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Who Wants To Be a Cognitive Neuroscientist Millionaire?
ThePolynomial writes "Last night Ogi Ogas, a cognitive neuroscientist and Homeland Security Fellow, became the first person to face the million-dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in three years. He now has a first-person narrative on seedmagazine.com where he describes using techniques from cognitive science to think of answers on the show." From the article: "I used priming on my $16,000 question: 'This past spring, which country first published inflammatory cartoons of the prophet Mohammed?' I did not know the answer. But I did know I had a long conversation with my friend Gena about the cartoons. So I chatted with Meredith about Gena. I tried to remember where we discussed the cartoons and the way Gena flutters his hands. As I pictured how he rolls his eyes to express disdain, Gena's remark popped into my mind: 'What else would you expect from Denmark?'"
Isn't that show about tabloid rumors and hollywood trivia now, without any relation to the old show that actually asked questions that were about something other than pop culture?
It seems strage to see that show name in relation to anything even near science, considering that science was chucked from the roster of questions asked on it years ago.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
On shows like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" they give you all the time in the world. Some contestants can literally take 15+ minutes to answer a question, which is why this guy's techniques are usable. He had no time constraints.
But, being TV, they can edit it down to make it entertaining. TFA mentions this, but not everyone is going to RTFA.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
My wife loves this show. He actually passed on the $1M and kept the $500,000 -- It was something thought to watch him. He thought he knew the answer to the $1M (the question was which ship was not [boarded/sunk?] during the Boston Tea Party). He thought he knew the answer, even gave it out loud, but said he wasn't sure enough. I think he yelled DAMN three times when Merideth told him the correct (his) answer.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Hmm, maybe that's why the summary says he was the first to face the million dollar question in three years?
--Atlantix
But isn't this just the way the human brain works? Admittedly, I don't know much about cognitive neuroscience, but it doesn't seem to me that free-associating to recall the answers to simple trivia questions. I appreciate academia as much as the next guy, but to champion the use of mnemonic devices and mental cues on a game-show as some kind of scientific vindication seems somewhat rhetorically overblown. Maybe I'm projecting, but isn't this how everybody's memory functions? I can't count how many times daily that I think back to physiological cues (gesticulations, expressions, etc) and other unrelated events to recall information and conversations. I've been under the distinct impression for most of my life that this sort of non-linear association is a common part of human thought and not some sort of 'technique' or 'skill.' Am I totally wrong about this, or is this just a simple case of inflated journalistic hyperbole?
I read the article, and it was more of a discussion of how your brain works, remembering long-forgotten and "unimportant" facts. It's more of a "what happens" discussion rather than a how-to guide. However, by having a better understanding of his thought processes, he was able to guide it a little better. I found the article interesting, because some of the techniques he used are the same ones I've employed playing trivia games or taking tests, and I just didn't know they had names.
For instance, I was unaware that "Theory of Mind" was a cognitive process with a name. Apparently, this is the process of understanding someone else's beliefs or thought processes and using this understanding to come to conclusions about their motives. The author used this process to eliminate some of the options given to him by asking himself "what would the question's authors have put here to confuse me" rather than just figuring out the correct answer to the question.
It reminds me of when I was in high school, and we were engaged in a county-wide "math field day" event. Students from several schools were brought together, and we took exams and competed for awards. One of the exams was almost impossible to complete, because it had 60+ questions, and you only had 30 minutes. The questions were not particularly hard, just time-consuming. After only being able to get through 5 questions in 10 minutes, I knew I wouldn't finish, so I started ignoring the questions, and just looked at the multiple-choice answers, and I realized what the authors were doing. They were trying to make answers that seemed plausible, or that you might arrive at if you made a mistake, by breaking up parts of the real answer. For instance, the choices you were given might be a) 2, b) 2/3, c) 2/5, d) 4/3, e) 4/7. It can't be a) 2, because the rest of the choices are fractions. Since three of the choices have a 2 in them, though, it's likely one of the answers with a 2. Since no other number but 3 and 4 appear more than once, it's likely an answer that has a 2 in it, and also a 3 or 4. The only answer that fits is b) 2/3. So I'd mark that down. I just did that for all the questions, and won the competition, without actually doing any math.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
You still don't know the answer, chump! It so happens Denmark wasn't the first to publish such cartoons, and they didn't publish cartoons in the plural, but only one cartoon - ergo, not a very well-informed cognitive scientist - do not look to this clown for future scientific advances in the field of cognitive neuroscience. What America - and a number of other countries need - is massive media reform.....