Friday, February 03, 2006
The Human Guinea Pig
That's me all over. I volunteer for crazy, ultra-controversial scientific experiments - you know, the ones you read about in science journals? You're reading about me. :)
Well, maybe they're not THAT nuts, and I don't think any of them are published quite yet. Last year, in my first-year psych course, I volunteered for a couple experiments to gain some extra credit (they boosted me to an A-) and they were pretty harmless. The first one, I went to a lab and matched pictures of finger prints for half an hour. During the second one, a grad student asked me questions about why I've dieted before, and why I still diet today (if it weren't for beach vacations, I would be a lot fatter). This time 'round, a professor from the psych department came into my class and asked for some volunteers. If we wanted to participate, all we had to do was go to the website and click on the time we wanted, though this time it was purely voluntary - we wouldn't be receiving any extra credit.
Who cares about extra credit? I'd love to lend a hand! I'd be helping the pursuit of science! Good for me! So, of course, I signed up.
I was absurdly excited to take part. The research required actual equipment and good-humoured, lab assistants casually talking in science-jargon, just like in the movies. I marked the time and place on my calendar, told all my friends what a great person I was for volunteering, and waited impatiently for the day to come. When it finally arrived, I went to the neuroscience center on campus, wandered the halls until I found the right room, and announced myself as the next subject for observation. I was a little disappointed to discover that the prof's lab assistant collecting the data instead of himself, and although I'm sure the assistant could be very good-humoured when she wanted to be, she was extremely shy and so soft-spoken I could barely hear her instructions, much less any of the scare-the-research-subject quips from the movies. Meh, whatever. I was still sure the experiment itself was going to really cool.
It was... in a manner of speaking. My first task was to take a bottle half-full of funky-smelling solution to the bathroom, fill the rest of it with cold water, and squeeze all of it onto the top of my head. This, apparently, would help all the electrodes stick to my scalp. It was about at this time that I began mentally repeating the phrase, "it's all in the pursuit of science (and volunteering makes great resume padding)."
So when I came back from the bathroom with my soaking wet, funky-smelling hair, I was sat down and told to stay still while I had a few receivers taped over various parts of my head. After the tape job was finished, I had a soaking wet "soft-electrode cap" placed over my head, the electrodes covering my eyebrows, temples, crown, skull base, and every other place on my head that wasn't my face, though there were a couple on each cheek and another under my chin. Even though the cap felt a little funny, it wasn't unbearable by any means, and I was still revved to get on with the experiment. Woo! Go science!
Well... not quite. I had to be patient a little longer, though it felt like a lot longer, when all I could concentrate on was the weird spots all over my head and the cold, funky-smelling solution running down my neck. And I wasn't exactly distracted from those sensations when the lab assistant spent the next forty minutes digitizing each and every one of the 128 electrodes over my skull with a little computer pen. She had to tease my hair out of the way for each one of them so that they would stick to my scalp too. Joy. Soaking wet, extremely tangled hair. But science was worth it...
FINALLY, when that was all finished, I was led into a nicotine-coloured, claustrophobic room, roughly the temperature of a meat warehouse. Once again, I was sat down in a chair (in a very precise position) and taped up to a couple more complicated, undoubtedly expensive instruments. There were speakers set up all around me, and on the table in front of me, an impressively massive pile of psych textbooks (topped with an Archie comic) in front of a computer monitor.
So, did I bring anything to read?
Er, no. I had never been told to bring something to read. I didn't even realize this experiment required reading, or else I would have gotten a head-start on my metaphysics work. So instead of being doubly useful and getting Friday's readings done, I spent the next hour attempting to be entertained by Archie & Pals and the hijinks they got into, while the speakers beeped at me incessantly at various pitches. When the hour was up (longest one of my life), the lab assistant came back in, dripped some more make-the-electrodes-stick liquid onto my head and told me that Part One was finished. Part what??? I had to do more of this? The massive pile of textbooks was moved out of the way, and for the last twenty minutes, I experienced the pleasure of staring at a fixation point on the computer screen while the different-pitched beeps played around me again. When a high-pitched beep sounded, I pressed the right key. When a low-pitched beep sounded, I pressed the left key. I think they were monitoring my facial expression too, which would have looked completely stupid. By that time, I was close falling asleep. Whoopie.
When that was done, the electrode cap finally came off (leaving me with about 16 embarrassing, circular impressions in my forehead) and I was told I could leave. Thank god! I took my tangled, wet hair, full of funky-smelling, sticky solution out into the freezing cold wind and tried very hard to hide my disfigured forehead in a very nonchalant manner while I walked past my peers in the parking lot.
