[Heartlogic-dev] Re: do we need to keep 'em coming?

[William L. Jarrold]

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 12:36:33AM -0600, William L. Jarrold wrote:
> > By contrast, people in the autism community, especially high
> > functioning autistics themselves, would be more interested in seemingly
> > subtle mind-reading cases and adding stories of their own.  As you read
> > Temple Grandin's book maybe you can write some of them down.  One
> > example might be something about body odor (there's a part in the book
> > where TEmple realizes she lacked the "theory of mind" to know that other's
> > find it offensive if you do not bathe).
>
> I've been trying to figure out exactly how to do this.
>
> What it is about submitting stories that is different than asking
> people just to email stories to us?

Email should be fine for the first 20 - 100 stories we get.  After that
it might be better to automagically capture their stories into the survey
stream to save us from carpal tunnel.

> What is it about a submitted
> story that is rate'able or interactive?

E.g. the following (from recent real life, names have been changed to
protect the innocent)....

Jean, Kathy, Rachel and Bob were hanging out.  Jean had recently had a
sex change.  Jean, Kathy and Bob had known each other for a while.  In
fact, they knew each other from before Jean's sex change.  Shortly after
Jean and Rachel were introduced, Kathy said something to Rachel clearly
implying that Jean had recently had a sex change.  Jean was offended.
Why?  It would be similar to a case like if Jean had recently had breast
augmentation surgury.  She would not want Kathy to blurt out a private
sort potentially embarrassing fact....Kathy should have had the social
common sense, the ability to mind read that Jean would be offended
by Kathy's revealing Jean's sex change.  So, how do we make this story
rateable?  Well, do a set up based on the above. Then ask, "How
believable is it that Jean feels sad when Kathy reveals that Jean had
recently undergone a sex change."....So, do you see how to turn this
story into an item?

So I believe I have answered your first question, i.e. what about a
submitted story is rateable.

Now, what is interactive?  Well, I mean interactive only in a very broad
sense.  Interactive in the sense that the survey takers will have a chance
to chime in about the type of survey items that they think others should
be answering.  If surver takers are able to have more of a voice, they
will feel more involved, more passionate about it and will answer
more survey queries.  That is what I mean by interactive.

Does that make sense?  Anyway, I see this is a longer term project.  But,
I think it is the sort of thing that has a decent chance of captivating
the fairly large audience of people like Temple Grandin -- high
functioning autistics, Asperger's, PDD-NOS (pervasive dev disability not
otherwise  specified), and possibly schizoid individuals.  Socially
awkward and socially phobic individuals might find it helpfull too.

Also alexithymics might be interested as I believe my dissertation aludes.

Anyway, it would be really cool if this kind of work could have clinical
applicability.  And it could make a modest amount of $$$ too, maybe.
I.e. once the knowedge was captured, it could be put into a tutoring
system that could be sold.   BTW, this is going to be GPL'd right?  And
that gives us a prayer of profiting from our work, right?

Bill

p.s. Sorry, today was a slow day.  I needed the rest and then had to spend
the rest doing neuropsych.  I hope to be back in stronger force tommorrow
evening.

>
> --
> A new cognitive theory of emotion, http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/aleader
>