The Discovery Files: Convincing Evidence

Want to convince someone to do something? A University of Michigan study examines how various speech characteristics influence people's decisions to participate in telephone surveys. But its findings have implications for many other situations, from closing sales to swaying voters to getting spouses to see things your way.

Credit: NSF/Karson Productions

Audio Transcript:

It's Not Always What You Say, It's How You Say It.

I'm Bob Karson with the discovery files -- new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation.

From convincing your spouse to closing a sale, researchers at the University of Michigan have identified some speech characteristics that may help your success ratio.

The team broke down 1,380 phone calls made by 100 male and female interviewers trying to convince people to participate in a telephone survey. Here are the findings -- which may not always work, but could give you a better overall chance.

Speed: Interviewers who spoke moderately fast (about 3½ words per second or the pace I'm speaking now) had better luck; any faster and you come off as untrustworthy; slower and you seem unsure, not too bright.

Liveliness:The team found that too many inflections make you sound fake or like you're trying too hard.

Pitch: Depends on if you're a man or a woman. Men with higher-pitched voices fared worse than men with deep voices. With women, pitch was not a factor.

The last characteristic was pauses. The least successful interviewers had no pauses and came off sounding scripted. Pausing a lot did better but tended to make the speaker sound uninformed. The right amount of pauses seems to be about 4 or 5 per minute.

Now using these guidelines get out there and talk someone into something. Some "convincing" evidence.

The Discovery Files: Power Grab

Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems.

Credit: NSF/Karson Productions

Audio Transcript:

(Sound effect: Electronic sucking sound)Power Grab[1]. (Sound effect: theme music) I'm Bob Karson with the discovery files -- new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation.

Shhhh. Can you hear it? Do you feel it all around you? Probably not, but it's there, (Sound effect: light hum and buzz of many radio, telephone, and electrical sources fades in) ambient energy. You know, the electromagnetic energy emitted by cell phone and radio and TV towers even satellite systems. It's just coursing through the air.

Researchers at Georgia Tech have discovered a way to harvest and store ambient energy. In order to be able to pick from the many frequency ranges, the team used an ultra-wideband antenna that can get everything from FM radio to radar signals. Their scavenging devices capture, then convert the power from AC to DC, and store it in capacitors or batteries.

(Sound effect: hair dryer)Now you're not gonna exactly going to be running your hairdryer with ambient power just yet. More likely small electronic devices like sensors and microprocessors.

The team is using inkjet printers to "print" sensors, antennas and energy-capture capabilities on paper or flexible polymer material. Imagine wireless, self-powered sensors in airport security for detection, monitoring temperature and humidity throughout your home, in buildings and bridges to warn of structural problems, even as inexpensive food-spoilage detectors and (Sound effect: beeping from medial machine) wearable bio-monitors that observe patient medical issues.

All powered with energy harvested in an electromagnetic field. Sort of a high-tech dream-catcher[2].

The Discovery Files" covers projects funded by the government's National Science Foundation. Federally sponsored research -- brought to you, by you! Learn more at nsf.gov or on our podcast.

-----------------
Notes:

[1] power grab
The original meaning means the attempt or action of acquiring or accomplishing something that was previously unattainable but is now possible through newly acquired power. However, here the word "power" indicates electrical energy.

[2] dream-catcher
A Native American craftwork consisting of a small hoop covered with string, yarn, or horsehair mesh and decorated with feathers and beads and believed to give its owner good dreams.

The Discovery Files: Stress Test

In her research, University of Chicago associate professor in psychology Sian Beilock, has shown the brain can work to sabotage performance, often in pressure-filled situations that deplete brain power critical to many everyday activities.

Credit: NSF/Karson Productions

Audio Transcript:

Stress for Success.

I'm Bob Karson with the discovery files -- new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation.

(Sound effect: college classroom sound)"Ok, listen up, 'cause there's going to be a test." Those words can send students everywhere into a panic. It seems for some, no matter how much they've studied, the stress of the test can get the best of them -- while others appear to thrive on it.

Sian Beilock (see-on bye-lock) and her research team at the University of Chicago gave 73 undergrads a stressful math test and measured two things: the students' working memory, how well they temporarily manage and store information and their level of math anxiety -- or fear about doing math. (Sweaty palms anyone?)

(Audio: Sian Beilock)"We have a variety of brain and body reactions under pressure in stressful situations but what our research shows is that it's not so much about these bodily reactions, but how you interpret them whether you interpret them as a sign you're going to succeed, or a sign that you're ready for failure that predicts whether you thrive or dive in the pressure-filled situation."

The research honed in on cortisol[1], "the stress hormone." If you're a student with a large working memory but with a fear of math, rising cortisol levels can lead you to choke. No fear of math? The more your cortisol goes up, the more your test score might, too. So change your perspective, and you might just change your grade. One caveat: you still have to know the material -- a point worth "stressing."

The Discovery Files" covers projects funded by the government's National Science Foundation. Federally sponsored research -- brought to you, by you! Learn more at nsf.gov or on our podcast.

-----------------
Notes:

[1] cortisol
腎上腺皮質素 An adrenal-cortex hormone. For more information, please refer to the following links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol
http://www.symcl.com.tw/check_single.php?tname=B&sno=122
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/teenty/20474731

The Discovery Files: Power Nap

A new "subconscious mode" for smartphones and other WiFi-enabled mobile devices could extend battery life by as much as 54 percent for users on the busiest networks.

Credit: NSF/Karson Productions

Audio Transcript:

(Sound effect: Smart phone ring) A Smarter Smart Phone.

