Reflections on life in Germany, from an Auslander's perspective

My list of little observations about living in Germany:

1. Instead of clapping after a research presentation, Germans knock on the table. Apparently there might be a linguistic link as this might also be common in Austria and Switzerland.

2. Bring a birthday cake on your birthday and

3. Throw your own retirement party. In the US it is more likely that this will be organized for you and actually paid for by your employers.

4. Wurst-Salad (yum! er, yuck!). (Wurst is sausage, though it applies more widely than the term is used in English.) OK, so we have tuna salad and chicken salad...but it seems a line should be drawn somewhere for what is referred to as "salad." What looks like chopped up bologna is where I draw the line in calling something a "salad".

5. Smoking like crazy everywhere, particularly under "no smoking" signs in the University.

6. Kid-accessible cigarette vending machines on the sidewalks.

7. Three years of Kindergarten. Why doesn't the US steal this great idea? We already copied their research universities, might as well go for real Kindergartens, too.

8. Accessories required for Kindergarten: "gummis" (rain boots), rain pants, toothbrushes, etc. Kids really learn to be self-sufficient and prepared, and to have good oral hygiene.

9. Bathroom sinks in hallways--they look out of place, but are very convenient to have near the office.

10. Bags in grocery stores are not free. This would seem like a seismic shift in the US, but it needs to happen.

11. Weird cheapo grocery stores. I have to admit stores like Aldi and Lidl scared me at first: poor lighting, often no shelves, strange generic brands... But now I have found the good deals that pop up there periodically (Mexican week! American week! Italian week!), and I am a bit fond of them. I do miss nice grocery stores sometimes, but a short trip to Belgium takes care of that.

12. Bubbly water as default (which I like, too).

13. Cold cut sandwiches good for all 3 meals a day. Strange that Subway can be open for breakfast without changing its menu--it sells the same thing as bakeries, so why not?

14. Apartments are rented without a 1) Kitchen 2) lights 3) floors 4) sinks 5) mirrors.--plus you paint when you leave and pay for all non-rent costs additionally (eg, building maintenance). I don't really understand how this system evolved to really punish renters who have to invest a great deal in a temporary place!

15. No credit cards anywhere--well many places, but not at places you would expect like Ikea or an electronics store where the items for sale cost quite a bit. Funny with the MC support of the world cup "if you bring your Visa, American Ex, well or even your MC, you can't use it"! It does probably reduce the incidence of consumer debt, which is out of control in the US.

16. They write phone numbers with a different grouping mechanism here. Usually it is something like this: 73.56.67.4. Even stranger for an American here, local numbers are not required to have 7 digits, so if a phone number doesn't work you don't know if it is because you are missing a number or not, as there might only be 6 digits.

17. The verb is at the end of the sentence--do Germans have superior semantic working memory than English-speakers to hold all of the info in mind until the crucial verb is spoken at the end?

18. Germans keep both hands visible at the table when eating, it is rude to have one hand under the table (what are you doing with it???).

19. No over-the-counter drugs; cough syrup for kids is seen as child abuse by the pharmacist (though the doctor will prescribe it, no problem).

This will have to be continued in a future post, of course...

Technorati Tags: America, culture, expat, Germany

German vs. American Higher Education

The Uni here is going through a transformation. Traditionally German universities awarded the Diplom degree as the terminal undergraduate degree (or, in British terms, graduate--graduate students in the US would be called postgraduates in the UK). That is all changing. There will now be a BS and MS available, replacing the Vordiplom (pre-Diplom) and Diplom, respectively. The idea is to have the German system match that being used throughout Europe, and in the US, which would increase the mobility of university students here. Many outside of Germany do not know what a Diplom is, with the best translation being a Masters because of the thesis work required.

This change to, what I know as, the US system is fascinating. First of all, one hundred years ago, German universities were the top in the world and German was the lingua franca of science. Santiago Ramon-y-Cajal, in his Advice for a Young Investigator wrote that one must learn German to have an impact on science--publishing only in Spanish-language journals would have no impact internationally.

