XKCD 2456

Posted Apr 29, 2021 9:32 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648)
In reply to: "Full disclosure" from the University of Minnesota by amacater
Parent article: "Full disclosure" from the University of Minnesota

And if I understand how Monroe set up his web page, that's the latest (as of 29 April 2021) XKCD. How convenient (or even prescient)...

And, just curious,

WE SCANNED SOME UNDERGRADUATES

I don't get that, but perhaps that's the point. 😕

XKCD 2456

Posted Apr 29, 2021 11:38 UTC (Thu) by rschroev (subscriber, #4164) [Link]

> I don't get that, but perhaps that's the point

An explanation can be found, as always, on the explain xkcd wiki: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2456:_Types_of...

> We scanned some undergraduates:

>> Some initial research, especially that on a low budget, may recruit students at the same institution as easily available test-subjects. Quite often these are psychological or sociological studies, but can involve more medical (but non-invasive) 'scans', from simple eyeball-tracking to full-body MRI. When misread as "scammed", this paper can also refer to numerous famous psychological studies done before the establishment of certain ethical rules, such as the Milgram experiment.

XKCD 2456

Posted May 5, 2021 10:09 UTC (Wed) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]

>> WE SCANNED SOME UNDERGRADUATES
>
> I don't get that, but perhaps that's the point.

The most affordable testing human material for the university researchers are sophomores, so they are by far the most common test subjects of most human research studies. There are many researchers in social and experimental psychology (where I have some knowledge of the field) acutely aware of how many papers are distorted by most of the research done on not-completely-mature and in-many-other-ways special test subjects.