All posts by Binh Ngo

fallicies/poster

PART 1

“Knapper concludes that clothing does not give any insight about a person, and that using clothing as a cue to personality may even cause the observer to make inaccurate judgments.”

This is a hasty generalization.  Just because clothing does not give any insight about a person, it does not necessarily means that it’ll cause observers to make inaccurate judgments.  Even though it sounds very logical and flows well, it is a hasty generalization.  To fix this I can look more into the research and pull parts out of the research to support and serve as a pillar for this statement.

“The surprising factor in this study however is that people who were given more information about the candidates did not perform as well as expected, once again leading to the conclusion that when information is available and useful, appearance is still more heavily relied on and hinders the use of the information.”

Again this is a hasty generalization because just because the candidates did not perform as well as expected, it does not mean that appearance was the cause/reason behind it.  Like above I will need to read deeper into this research and pull out parts that will help support my claim.

PART 2

I will organize my poster in a way to indirectly show what my research is really about.  I will divide each section up, one section being filled with mostly only text, one section with graphs and charts, and one section with only pictures.  Additionally I will mount the texts over black construction paper, graphs and charts over blue construction paper, and pictures over yellow construction paper.  What I’m trying to do here is to indirectly show case the essence of my research paper and let the observers themselves see how appearance of something can affect their judgments, like which section the look at first (for example text is usually boring and pictures are more interesting and yellow is usually noticed first before black).  Of courses there will be a short title which I have yet to come up with, and ill try to include the most important parts of my research into the text section.  There are also a lot of charts, pictures, and graphs I can use.

Presntation Reactions

Putting together the presentation made me realize how much information there are out there on my topic, and from how many view points you can look at it.  There was so much I found that I didn’t know what to do with, so I kind of just meshed everything together.

The responses I received helped me see that there were a lot of other really good studies done on my topic out there.  Also a comment I received about whether I would look at my topic from a psychological or a cultural viewpoint is really helping me decide how to narrow it down.

promising sources

Fitch, B.. “Understanding the Psychology of First Impressions. ” The Police Chief 1 Apr. 2010:  Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web.  12 Oct. 2010.

Koji, S., and M. Fernandes. “Does It Matter Where We Meet? The Role of Emotional Context in Evaluative First Impressions. ” Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 64.2 (2010): 107-116. Psychology Module, ProQuest. Web.  12 Oct. 2010.

Willis, Janine, and Alexander Todorov. “First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face.” Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell) 17.7 (2006): 592-598. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.

Miller, Jeremy K., Deanne L. Westerman, and Marianne E. Lloyd. “Are first impressions lasting impressions? An exploration of the generality of the primacy effect in memory for repetitions.” Memory & Cognition 32.8 (2004): 1305-1315. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.

Ames, D., L. Kammrath, A. Suppes, and N. Bolger. “Not So Fast: The (Not-Quite-Complete) Dissociation Between Accuracy and Confidence in Thin-Slice Impressions. ” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36.2 (2010): 264.  Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web.  12 Oct. 2010.

Out of these 5 sources, the first one, Understanding the Psychology of First Impressions, seems the most promising to me.  By reading the title and the abstract, I believe it will be the one source that hits most of my questions, that I have about my research question, all at once.  Most of the other articles talks about the accuracy of first impressions, but this article talks about the perception process and what we are thinking while we make judgments.

Stallybrass

This statement means that anything that you are thinking, or anything that is on your mind, is there because someone or something did or said something to put such a thought there in the first place.  A thought cannot and does not appear suddenly or without reason, and is never something comepletely new/alien.

Like this idea on the origin of thoughts, a research project is not something you write out of nowhere just because you had an inspiration to.  Writing a research paper can require vast amounts of research, and even after all that research you are only basing and building onto a certain topic, already filled with tons of information alien to your own, with a little bit of your own carefully formed opinion.

research question, take 1

I am interested in researching the use and advancement of contemporary robots, because I want to find out the affects (pros and cons) of increasing artificial agent in our lives, and this is important because technology is exponentially advancing and it is crucial to know or have an idea of where we want to take it.