Second, the German educational system educated the first generation of American experimental psychologists, with Wilhelm Wundt as the founder of it all. My intellectual ancestors go back to the great German physiologists who most influenced modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

(Me and the big girl in front of a statue of Johannes Mueller in Koblenz)

Third, some great American universities, such as Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago, were modeled after the German system. The Diplom is founded on the idea that learning best takes place by doing. That is, one must engage in research to truly become educated about one's field. Johns Hopkins originally granted only graduate degrees because that seemed to be the American equivalent of what the German universities were doing, in contrast to the liberal arts degrees one studied for at Harvard and other such schools at the time. (Interestingly, Hopkins still does not require a Bachelors in order to be accepted into a PhD program.)

Fourth, the standard pedagogical technique in the classroom at places like Johns Hopkins was inspired by the German-style seminars. Again, it is the case of learning-by-doing. Instead of only having lecturers pour information into the brains of the students, through the ears, the seminar was created to have students learn by studying the topics with professorial guidance, and then presenting the overview to their classmates for discussion.

Now my colleagues here are asking me how multiple-choice exams are administered and graded, as the standard oral examinations will be unreasonable in the face of larger course enrollments and lecture-style courses!

Clearly there is something to be said for mobility, particularly in the European Union. However it is strange to see such an important tradition in higher education disappear, particularly one that has been widely emulated and transformed American universities into the research-focused institutions they are today.

Technorati Tags: America, Bachelors, Diplom, European Union, Germany, higher education, Johns Hopkins University, Masters, Santiago Ramon-y-Cajal, science, seminar, University of Chicago, Wilhelm Wundt

Scientific (and Statistical) Literacy Meet the Press

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."
~Homer Simpson

Often when reading the newspaper I am flummoxed by the treatment of numbers. Here is a recent example from the New York Times/ International Herald Tribune:

"The polls, taken for a local newspaper, use small samples, 500 people, limiting their usefulness as a gauge of popular sentiment in a city of one million."

Although numbers are often cited to provide evidence, they are often taken out of context or, just as bad, not given a context. Although editors seem keen to check the accuracy of quotes or the reliability of sources, they seem to skim over any mention of numbers. This is true of both op-ed opinion pieces and front-page investigations.

Besides teaching a research methods and statistics course, I also once worked for a public opinion polling firm, so the above quote struck me as incorrect on more than one level. So I wrote to the journalist:

"Your article on the mosque in Cologne misrepresents what is scientifically acceptable regarding sample sizes and population size. The whole point of a sample is to gauge the opinion of the greater population by taking advantage of probability. A sample of 500 is more than sufficient to do this--one need not ask every single inhabitant to infer their opinions! A properly created sample that randomly selects members of the population and does not seem to choose accidentally one segment of the population (e.g., the 500 polled all happen to be Turkish) is an excellent way to gauge the opinion at large with a confidence interval of +/- 4% to 5%. Unfortunately you do not provide the poll's results, just a summary that a majority support the mosque, so it is hard to apply the confidence interval here. The Times really should consider having a 'numbers czar' (maybe a colleague from the Science Times?) available for consultation on this and other issues that involve statistics and scientific literacy. The offending quote: 'The polls, taken for a local newspaper, use small samples, 500 people, limiting their usefulness as a gauge of popular sentiment in a city of one million.'"

The journalist was kind of enough to run a correction and write back to let me know:

"Your point was legitimate, as is your suggestion that we do a better job of vetting these issues before they get into print. We ran a correction on Saturday on the size-of-sample issue.

Best, Mark"

Here is the correction, with a link to the original article:

"An article on Thursday about a German backlash against plans for a mosque in Cologne, known for its Gothic cathedral, referred incorrectly to the size of polls taken for a local newspaper there, assessing the popularity of the mosque. The sample of 500 people was sufficient for a scientific poll; that sample was not "small," nor did its size limit the poll's "usefulness as a gauge of popular sentiment in a city of one million." (Go to Article)"

First, my thanks go to Mark for being open to the comment, and for having a correction appended. Second, I really do hope this paper and others consider having a staff member edit articles for numerical clarity. The readership deserves to have all the news be fit to print.

