In their meta-analysis Wood, Kressel, Joshi, and Louie argue little evidence supports shifts in mating preferences across the menstrual cycle. They imply this may represent a critical weakness of evolutionary psychology theories of mating preferences more generally. This report represents a fairly common use of meta-analysis: to assemble data to support or reject a particular proposition over which there is debate. Yet, rarely do meta-analyses succeed at resolving ideological debates. Multiple decision points related to the selection, coding, effect size extraction, (...) and interpretation of studies leaves considerable room for meta-analytic authors to interject their own beliefs. Meta-analyses are typically hailed by those who agreed a priori with their conclusion, and rejected as fatally flawed by those in disagreement. As such, meta-analyses have failed in replacing narrative reviews as more objective. (shrink)

The lostness measure, an implicit and unobtrusive measure originally designed for assessing the usability of hypertext systems, could be useful in Virtual Reality (VR) games where players need to find information to complete a task. VR locomotion systems with node-based movement mimic actions for exploration and browsing found in hypertext systems. For that reason, hypertext usability measures, such as “lostness” can be used to identify how disoriented a player is when completing tasks in an educational game by examining steps made (...) by the player. An evaluation of two different lostness measures, global and local lostness, based on two different types of tasks, is described in a VR educational game using 13 college students between 14 and 18 years old in a first study and extended using 12 extra participants in a second study. Multiple Linear Regression analyses showed, in both studies, that local lostness, and not global lostness, had a significant effect on a post-game knowledge test. Therefore, we argued that local lostness was able to predict how well-participants would perform on a post-game knowledge test indicating how well they learned from the game. In-game experience aspects (engagement, cognitive interest, and presence) were also evaluated and, interestingly, it was also found that participants learned less when they felt more present in the game. We believe these two measures relate to cognitive overload, which is known to have an adverse effect on learning. Further research should investigate the lostness measure for use in an online adaptive game system and design the game system in such a way that the risk of cognitive overload is minimized when learning, resulting in higher retention of information. (shrink)

Since the 1990s, the influence of the internet and social media in daily communication has skyrocketed. This has brought both remarkable opportunities and perceived perils. Recent years have seen increases in suicide and mental health concerns, political polarization, and online aggression. Can such phenomenon be connected causally to communication via social media? This article reviews the evidence for perceived deleterious effects of social media on several areas of human welfare, including political polarization, depression and suicide, aggression, and cyberbullying. In addition (...) to examining contemporary evidence from psychological studies, a historical analysis is included to examine whether we truly live in a uniquely difficult time or whether similar patterns of social behavior can be witnessed in other, pre-internet times. It is concluded that evidence may link social media to some negative social outcomes but in ways that are nuanced and complicated, often interacting with user motivations and personalities and situational variables. An increased focus on preregistered, standardized scientific methods and cautious interpretation of effect sizes can help clarify real versus phantom effects of social media. (shrink)

H. G. Wells has long occupied a curious place in the literary history of the early twentieth century, positioned as an extremely popular yet myopic outsider whose seeming miscalculation of the post-1910 literary zeitgeist acted in a directly inverse relation to his uncannily accurate technological predictions of the world to come. Wells’s reputation as a literary innovator in this period sunk in opposite relation to his rising stature as a futurologist, a shift whose repercussions for the author’s legacy are, as (...) both Roger Luckhurst and Steven McLean have recently noted, still largely evident in the ways his work is positioned, studied, and debated in the contemporary academy.1 As Wells’s 1890s scientific romances .. (shrink)