What is a robot really(like what is considered a robot, and what is not considered a robot).

What can the most advanced robots do now a days?

Will robots start replacing humans in the work place?

Enola Gay

The Enola Gay exhibit located in the National Air and Space Museum did not receive a warm welcome by many different groups (such as veterans,committees, survivors, etc.).  The first few drafts of the exhibit ended in heated debate between the museum and the AFA.  The AFA claimed that the exhibit was not balanced in depicting the US and the Japanese sides, and shined a questionable light towards the US’s decision to drop the A-bomb.  The AFA fear that the exhibit depicts Japan as only the victim of US vengeance.  This brings into question the moral and political questions associated with the dropping of the A-bomb.  Was it the right thing to do, why did the US do it, was there any other way?  Depicting whether the US was right because there was no other way to end the war as quickly as possible with as few casualties on the American side as possible, or whether Japan was just an innocent victim to this makes us wonder which story is the true “official” and “unofficial story”.  On the other end, showcasing the Enola Gay as just advancements in technology sparked debates between the museum and historians, survivors, and activists.  They claimed that showcasing the Enola Gay without reference to the damage it did is immoral and disrespectful to those involved in the A-bombings.  The museum fought back arguing that the National Air and Space Museum has always just been primarily a technology museum and not suitable for providing adequate explanations to do the A-bombings justice.  I agree with the museum, the museum is only trying to show the achievements in aviation technology throughout the years and that’s all they want viewers to take out from their exhibit.

Johnny Appleseed

http://www.applejuice.org/johnnyappleseed.html

This website tells the “official story” of Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman).  It tells the very story we hear when we are in elementary school, that Johnny Appleseed planted apple trees wherever he went, hoping that no one would be hungry.  This website also describes Johnny Appleseed to be a kind and gentle, yet poor (even resorting to wearing pots and pans as a hat), wanderer.  At the bottom of the page it states that when Johnny Appleseed died, that it was his first time being sick in over 70 years.

What this website does not tell you is that Johnny Appleseed actually planted nurseries, and left these nurseries to the care of neighbors who sold the trees on credit.  Every two years or so Johnny Appleseed would return and collect payment, in any form (money, goods, etc.).  Johnny Appleseed also spent as much of his time as a missionary spreading faith and religion as planting apple trees.  In fact, because Johnny Appleseed was against grafting, his apples were mostly of a non edible variety and used mostly for making cider.  Also when Johnny Appleseed died he left an estate of 1,200 acres, and 4 plots of land in Indiana to his sister.  Johnny Appleseed died in his sleep from winter plague (pneumonia), but he is believed to have been plagued his whole life with a very rare genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome.

information obtained at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

The North Star

The North Star was an anti-slavery newspaper published by Frederick Douglass.  The article The North Star seems to be the very first of many articles within Douglass’ newspaper.  This first article explains why Douglass chose to name his newspaper The North Star, and uses poetic comparisons, between struggles of the actual northern star with natural phenomenons to the struggles of the anti-slavery movement towards freedom, in order to fully demonstrate the power behind the name, The North Star.  Douglass compares the movement’s struggles to tempests, earth-quakes, and storm bolts, and also compares the movement’s resolve to the power of the northern star.  Douglass also uses a very unique way of stating his ideas and goals saying, “We shall cherish the one [faith], indulge the other [hope], and endeavor to gain the last [freedom] for our slavery-smitten countrymen.”

I am amazed at the eloquence as well as the elegance of Frederick Douglass’ writing skills.  Even though he learned how to read and write late in his life, and learned it by himself at that, his writings have a way of painting a picture that captivates the reader and appeals to their emotions.  Through reading his book, and this article, I see that Douglass likes to incorporate aspects of nature into his writings to describe things likes faith, hope, and freedom on a much deeper level, both emotionally and mentally.

In this particular article, Frederick Douglass mentions the morning star and the evening star as other suggested names for his newspaper, and says he was requested to not use the name the north star.  This brings to question who suggested the others names, and who requested him to not use the name the north star.  In the final paragraph, Douglass refers to his newspaper as a “humble sheet”, what does this mean?