtions of lisÂtenÂing, readÂing or readÂing or lisÂtenÂing. My very simÂple kind of takeÂaway from that work is just to say that actuÂalÂly, intrinÂsic reward is assoÂciÂatÂed with memÂoÂry benÂeÂfits. So we kind of repliÂcatÂed what Pablo had already shown but kind of expandÂed it into these new modalÂiÂty conÂdiÂtions. So this we felt set us up realÂly well.
And in experÂiÂment two, we decidÂed to test chilÂdren. And we decidÂed specifÂiÂcalÂly that we were going to invesÂtiÂgate change with develÂopÂment, the age group that we wantÂed to focus on with latÂer lessons, and this is because of some work from Lisa Knoll, which had sugÂgestÂed that when you train oldÂer adoÂlesÂcents on kind of relaÂtionÂal reaÂsonÂing and numerosÂiÂty disÂcrimÂiÂnaÂtion, oldÂer adoÂlesÂcents show the kind of greatÂest jump in perÂforÂmance, and adults and younger adoÂlesÂcents to chilÂdren learnÂing, but they weren’t as proÂnounced as the game.
So Lisa Knoll kind of sugÂgestÂed late adoÂlesÂcence might offer a winÂdow of opporÂtuÂniÂty for eduÂcaÂtionÂal interÂvenÂtions. There’s also some work from the kind of neuÂroÂscience domain, which is kind of sugÂgestÂing that straight line activÂiÂty is preÂdicÂtive of latÂer learnÂing perÂforÂmance. And that’s the genÂerÂal idea that increased reward senÂsiÂtivÂiÂty would lead to increase motiÂvaÂtion and salience. And then this recruits sysÂtems for learnÂing. So actuÂalÂly, this would be a realÂly imporÂtant winÂdow earÂliÂer, our lessons might offer a realÂly imporÂtant winÂdow for wordÂing as well, and so this is what we decidÂed to test in this parÂticÂuÂlar regÂisÂtered report, where we test on 10 to 18 year olds with the idea of basiÂcalÂly sorÂry, and this is sorÂry, this I should say, this is work conÂductÂed with RAs in my lab at the time and with our AmriÂta Bains, Analise BarÂber and Tam Nell. And the hypothÂeÂsis we were lookÂing at was that learnÂing new words were readÂing will be intrinÂsiÂcalÂly rewardÂing and earÂly develÂopÂmenÂtal stage.
When we did this work, this hypothÂeÂsis hadÂn’t been testÂed in chilÂdren and adoÂlesÂcents. But the kind of premise of the fact that word learnÂing would be recordÂing, we would very much expect to see this earÂly in develÂopÂment if truÂly reward is havÂing meanÂingÂful interÂacÂtion to language.
We also hypothÂeÂsised that intrinÂsic reward would be relatÂed to memÂoÂry benÂeÂfits and potenÂtial new and appears experÂiÂment. But if only we had a develÂopÂmenÂtal hypothÂeÂsis that the kind of reward you expeÂriÂence and the kind of learnÂing from reward would increase in age and all that sort of peak in late adoÂlesÂcence, which we thought would be someÂwhere between 14 to 16, or 16, to 18 years. So this is a regÂisÂtered report.
So as you know, we kind of pre regÂisÂtered the plans, and we got reviewÂers, and this has been acceptÂed in develÂopÂmenÂtal sciÂence. And for this parÂticÂuÂlar project and reportÂing data from 345, native EngÂlish speakÂing chilÂdren, aged 10 to 18. All of this data was colÂlectÂed durÂing the panÂdemÂic. And basiÂcalÂly, our goal to get above 84 ChilÂdren are based on our pre regÂisÂtraÂtion and all of these brackÂets that we are ready for 10 to 12 year olds, 14 year olds, 1416 and 16 to 18.
12:38
I want to show you a couÂple of kind of emergÂing results, I still finÂished writÂing this up and subÂmit the stage to subÂmisÂsion. So this sort of work in progress, but some very, very clear mesÂsages right so far from the data.
The first is like we saw with the behavÂiours that I just preÂsentÂed to you learnÂing new words as reportÂing. So we here we only did the readÂing conÂdiÂtion. But just like before, you can see that parÂticÂuÂlarÂly in the kind of m plus sitÂuÂaÂtion when you kind of enjoy when you report greater enjoyÂment, you tend to get greater learnÂing. And you see some indiÂcaÂtion of this even an M minus conÂdiÂtion in chilÂdren aged 10 to 18.
