Subject: Re: information transmission analyses From: Paris Smaragdis <paris@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:14:37 -0500 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Thanks for the interesting bibliography. One note I would add though, is that, with the exception of the Luce paper, these publications precede a rather significant boom in the use of info theory in the computational neuroscience world. The use of a communication channel analog in cognitive psychology might be a stretch, but for neural- level perception studies it has become quite a powerful tool. Seeing how these studies are slowly branching towards high-level perception I would say that the debate (if any) is probably still open. Best, Paris On Feb 27, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Iftikhar Riaz (Lance) Nizami wrote: > Dear Dr. Pinter and others, > > A comprehensive critical review that argues that "The human being is > NOT a Shannon communication channel" does not exist in print, to my > knowledge. And no editor is going to allow such a paper to be > published, because there are too many prominent people who stand to > lose if their misinterpretations are made public. Some of those > people are senior editors of well-known journals. There are, > however, a number of published papers that question whether the use > of information-transmission measures in psychology was really useful: > > Cronbach, L.J. (1955) On the non-rational application of > information measures in psychology. In: Information theory in > psychology (pp. 14-30), ed. H. Quastler. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free > Press. > Luce, R.D. (2003) Whatever happened to information theory in > psychology? Rev. Gen. Psych. 7, 183-188. > Gregory, R.L. (1980) Whatever happened to information theory? (2) > Perception, 9, 489-492. > Laming, D. (1973) Mathematical Psychology. Academic Press, NY. > Ashby, F.G. (1995). Resurrecting information theory. The American > Journal of Psychology, 108, 609-614. > > A outstanding (and unfairly ignored) paper that deals decisively > with the issue of what "informational" absolute judgment experiments > actually measure is: > > Siegel, W. (1972) Memory effects in the method of absolute > judgment. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 94, 121-131. > > - Lance Nizami PhD, Decatur, GA 30030 > > > > In a message dated 2/26/2009 11:30:22 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, andzsinszan@xxxxxxxx > writes: > Dear Lance Nizami, > > What you wrote regarding Information Theory is quite interesting to > me, as I daily meet people doing automatic speech recognition, whom > are really difficulty to convince that there is life beyond > information theory and Markov chains. > Can you please give us some references that argues that "The human > being is NOT a Shannon communication channel". > Or at least focusing on the controversial relation between perception > and information theory. > > I appreciate your help. > > Best regards. > > Gabor Pinter > > > > > > > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 1:44 AM, Iftikhar Riaz (Lance) Nizami > <Nizamii2@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I did my Master's on this subject, and had to chance to read > Attneave and > > the rest of the literature in depth. Information theory as > applied to > > psychology, as popularized by Attneave after Garner & Hake, has > nothing at > > all to do with transmission of anything. When applied to > traditional > > absolute judgment (identification) experiments, for example, it is > merely an > > alternative measure of short-term sensory memory. Which has > nothing to do > > with Claude Shannon's "general communications system". In your > case, memory > > capacity is probably what the analysis will indicate. I am > surprised that > > anyone uses the Garner-Hake information approach anymore; > mathematical > > psychologists (Duncan Luce, Donald Laming, Sandy MacRae, etc.) > recognized > > its severe limitations years ago and abandoned it. So > (eventually) did > > acoustics users like Neff and Lutfi. The human being is NOT a > > Shannon communication channel. Granted, the measures that result > from > > processing the confusion matrix are covariance measures of a > sort. In that > > case, ordinary covariance measures may provide a more meaningful > way of > > analyzing your data. In response to your question, then, none of > TRANS, > > TRANS/INPUT or TRANS/TI are appropriate measures for your purposes. > > Information theory doesn't work that way. Attneave got the math > right, > > but that had already been done; but Attneave's interpretations > (after Garner > > & Hake) were all dead wrong. - Lance Nizami BSc (Physics) MSc > (Biomedical > > Engineering) PhD (Psychophysics), Decatur, GA 30030 > > > > In a message dated 2/24/2009 4:54:12 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, > > caro_jacquier@xxxxxxxx writes: > > > > Dear members, > > > > I would like to analyse phonetic feature transmission (especially > voicing > > and place of articulation of french plosive consonants) on the > basis of > > individual confusion matrices. My study is about compressed speech > > perception in dyslexic adults. > > I have already downloaded the software for information transfer > and SINFA > > analysis (Stuart Rosen ) and I have run the analyses (on 32 > subjects). > > My first question is: which value is the more relevant in the > report (TRANS, > > TRANS/INPUT or TRANS/TI) ? > > My second question is about individual confusion matrices: Do I > have to do > > one analyse per subject ? > > > > I hope that someone could help me. > > Thank you very much. > > Best regards, > > > > Caroline > > > > > > > > ________________________________ > > A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! > > A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!