Guinea Pig
I spent an hour and a half this morning as someone else's model organism. A grad student in the computer science department is working on a fancy-shmancy 3-D imaging system that doctors might use someday.
So, I got to spend 90 minutes with box strapped to the side of my head and funny sunglasses on. I stared into the display (which gave a composite image from two separate displays) and then I had to do things in 3-D like make the angle betwen two rods equal 90 degrees, or change the length of one rod to be the same length as the other rod (all in 3-D, with the rods at random orientations).
As the test was proceeding, I have to admit that I was starting to get test anxiety. I had no idea how I was doing--no feedback from the computer or the administrator at all. I started to slow down to be more precise. I thought about how I hate having sloppy data in my own work, so I shouldn't screw this grad student over by giving her sloppy data.
Then, I looked at my watch and realized that it was taking much longer than I thought it would. So, I started to fly through the puzzles, only to be slowed back down by my fears that I would do poorly and the administrator would be disappointed. Really, it was amazing how much I was worried about doing worse than average for this study. I realize now that this is the same stress that kept me competitive in high school. You don't want to look dumb in front your peers. You don't want to be "below average."
Well, when it was all over, the adminstrator let me take a glance at my results. Turns out I did second best of all the subjects so far. That sounds about right (after all, I wasn't valedictorian in high school either).
So, being a guinea pig wasn't that bad in the end.
So, I got to spend 90 minutes with box strapped to the side of my head and funny sunglasses on. I stared into the display (which gave a composite image from two separate displays) and then I had to do things in 3-D like make the angle betwen two rods equal 90 degrees, or change the length of one rod to be the same length as the other rod (all in 3-D, with the rods at random orientations).
As the test was proceeding, I have to admit that I was starting to get test anxiety. I had no idea how I was doing--no feedback from the computer or the administrator at all. I started to slow down to be more precise. I thought about how I hate having sloppy data in my own work, so I shouldn't screw this grad student over by giving her sloppy data.
Then, I looked at my watch and realized that it was taking much longer than I thought it would. So, I started to fly through the puzzles, only to be slowed back down by my fears that I would do poorly and the administrator would be disappointed. Really, it was amazing how much I was worried about doing worse than average for this study. I realize now that this is the same stress that kept me competitive in high school. You don't want to look dumb in front your peers. You don't want to be "below average."
Well, when it was all over, the adminstrator let me take a glance at my results. Turns out I did second best of all the subjects so far. That sounds about right (after all, I wasn't valedictorian in high school either).
So, being a guinea pig wasn't that bad in the end.
posted by pro_blogger at 4:16 PM
1 Comments:
In my old lab, a senior student who was building his apparatus used me as a guinea pig. He'd aim a laser onto my eye and take images of my retina. That's what first year grad students are for, I guess.
This post is quite different from my blog post having the same title :-)
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