What was the most surÂprisÂing though, and what peoÂple weren’t expectÂing to find is that there were no, there was no effect of age. And so in some ways, hypothÂeÂsis one, which is the fact that we would repliÂcate this data in chilÂdren is kind of surÂprisÂing, because if you had any expeÂriÂence of regÂisÂtered reports, what tends to hapÂpen is that you try to repliÂcate a findÂing, and it doesn’t.
ActuÂalÂly, we did repliÂcate the first findÂing, but we didÂn’t find any eviÂdence about kind of secÂond hypothÂeÂsis. So it wasÂn’t that 14 to 16 year olds or 16 to 18 year olds showed greater reward greater sort of learnÂing due to reward. Or kind of the regÂisÂtered hypothÂeÂsis, also, we don’t see realÂly good eviÂdence for so we don’t realÂly observe memÂoÂry benÂeÂfits. And I think this is parÂtialÂly for two reasons.
So basiÂcalÂly, what we would have expectÂed to find is that enjoyÂment was preÂdicÂtive of kind of accuÂraÂcy on the secÂond day of learnÂing. But one of the probÂlems may have been that we made the task realÂly easy. So for chilÂdren, what we did is we didÂn’t have the comÂpliÂcatÂed blockÂing strucÂture that I showed you in the preÂviÂous experÂiÂment, we did give them sequenÂtial senÂtences, because we thought it would be too much for chilÂdren. And in doing so what we may have done is actuÂalÂly the learnÂing demands of the task too easy and not being able to observe these kinds of memÂoÂry benÂeÂfits. That’s one idea potentially.
So I want to kind of sumÂmarise what I’ve told you so far, I’m in terms of the sciÂence so chilÂdren and adults do find word learnÂing intrinÂsiÂcalÂly. And we want to sugÂgest that when tasks are chalÂlengÂing enough that we find that reward is assoÂciÂatÂed with green and we’re doing some future work on this. So we’re now lookÂing at the neurÂal basis of reward for word learnÂing in your typÂiÂcal chilÂdren and chilÂdren with dyslexÂia. And we’re also startÂing to underÂstandÂed the processÂes of motiÂvaÂtion going beyond the expeÂriÂence of reward alone. And this is work being carÂried out on wholÂly by my postÂdoc Desi.
15:10
But as you alludÂed to, I wantÂed to talk a litÂtle bit about what is being online done for us. I wantÂed to menÂtion some pros and some cons and perÂhaps give you some very quick tips and tricks. So in terms of the pros, the reach of experÂiÂment, like I menÂtioned that we testÂed someÂthing like 345 data, chilÂdren, for I experÂiÂment, there is no way I would have been able to do that, based on kind of strict lab setÂtings, it just could not have hapÂpened, I believe, to the fact that this was posÂsiÂble in a panÂdemÂic mulÂtiÂple times, there was again, no way that we could have gone into schools and got data in any othÂer way.
DesignÂing these tests was realÂly, realÂly easy. So that ease of design and kind of getÂting underÂgradÂuÂate project stuÂdents in more than doing this and so on was realÂly imporÂtant. sharÂing and colÂlabÂoÂraÂtion was easÂiÂer. My kind of colÂlabÂoÂraÂtor was at NYU, but it was realÂly easy to kind of just reach out to him and say, here’s the powÂer, and you can look at it, you can play with it, give me your comÂments. And of course, gorilÂlas can open mateÂriÂals makes open sciÂence and sharÂing an optiÂcalÂly recÂolÂlecÂtion also much easier.
I think there are some cons, we while conÂductÂing this experÂiÂment online, we realised that we were at some point getÂting lots of bots. And that was probÂlemÂatÂic, or you know, peoÂple who were just kind of pickÂing up our ads online and doing stuff, we didÂn’t have a check for age in any way. So obviÂousÂly, you’re testÂing a child in real life, you can see that they’re a child, one of the things that worÂried us when maybe peoÂple are kind of parÂticÂiÂpatÂing, and there were adults, but they were just preÂtendÂing to be chilÂdren to get vouchÂers from US govÂernÂment. ObviÂousÂly, one of the things that you get when you are watchÂing someÂone do your task is a lot of insight into parÂticÂiÂpant behavÂiour, we didÂn’t quite have that.
