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?'"

Comments

Dun dun dundun da da da daaa!

[Stanistani]

D. William

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!

All the time in the world

[TubeSteak]

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.

I saw this last night !

[ReidMaynard]

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.

Priming

[ciaohound]

and other techniques from brain-based learning have really helped me think about my teaching methods. (I am a high school math teacher). The NSA sponsors workshops here in the state of Maryland that focus on how the brain retains knowledge and practical ways to use that in the classroom. IMHO, every teacher should be aware of developments in this field and really think critically about what they want students to retain long-term. Ultimately, a job description for a teacher is someone who creates meaningful memories.

The "Meredith Fake"

[catfood]

I got to visit New York several years ago for a chance to beat Regis, back when the show was still prime time.

One thing the producers hammered into our head was "Regis does not know the answer. He might think he does." The point: ignore the Regis Fake. He probably wants you to win but you might know more than he does.

They also told us that one contestant took about 45 minutes to answer a single question, got it right, and took another 45 minutes on the next one. As another poster said, they're fine with that. It all comes out in the editing.

Did better than this guy...

[nmb3000]

Not else everyone did so well...

Seems like winning makes right

[Astarica]

Suppose he remembered NCAA wrong and thought it was National College Atheletic Advancement and then reasoned it out after 15 minutes, and was ultimately wrong, we would just never hear any of it because it'd just be some guy who thought he was right, but was wrong. I've no doubt that such techniques are useful but the justification here seems to be just because he won. I've seen plenty of times on Millionaire when the guys would go through all these anecdotes and thought he remembered correctly, but turned out to be wrong. Does this disprove such methods?

So what

[kentrel]

He won with a combination of knowing the answers and making educated and lucky guesses. The fact that he justifies it later with his field's terminology is meaningless. This is nothing special - we all think like this. The fact that he gives these names is all well and good for his research but it's nothing new.

Frankly, the people who do those memory competitions are far more impressive than this guy, but at least they don't write 4 page essays on how clever they think they were.

techniques

[meta-monkey]

I've seen plenty of times on Millionaire when the guys would go through all these anecdotes and thought he remembered correctly, but turned out to be wrong. Does this disprove such methods?

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.

Special cognitive science techniques

[dzfoo]

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 by using a special technique known in cognitive science as REMEMBERING.

          -dZ.