Sigh. All in the pursuit of science. I know scientific research is important, but was it always this boring? What happened to the crazy stuff they do in the movies? And giving students extra credit?
Well, maybe they're not THAT nuts, and I don't think any of them are published quite yet. Last year, in my first-year psych course, I volunteered for a couple experiments to gain some extra credit (they boosted me to an A-) and they were pretty harmless. The first one, I went to a lab and matched pictures of finger prints for half an hour. During the second one, a grad student asked me questions about why I've dieted before, and why I still diet today (if it weren't for beach vacations, I would be a lot fatter). This time 'round, a professor from the psych department came into my class and asked for some volunteers. If we wanted to participate, all we had to do was go to the website and click on the time we wanted, though this time it was purely voluntary - we wouldn't be receiving any extra credit.
Who cares about extra credit? I'd love to lend a hand! I'd be helping the pursuit of science! Good for me! So, of course, I signed up.
I was absurdly excited to take part. The research required actual equipment and good-humoured, lab assistants casually talking in science-jargon, just like in the movies. I marked the time and place on my calendar, told all my friends what a great person I was for volunteering, and waited impatiently for the day to come. When it finally arrived, I went to the neuroscience center on campus, wandered the halls until I found the right room, and announced myself as the next subject for observation. I was a little disappointed to discover that the prof's lab assistant collecting the data instead of himself, and although I'm sure the assistant could be very good-humoured when she wanted to be, she was extremely shy and so soft-spoken I could barely hear her instructions, much less any of the scare-the-research-subject quips from the movies. Meh, whatever. I was still sure the experiment itself was going to really cool.
It was... in a manner of speaking. My first task was to take a bottle half-full of funky-smelling solution to the bathroom, fill the rest of it with cold water, and squeeze all of it onto the top of my head. This, apparently, would help all the electrodes stick to my scalp. It was about at this time that I began mentally repeating the phrase, "it's all in the pursuit of science (and volunteering makes great resume padding)."
So when I came back from the bathroom with my soaking wet, funky-smelling hair, I was sat down and told to stay still while I had a few receivers taped over various parts of my head. After the tape job was finished, I had a soaking wet "soft-electrode cap" placed over my head, the electrodes covering my eyebrows, temples, crown, skull base, and every other place on my head that wasn't my face, though there were a couple on each cheek and another under my chin. Even though the cap felt a little funny, it wasn't unbearable by any means, and I was still revved to get on with the experiment. Woo! Go science!
Well... not quite. I had to be patient a little longer, though it felt like a lot longer, when all I could concentrate on was the weird spots all over my head and the cold, funky-smelling solution running down my neck. And I wasn't exactly distracted from those sensations when the lab assistant spent the next forty minutes digitizing each and every one of the 128 electrodes over my skull with a little computer pen. She had to tease my hair out of the way for each one of them so that they would stick to my scalp too. Joy. Soaking wet, extremely tangled hair. But science was worth it...
FINALLY, when that was all finished, I was led into a nicotine-coloured, claustrophobic room, roughly the temperature of a meat warehouse. Once again, I was sat down in a chair (in a very precise position) and taped up to a couple more complicated, undoubtedly expensive instruments. There were speakers set up all around me, and on the table in front of me, an impressively massive pile of psych textbooks (topped with an Archie comic) in front of a computer monitor.
So, did I bring anything to read?
Er, no. I had never been told to bring something to read. I didn't even realize this experiment required reading, or else I would have gotten a head-start on my metaphysics work. So instead of being doubly useful and getting Friday's readings done, I spent the next hour attempting to be entertained by Archie & Pals and the hijinks they got into, while the speakers beeped at me incessantly at various pitches. When the hour was up (longest one of my life), the lab assistant came back in, dripped some more make-the-electrodes-stick liquid onto my head and told me that Part One was finished. Part what??? I had to do more of this? The massive pile of textbooks was moved out of the way, and for the last twenty minutes, I experienced the pleasure of staring at a fixation point on the computer screen while the different-pitched beeps played around me again. When a high-pitched beep sounded, I pressed the right key. When a low-pitched beep sounded, I pressed the left key. I think they were monitoring my facial expression too, which would have looked completely stupid. By that time, I was close falling asleep. Whoopie.
When that was done, the electrode cap finally came off (leaving me with about 16 embarrassing, circular impressions in my forehead) and I was told I could leave. Thank god! I took my tangled, wet hair, full of funky-smelling, sticky solution out into the freezing cold wind and tried very hard to hide my disfigured forehead in a very nonchalant manner while I walked past my peers in the parking lot.
Sigh. All in the pursuit of science. I know scientific research is important, but was it always this boring? What happened to the crazy stuff they do in the movies? And giving students extra credit?