Technorati Tags: New York Times, International Herald Tribune, science, scientific literacy, statistics, Mark Landler, sampling, public opinion, Homer Simpson, Cologne, mosque

Neuroscience or Pseudoscience? The Age of "Check Spelling"

In writing a forthcoming blog, I noticed that the automatic spell-check picked up this problem, and offered a wonderful suggestion:

I do not know who is responsible for this suggestion, but it has also arisen when I have typed an email as well! I think Google might be behind this...

Technorati Tags: neuroscience, pseudoscience, science, spell-check, Google

"Psychology Sets" for kids--why stop with Chemistry?

Remember the old Chemistry sets? They once actually came with corrosive and explosive powders that allowed many kids to discover and destroy. Now, they are a bit toned down. We were looking to get our daughter a microscope and Grandma gave her one with one of these new chemistry sets, too. Beware the wonders and danger of .... gelatin. It's a start. Some of the experiments are pretty time-consuming for a kindergartener.

One evening she was asking to do one of these "spare-a-mints" (it is hard to correct pronunciation when it is that cute) but it was too close to bedtime to complete one. Then it occurred to me that she could do a small version of a "daddy experiment" and still get to bed on time. The Psychology Set! I made a quick, cartoon version of four different instances of visual search, based on Anne Treisman's seminal work from 1980. The target was always the same, a red X. Here it is, outlined in yellow.




The only thing that changes are the nontargets, or distractors. The other two letters are the types of nontargets she saw. The first is the blue X, and the other is a red O. So her job was (and now your job is!) to find the red X. To emulate her experience keep a clock nearby and see how many seconds it takes. (If you do not find the target after awhile, you are allowed to stop looking.) Ready? Go!




Found it? Good. Now look for it again here:




OK, that was a bit tricky. No target there. Try again here:





Found it again? One last time, where is it here:




All done! Afterwards I plotted Isabella's data (averaged across two attempts at each trial type) like this:




When the red X is the uniquely colored item it can be found quickly. When it is absent, it takes a bit longer to check and make sure it is not there. However, when there are also a bunch of red Os present, one has to look for the combination (or, conjunction) of red and X to find the target because there are other red items and other Xs, but only one red X. That takes a bit longer. It takes even longer when it is absent because it is harder to make sure it is not there when there are both other Xs and other red things there.

Isabella immediately took up the idea that it was easier for her brain to find the only red thing and harder when it was not there and when there were other red things to "trick" her--she at first pointed at several red Os before finding the red X. (A nice example of searching through just one subset of the nontargets...) And she wanted to keep searching again and again, like a homemade "Where's Waldo" (or, one German version (I think there is another one, too), "Wo ist Walter"). It's nice that she is actually interested in what I did for my dissertation!

Technorati Tags: Anne Treisman, kids, psychology, science, visual search, dissertation, Where's Waldo? experiment

Seeing with your ears?

Here is a little insight into the sorts of experiments I do.

My previous research has mostly focused on the brain finds things visually. For example, how we can find an apple mixed in with other fruit (plus an example of how neurons in the parietal lobe might respond when faced with such a task, from a mini review in J Neuro):




Nowadays I have moved beyond vision to take a look at our other senses, such as how we hear and feel the world, and in particular, how all of this visual, auditory, and tactile information comes together. There are two ways we are doing this. First, we are using a program designed to aid the blind by transforming images into sound called The vOICe. The hope is that, with sufficient training, this device could allow the blind to "see" again, but by using their ears to receive visual-spatial information about the world. Here is what this basically looks like from a NY Times Magazine article on Peter Meijer's device:



(This picture tries to show how a small spy camera takes a picture of the area in front of the user, then transforms the picture into a soundscape. With practice one can learn to interpret these soundscapes in terms of what objects are in the field of view, and where they are, and in a sense "see" again. That is the end-goal at least!)

Secondly we are also studying synaesthesia (also spelled synesthesia), which is a special "cross-wiring" in the brain that certain people have that allows them to perceive something through a different modality than normal. For example, some persons see colors when they hear music. Others always see black-on-white text like this in different colors that are not there such as you see here. Both of these routes will allow us to better understand how the brain puts all of this information from different sources together into one coherent experience.

Technorati Tags: Journal of Neuroscience, New York Times Magazine, science, sensory substitution, synaesthesia, synesthesia, The vOICe, visual search