[Heartlogic-dev] Re: DSM & Study #2 Introduction

[William L. Jarrold]

Hi,

I'm finally answering a "real" email...

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:

> The DSM biographical question and the Study #2 Introduction from your
> dissertation are now integrated into the site.  Take a look and tell
> me if something needs adjustment.

Hrmm...I went to ...

http://www.nongnu.org/heartlogic/

...I went there because that is where my bookmark points too, but I saw
these three links...

Test Site

American Psychological Association: Ethics Office

Savannah Project Page

...and didn't think it made sense to have this combination of things
at the front page level.  Right?  But I'll bet you are just experimenting
with things there.  Right?

So, I should remove http://www.nongnu.org/heartlogic/ from my
bookmarks, right?

Instead I should bookmark...

http://s89740195.onlinehome.us/ohl/opine.cgi

...until openheartlogic.org becomes the "front page" (probably in less
than 10 days).  Right?

Now, here's what I've been thinking of late.

For the near future (now to maybe 3-6 months) We should have *two* front
pages.  One front page (e.g. openheartlogic.org/start.html) should be to
snag research participants.  This should be written in clear very short
english text easy for a grandmother to understand.  It should also
motivate our work and emphasize the benefit to afflicated populations.

I think the text you wrote should go on the front page for them.  I.e....

<Our Logo>

Our purpose is to research CAT (cognitive appraisal theory). What is CAT?
In simple terms, CAT is the great unsolved mystery of the relationship
between the heart and the brain. Evidence suggests that there is a
definite relationship between them ... but what is it exactly? When you
work too much with your brain then the heart goes off. When you work too
much with your heart then the brain fails. So where is the perfect
balance? Its very subtle! Our aim is to research into this relationship
with the tools of science.

...maybe even make it shorter.  Whatever.  Then *RIGHT* after that say,
well, PLEASE participate in our research.  Press <hotlinke: here> to
start.

....And that's IT.  No other hotlinks to distract/confuse them.  We want
them to do the survey.  Once they do the stupid start survey, then we open
up many possibilities to them.  One of which is the other "create your own
vinette" type survey.

(Ooops, sorry, I'm gonna sorta repeat myself)...

Also, one should not even have the option of going the "make your own
vinette" until either (1) one has participated in the replication study
or (2) we have run enough (e.g. 90) subjects through the replication.

...Now, moving forward...

The *other* front page (e.g. openheratligic/research.html) should be for
researchers.  This page should talk about different dimensions of our
work.  This page is fun but is much less important than getting moving
on getting ordinary folks to fill out our survey.  Anyway, here is some
text to throw up on this page...

Dimension 1: Enhancing (1) (affective) theory of mind, (2) social
cognition, (3) affective computing, (4) cognitive appraisal theory.
Maybe have 4 nicely colored intersecting circles.  And text like
"Our work lies at the intersection of these three research areas.

Dimension 2: A new kind of input for rule based AI modeling.  So much of
current efforts in ontology are focused on articulating content.  But
so little effort has been paid to testing such models, looking for
unforseen synergy or <opposite of synergy> between ontologized knowledge.
We propose that ordinary people should give feedback on model output as
a means to provide this much needed feedback.

At this point you are probably wondering, why do we call it Open Heart
Logic?  <click here to find out why>.

....So, they click there and they get a page that says....

We call our project open heart logic because, well, it is open in the
sense that open source is open.  Just like the builders of linux,
<hotlink: Open Mind> and <list other high profile open source efforts> we
seek to harness the entire community of WWW users.

Also our work is open source in the sense of it is subject to gnu public
license and because contributions of folks are subject to <that creative
commons thing>.

For scientificially minded, "Heart logic" captures the fact that our work
lies in understanding one of the many ways in which the emotional and
cognitive sides of our psyche are integrated.  We seek to create a rule
based expert system that in one very narrow sense "understands" emotion.
We are the first to admit that such a system will at best be a coldly
rational system.  But doesn't it seem likely that logic and rationality is
an essential part of our social functioning?  <Give examples like Roz
Picards, it is logical to tip the pizza delivery guy else he'll be mad>
But of course, there is so much more to our emotional life than rules.
<hotlink: Hot cognition> is a label for that aspect of our cognition that
is affected by our own moods.  But hot cognition seems like a hard
ambitious problem that <hotlink: many people> have been attacking.  We
commend their efforts but seek to focus our efforts on smaller simpler
(though still very difficult) problem that has not received much
attention (except from <hotlink: these people>).

;; Joshua, there should be a brief webpage for each hotlink.  They should
;; be labeled under construction for now....Well, you can give it these
;; very shallow glosses...;; hotlink: hot cognition should refer to
;; Abelson's paper from the 60's or 70's that invented
;; the term....hotlink: many people might cite Decartes Error and much
;; much more....hotlink: these people will point to Kate Sanders paper
;; while she was at Brown....I can get the precise details if anyone
;; ever visits these pages!

For the clinically minded, "heart logic" captures the notion that we
believe our logical work in the rarefied trenches of artificial
intelligence research can actually "have a heart", i.e. help people.  In
particular, we believe it to be useful to people classified with autistic
spectrum disorders.  In particular people with Asperger's Disorder and
Autism who are considered "high functioning" (e.g. with relatively well
developed language abilities).  We also believe it to be useful to people
with alexithymia.  And we have hopes that it might even have applications
for depression and possibly even other psychological issues by way of
facilitating cognitive reframing.

>
> I only added one picture so far, but I will add more soon.

What picture was that?

Bill
>
> --
> A new cognitive theory of emotion, http://www.nongnu.org/heartlogic
>