Lecture 1

Question 1

behavioural data science =

Answer 1

Behavioral Data Science is a multidisciplinary
scientific field that aims to facilitate
understanding, prediction, and change of
human behavior through the analysis of
behaviorally defined variables as they arise in
large datasets (“Big Data”), typically gathered
using modern digital technology (e.g., online
or through mobile devices) and analyzed with
techniques for detecting patterns from high-
dimensional data (e.g., machine learning).

Question 2

belangrijk ding hieraan

Answer 2

1. multidisciplinary field: crossroad of methodology, psychology, mathematical modeling and statistics.

Question 3

3 doelen van bds

Answer 3

facilitate understanding, prediction, and change of human behavior

Question 4

understanding =

Answer 4

CONSTRUCTION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES TO EXPLAIN BEHAVIOR

Question 5

prediction =

Answer 5

APPLICATION OF STATISTICAL MODELS TO PREDICT BEHAVIOR

Question 6

change =

Answer 6

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERVENTIONS TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR

Question 7

Human behaviour is at the root of
many of the most central problems of
our time: COVID-19 spread and
climate change but also war and
famine have important behavioural
components

Answer 7

oke

Question 8

Human behaviour = (Skinner, 1987)

Answer 8

“is possibly the most difficult subject ever submitted to scientific analysis”

Yet standard methods to study it are remarkably simple: questionnaires, tests, and small scale experiments

dus concept = complicated, methods zijn (te?) simpel

Question 9

hoe noemen we de deze era voor social sciences

Answer 9

The golden age of social science

Question 10

twitter experiment segregation

Answer 10

Example of a polarized and segregated network on Twitter. The network visualizes retweets of political hashtags from the 2010 US midterm elections. The nodes represent Twitter users and there is a directed edge from node i to node j if user j retweeted user i. Colors represent political preference: red for conservatives and blue for progressives

Question 11

wat liet twitter zien

Answer 11

1. faster connections between people
2. but these contacts have the tendency of polarization

Question 12

variables are…

Answer 12

abstract entities!!! they are made up.

Question 13

phenomena=

Answer 13

patterns in data, robust features of the world

Question 14

data =

Answer 14

representations of observations

Question 15

• Observation example:
  “Pete correctly solved IQ
  test item 36”
• Representation: the row
  that represents Pete has a
  1 in the column that
  represents the IQ item
• Typically, data are
  structured in rows and
  columns, i.e., in a
  spreadsheet

Answer 15

oke

Question 16

rows =

Answer 16

cases

Question 17

columns =

Answer 17

represent features/properties/attributes

Question 18

verschil data en phenomena

Answer 18

Phenomena are not themselves data! Rather, phenomena are evidenced by patterns in the data. Because psychology is very complex, we often need advanced statistical
models to “see” the patterns data = observations. phenomena are robust, does not matter what kind of methods you applied (where, what year etc).

Question 19

voorbeeld phenomena

Answer 19

For instance, the positive
manifold of intelligence,
the robust correlation
between insomnia and
depression, the effect of
time pressure on
accuracy

Question 20

positive manifold =

Answer 20

refers to the fact that scores on cognitive assessment tend to correlate very highly with each other, indicating a common latent dimension that is very strong.

Question 21

explanatory theory=

Answer 21

is a set of principles that aims to explain phenomena

It describes a world in which the phenomena would follow “as a matter of course”

Question 22

Coming up with a good theory is a creative act,
but it can be systematized and practiced
Ideally, in behavioral data science we are after
mathematically formulated models

Answer 22

oke

Question 23

dus verschil theory phenomena and data?

Answer 23

theories explain phenomena, and phenomena are evidenced by the data

Question 24

Identical twins’ cognitive test scores are more similar
than those of fraternal twins. This feature is best represented as
a) data
b) a phenomenon
c) an explanatory theory

Answer 24

b

Question 25

lexical decision task=

Answer 25

• Participants have to decide whether a letter string
  is a word (e.g., tango) or a nonword (e.g., drapa).
• Participants usually decide by pressing a
  keyboard key with their index fingers.
• Participants may judge hundreds or even
  thousands of letter strings in a single session.
• Usually the stimulus set contains 50% words.
• Performance on this task is supposed to
  measure the ease with which lexical
  representations are activated from memory.
• For instance, performance is better for high-
  frequency words (e.g., cat) than for low-
  frequency words (e.g., feline).
• Participants are usually told to do this as
  quickly and accurately as possible.
• Key dependent variables of interest are
  response time (RT) and accuracy (proportion
  correct responses).

Question 26

lexical decisions task resultaten

Answer 26

older adults are slower than younger adults (na 30 ongeveer)

Question 27

how is this result explained on ldt

Answer 27

This decrease of response speed is explained by
the “general slowing” hypothesis, which says that
all cognitive processes operate more slowly in
older adults.

Maybe age-related demyelinization harms basic
neural transmission speed?

Question 28

wat als je alleen kijkt naar de response tijd

Answer 28

the speed-accuracy trade off wordt dan geen rekening mee gehouden -> daarom moet je ook kijken naar hoeveelheid goed!
dus niet alleen kijken naar response time!!1 dat zou bias zijn voor mensen die rustiger aan doen met betere accuracy.

dus dan process model gebruiken -> bv ratcliffs diffusion model

Question 29

ratcliff diffusion model

Answer 29

• A model that describes how
  noisy evidence is accumulated
  over time.
• A model that describes the data
  from simple decision making
  experiments (dus gaat over een paar seconden decision making)
• A model that allows manifest
  behavior to be decomposed into
  latent psychological processes.

Question 30

diffusion process in action

Answer 30

door raam licht little particles -> voorbeeld van een random walk.

Question 31

wat is sequential sampling en drift rate

Answer 31

• In the model, noisy information is accumulated over time (=sequential sampling).
• The deterministic or signal component of this
  noisy process is called the drift rate.

Question 32

stel dat je een woord ziet

Answer 32

dan is er alsnog randomheid, maar dan ga je al snel naar een decisison. bij een lastig woord is het moeilijker en dan is er eerst meer randomheid.

Question 33

what do you assess in the model

Answer 33

the distance of the boundary to the word to the red line.

Question 34

waar leidt repeated draws to

Answer 34

Repeated draws from the underlying lexical
dimension drive a noisy accumulation of
evidence.
After some time the accumulated evidence
reaches a predetermined threshold amount,
and the corresponding response is initiated.