And that we did have a tech probÂlem and one of the experÂiÂments and one of the parÂticÂuÂlar tasks that we were using needÂed a keyÂboard response. But apparÂentÂly lots of chilÂdren nowaÂdays use tablets to do everyÂthing. So they would come to this task and they would fail. And then basiÂcalÂly, we needÂed to set up mulÂtiÂple verÂsions, includÂing a whole new day to experÂiÂment just in case they had failed this one parÂticÂuÂlar childÂcare cutouts.
And of course, there is a bit more cost to runÂning these things online then. So for examÂple, if you run things in schools, you can just give peoÂple stickÂers. If it’s online, you need to tempt peoÂple with vouchers.
Tips and tricks, we sugÂgest lots and lots of experÂiÂmenÂtal conÂtrols we had in our experÂiÂment, accuÂraÂcy checks, attenÂtion checks, we kind of as I alludÂed to run a new verÂsion of just the day 2 experÂiÂment. And I think the main thing that I would say is be responÂsive to parÂticÂiÂpants and ideÂalÂly, run studÂies in small batchÂes so that you can touch up email with your parÂticÂiÂpants and talk to them. That’s all SorÂry for going over time, Jo. That’s me done thank you.
17:58
That was fabÂuÂlous. Lonely.
17:59
SorÂry. I was tryÂing to unmute myself and failÂing to click the butÂton. That was absoluteÂly brilÂliant. I am so impressed with the work that you’ve done. I’m just going to have to change my view here because I can’t bear lookÂing at myself when I’m speaking.
18:15
Gosh, that was a lot of kids that you’ve recruitÂed. Those are big samÂples. How did you get them?
18:27
Oh, well, that was actuÂalÂly recruitÂed even more than I preÂsentÂed here. So I think overÂall, we probÂaÂbly testÂed someÂthing like 540 kids, and then actuÂalÂly because of the kind of experÂiÂmenÂtal conÂtrols that you have you drop peoÂple out. So lots and lots of kids, I guess, schools like we send a lot of emails to schools to be like, Please, can you put this up? And then lots schools are very hapÂpy to be like, you know, askÂing us to devote any time. PeoÂple can just go do it online on this parÂticÂuÂlar link. That was great. What else did we do? Lots and lots of emails, lots and lots of social media kind of presÂsure and peoÂple. I mean, I think part of it is like when you do a regÂisÂtered report you’ve comÂmitÂted to doing the numÂbers just
19:15
have to get out and get them. Yes, we’re getÂting the last five hardÂer than getÂting the first five.
19:21
ActuÂalÂly. So we realise at some point that like the, for some reaÂson, we got lots of 16 to 18 euros, we got lots of 10 euros, but the kind of in between group that 12 to 14 euros, we had this litÂtle graph where we wantÂed to see the numÂbers going up and for some reaÂson we just nevÂer got 12 to 14 year olds. GetÂting those last few 12 to 14 euros was the most chalÂlengÂing bit. But yeah, it works out realÂly beauÂtiÂfulÂly. And
19:52
so I think there are some quesÂtions comÂing in the q&a. And if you’re in the audiÂence, and you’ve got a quesÂtion, please do dump it in the q&a. Now, one more quesÂtion from me. What? What types of checks? Did you put into, like sanÂiÂty checks on your data did you put into to to make sure you’re getÂting senÂsiÂble data quality?
20:10
Yeah. So with LuckÂiÂly, this was a regÂisÂtered report. So like, a review is also recÂomÂmendÂed, and your sanÂiÂty checks. There are kind of one sanÂiÂty check was part of our regÂisÂtered report. And we basiÂcalÂly said that if we’re realÂly seeÂing chilÂdren, and this probÂaÂbly also answers, some of Matt Davis’s quesÂtions in the q&a, is that we would expect the kind of extractÂing meanÂing would be increasÂing with age. And we find a very, very strong relaÂtionÂship that so basiÂcalÂly, accuÂraÂcy in the m plus conÂdiÂtion very strongÂly goes up by age. So for when you’re 10, you’re a litÂtle bit worse at answerÂing those quesÂtions. When you’re 18, you’re much betÂter answerÂing those quesÂtions. And that is defÂiÂniteÂly what we were expectÂed. So that that’s kind of helpful.
