Jacqueline Kory-Westlund

A new semester...

Long time, no writing -- it's the start of a new semester (my last semester!) and I've been busy with a number of different things:

• The VC Women's Fencing team. We're in full competition mode. We conquered in Cleveland recently, vanquished difficult foes at Brown University, and are gearing up for a big match at Wellesley next Sunday, which will decide whether we claim the Northeast Conference Championship this year!

• My undergraduate cognitive science thesis. I'm looking at the emergent behavior of a group of simulated prey robots that can communicate with each other about the presence of a predator. I have questions about communication, environment, and motivation. Being a year-long project, I'm supposedly halfway through, though in reality, it's not so clear-cut. I spent all summer reading papers and doing background research, filled last semester with hypotheses, possible architectures, and more background research, wrote up a first draft this winter break, and am now hard at work on the simulation itself.

• Taking photos of the weather. An unusually large amount of snow has fallen at Vassar -- what better to do than document it with a camera? (Click for larger versions.)

Sunset Lake II

Snow Forest

Winter picnic in Cleveland

• Figuring out my post-graduation life. On the advice of many folks, I'm not heading immediately to grad school. My enthusiasm for learning, research, and knowledge hasn't vanished -- quite the contrary. I'm going to spend at least a year exploring the places outside the classroom, longer depending on where I end up. Academia-land? The wide world beyond? Still up in the air.

Rock on

Are you familiar with perceptual control theory? If you aren't, the basic idea is this: People are not rocks. As Philip Runkel puts it,

"Living creatures behave very differently from lifeless things. Unlike a rock, a human does not just sit until something bumps it."

-- Philip Runkel, “Casting Nets and Testing Specimens,” pg 75

The idea is, organisms and agents and people get a bunch of different sensory inputs. They have some internal standards for what they want that set of sensory inputs to be like -- some desired state of the world. The difference between how they want the world to be and what the world is actually like drives what they do -- what we see as behavior. The reason this is appealing to me? Perceptual control theory (PCT) says we're not just input-output machines. Behavior is goal-directed and purposeful. It's a useful theory if you want to figure out why people are doing what they do and how to avoid or mediate conflict. Everyone has internal standards that they're trying to control. As Runkel says,

"[M]ost of us very often act as if we expect other people to behave like rocks. And when we act toward other people as if they were rocks or blankets or typewriters or teacups, we make unending trouble for ourselves. It is true that people do have some features in common with rocks and typewriters. There are, however, important differences between living and nonliving things that most of us overlook time and time again, and to our sorrow." -- Philip Runkel, "People as Living Things; The Psychology of Perceptual Control," pg 14

If you want to learn more, I've found you a nice list of articles, an informative Less Wrong post a friend linked me to, a comprehensive website, and Google. And yes, talking about PCT really just was my excuse to share those lovely quotes from Runkel.

A soundtrack for writing papers

Through force of habit, a particular set of Goo Goo Dolls albums has become my paper-writing music. It was by chance at first: tunes I was familiar with and could mostly ignore while working on a final draft freshman year. I happened to listen to those couple albums on repeat for a good six or seven hours. I was fairly productive.

Later that year, utterly unfocused and unproductively poking at another paper, feeling entirely unmotivated to synthesize information and string useful arguments out of the sets of research articles I had collected, I remembered that music. I decided to give it a try -- perhaps, I thought, if I gave myself the right soundtrack, I'd get something done. (I was running out of other homework to do, anyway.) And hey. It worked.

I continue to pick the same albums when it comes time to resolutely sit down and pound out pages of words. I have to wonder how much is a placebo effect: I think the songs will help focus my attention on writing a good paper, so I listen to the songs and focus better. (Perhaps I shouldn't think about that too much just in case the effect disappears when I do.) Do recall what I've said previously about the importance of expectations! Perhaps I could, if I tried, decide that "okay, now it's work-on-paper time" and then crack down and work. But the motivational kick from the music -- "this is working music, so if I'm listening to it, I should be working" -- keeps me going.

Given that I'm certainly motivated to keep my productivity-enhancing paper-writing albums solidly in the category of music that'll make my homework happen, perhaps I don't need to worry about the effect slipping. Part of my productivity may be a result of not wanting to prove that it's mostly a placebo!

And a question for you

Do you have similar soundtracks? Particular songs you use for warm-ups before a sports game, albums for homework, tracks you save for the last sprint at the gym? I'm curious, so do share.

During one of the brief moments I was in my room yesterday afternoon, I was struck by the view out my window.

A bare-limbed tree, autumn decor already a crunching carpet on the lawn, stood silhouetted before its bright red-orange neighbor. I've been watching these trees change all semester. Add in a backdrop of dramatic slate storm clouds, and how could I resist?

Here's the relatively quick sketch I did to capture the scene (black pen, colored pencil- click for larger version):

View from my room III

Growing up so fast...

Has it been over a year already?

My website's one year birthday slipped past last month and I didn't even notice! Perhaps I forgot because I keep thinking I started the website later than I did. I remember it being late in the semester—but October was late, since I was in Australia and the 4-month semester had started in July!

Happy birthday.