posted 02-07-2008 08:19 PM
Imprinting is a psychological and learning phenomena, whereby people (animals of all type, actually) are ripe for important learning at certain critical stages. The phenomena was first observed among ducks that imprint their first attachment object as their mother, regardless of whether the first creature is a duck. They will then follow the leader mindlessly.Imprinting occurs in other ways too. Children do much better in school when they have positive kindergarten or preschool experiences (that's why good kindergarten teachers are worth their weight in gold!).
Professionals too are imprinted with the leadership of their favorite guru, and might reject new information from non-anointed ones who come from outside a certain professional cloister. We then result in differing professional "schools of thought," which is a nice way of saying "ego-maniac turf wars." Some professionals will strongly resist the existential crisis that would result if they had to come to terms with the idea that they have been doing something silly or incorrect for years. They'll simply end their careers, either quickly or slowly, while sticking stubbornly to old ideas that have been replaced by new knowledge.
Researchers too are vulnerable to imprinting, when we seek and answer to a phenomena, and observe something dramatic in a case or two. This is especially true in the early stages of investigation, and when we "need" an answer in order to feel adequate or confident, or to impress others.
The remedy to all this is, of course, to think carefully about what we are doing and to study the data. The remedy is also to show our work and data to others, for review, criticism, and further improvement.
When approached properly, learning itself becomes autocatalytic, in that the rate of learning is further fueled by the increased rate of learning. We then seem to learn more each year than in the previous one. Stubornness, fear, and territorialism are the antithesis of this and prevent the scaffolding and sharing of new knowledge. The result of such resistance is a inevitably a field of isolated factions that is at risk for failing to keep pace with rate of new learning and knowledge in other disciplines.
I was thinking about all this in response to the other thread, and Barry's comment about Bruce White's data about the dramatic cardio reactions of cocaine users.
Here is a recent case of a very persistent cocaine user. It was posted previously in another thread.
Chart1.
Chart2.
Chart3.
I don't see the types of reactions Bruce has described.
The way to demonstrate the issue would be with some form of logistic regression, around a suitably sized confirmed sample, that could reject the null hypothesis that cardio reactions do not differentiate cocaine users from non-users.
It would be most interesting to see more data on this.
The absence of data, and math, would suggest that the described phenomena is nothing more than some imprinted and anecdotally driven conclusion.
.02
r
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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
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posted 02-07-2008 08:19 PM