And at some point, we hit this vein of peoÂple on FaceÂbook, who were like, emailÂing us. And you know, seeÂing those emails is realÂly reasÂsurÂing, because there’s a cerÂtain way a parÂent comÂmuÂniÂcates. And you can defÂiÂniteÂly go yes, that defÂiÂniteÂly feels like an interÂacÂtion with a real client. There are some where we were just not sure. And then we have kind of a lot of them, luckÂiÂly, fair kind of retenÂtion checks. So we had stuff like we needÂed to have kids comÂplete with a cerÂtain levÂel of accuÂraÂcy. We also have embedÂded attenÂtion checks in there. We’ve also got under conÂtrol. So we’ve asked peoÂple about best sleep. And we’ve asked peoÂple about kind of we did this task Jason YeatÂman group called roar. So we have raw data. And again, on the raw, we can see, which is a lexÂiÂcal deciÂsion task for those of you that means you can again, see the accuÂraÂcy is increasÂing with age and reacÂtion times kind of decreasÂing, realÂly, so kind of a good set of checks in that.
21:54
Very, very cool. Yes, that sounds like a comÂpreÂhenÂsive set of sanÂiÂty checks. do you what do you want to give a more comÂpreÂhenÂsive estiÂmate? Or have you answered that sufÂfiÂcientÂly? The quesÂtion was, do you think it’s posÂsiÂble that the null effects of age can be explained by disÂhonÂest age reports? I think you’ve just about covÂered that. So I think, yeah, I
22:11
don’t think it would be disÂhonÂest. I mean, I’m sure that like every sinÂgle perÂson in the data we can’t necÂesÂsarÂiÂly verÂiÂfy. And one thing we should have realÂly done is kind of posÂsiÂbly enforce a mechÂaÂnism that peoÂple could only do the task ones because I was just like, oh, perÂson with the same email, who’s done my task can be anothÂer litÂtle bit of kind of sanÂiÂty check kind of weedÂing out stuff, but I’m sure if like someÂone was smarter and use like a secÂond email, that’s a bit hardÂer to claim
22:43
this thing. Did you conÂsidÂer tryÂing to get like, and use the video recordÂing zone just to get a screenÂshot of the perÂson? Or would you not have got that past ethics?
22:52
I think ethics would have been chalÂlengÂing. I think a few peoÂple have been talkÂing about like getÂting audio recordÂings durÂing conÂsent, because obviÂousÂly, your voice is a realÂly good cue. If your agent if you say someÂthing like I can send an obviÂousÂly, you know that, you know, it’s a native EngÂlish speakÂer who gives you honÂestÂly, like, you know, I mean, I know you don’t necÂesÂsarÂiÂly face some of these issues, but I would be inherÂentÂly extremeÂly surÂprised. And I’m sure we have a couÂple of these sort of things in the main data set. But I’d be very surÂprised if that was the entire explanation.
23:24
BrilÂliant. So only could you just go back to your side of top tips. And while cerÂtainÂly he’s doing that, Neil, could you get your slides ready for sharÂing in a minute? And what I just wantÂed to ask the audiÂence that we’ve got here today, which of the tips and tricks was most useÂful for you today? What What was the lesÂson you most needÂed to hear? Was it about learnÂing lots of experÂiÂmenÂtal conÂtrols and sepÂaÂratÂing accuÂraÂcy checks and attenÂtion sets? Or was it about needÂing to be responÂsive when things go wrong? And maybe creÂatÂing a difÂferÂent verÂsion of experÂiÂment? That was someÂthing you might not conÂsidÂer? Or was it the being responÂsive to parÂticÂiÂpants, or in these the advice on recruitÂing chilÂdren? BrilÂliant, thank you so much. It’s just wonÂderÂful. It’s realÂly great if you are willÂing to be genÂerÂous to Saloni and give the feedÂback that’s been most helpÂful to you, because it helps Saloni know, she’s done a good job. And it’s difÂfiÂcult givÂing a talk to a room of comÂpleteÂly blank screens. And that interÂacÂtion from you guys is just realÂly rewardÂing to know that we are helpÂing you learn, learn mesÂsages that are helpÂful that you’re going to take into your research and will make your lives betÂter. Now with that Saloni thank you so much. You were wonÂderÂful. Thank you for startÂing us and setÂting the note the bar so high.