(Sound effect: theme music) I'm Bob Karson with the discovery files--new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation.

When your smart phone is waiting for your next hookup, it's on alert looking for messages and searching for clear communication channels. Did you know that it could be using as much power then as when it's sending and receiving messages? Researchers at the University of Michigan are working to make that idle time a lot less of a drain.

Meet "E-MILI," which stands for "Energy Minimizing Idle Listening." A way to have smart phones go into a slower, deeper mode of sleep, but still be ready to jump to full power when needed. The team believes that by using this new technology most smart phones could still keep one eye open for incoming messages while using as much as 44% less power.

E-MILI slows the clock in your Wi-Fi card to one-sixteenth of its normal frequency, that's easy, the hard part is to get the phone to recognize incoming messages while almost in a coma, so it can jolt back to full speed. Their solution was to get it to recognize just the headers of incoming messages. So they found a new way to encode the address header. To do this, it's going to require firmware modifications by the Wi-Fi chipset manufacturers, as well as getting the makers of smart phones onboard to install the chips in new phones. The project is in the proof-of-concept stage and could be reality soon.

Smart phones taking a real "power nap" -- would that make them "sleeper cells?[1]"

The Discovery Files" covers projects funded by the government's National Science Foundation. Federally sponsored research -- brought to you, by you! Learn more at nsf.gov or on our podcast.

-----------------
Notes:

[1] sleeper cells
It is used as a pun here. Sleeper cells originally means secret people who receive specialized training in their home countries and are then assigned to assimilate into another country's culture and society. These sleeper cells may spend years performing their regular duties while living deep undercover, then suddenly receive orders from their overseas handlers to either commit an act of terrorism or provide aid to those who will.

The Discovery Files: Game Changer

The Discovery Files: Game Changer[1]
Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.

Credit: NSF/Karson Productions

Audio Transcript:

(Sound effect: online gaming sounds)High-stakes Gamers[2].
(Sound effect: theme music)

I'm Bob Karson with the discovery files--new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation.

Here's a first--online gamers have solved a molecular biology problem in just 3 weeks, one that scientists couldn't unravelin 10 years. The project is the brainchild of scientists at the University of Washington Department of Biochemistry and the UW Center for Game Science.

The mission was to model the structure of a retrovirus enzyme from an aids-like virus. If scientists can determine its structure, they'll be better able to create anti-aids drugs to deactivate it. For over a decade, the usual methods of solving the puzzle were tried but science couldn't get a handle on what the enzyme's structure looked like.

The team turned to an unlikely group--online gamers. Reasoning that human intuition is something computers don't have, they used an online game created at UW called "fold it," and enlisted thousands of players worldwide to take a crack at cracking it.

Groups of players were soon rotating 3-d chains of amino acids in cyberspace and were able to generate models good enough for the researchers to refine and within a few days determine the enzyme's structure.

The game of science meets the science of gaming. Look for other 'gamely' collaborations that may change the way we teach math and science. In the article that published the findings in a scientific journal, the gamers were listed as co-authors.

"It's not a game--it's molecular biology, mom."


The Discovery Files" covers projects funded by the government's National Science Foundation. Federally sponsored research -- brought to you, by you! Learn more at nsf.gov or on our podcast.

-----------------
Notes:

[1] Game Changer
A person, an event or a new and different idea that completely changes the way a situation develops.A person, an event or a new and different idea that completely changes the way a situation develops.

[2] High-Stakes Gamers

Most high stakes gamers are experienced people who have an aptitude for gambling. In this article, a gamer indicates a computer game player and high stakes gamers means experienced people who show a talent for computer games.

Yes or no, that’s a question!(C4 Speech Script by April Chung)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,

In our life, we can heard someone persuade somebody to do something every day. Excuse me; could you do me a favor? Could you hire me? Could you lend me money? Or when could you deliver your speech? Are you afraid of being rejected, too? Don’t worry; just give them a good reason for your purpose. Because, the meaning of persuasion is to make someone decide to do something, especially by giving reasons why they should do it. Yes or No is depend on your question or reason.

One day, my supervisor gave me a task to count the customer complaints from our Japanese customers. I told him, “I only can read simple sentences in Japanese. Could you ask Ms. Kao who speaks fluent Japanese to deal with the document and I still have to do something important and urgent.”
He said, “But it’s a good chance to improve your Japanese ability.”
I said, “Thank you, Sir. I know it’s a good chance to improve my Japanese ability, but my ability is not good enough to deal with those documents. I have to look up the dictionary word by word, analyze the grammar, and ask others to help me. I will spend too much time on this matter.”
At that moment, my supervisor seems a little angry and said coldly, “…………hum, let me think over your suggestion.”
After working, I received a call from my supervisor, he was very angry and shout at me, “April, I want to tell you something, if you can’t accept the assignment, please tell me in private, not in public. Remember that I’m the supervisor in this office, you refuse to do my order quickly in public, how can I have the power to lead the team?”
I said, “Sorry, sir, I don’t have that meaning. I apologize to you for my rude action. Next time, I will notice my behavior.”

General speaking, persuader doesn’t have advantage of psychology. Before the communication, you can follow the word “5P”: Patience, Personality, Position, Pride, and Place. You must have the patience and know the personality, especially his or her position is higher than you, please take care of their pride in a good place to make them feel free. Then, make sure 3W: What happen; Who has the connection to the case; and What’s the effect of this matter. In the end, take the good timing to persuade them.

When you discussed how to promote cooperation, please don’t criticize each other, please find out the advantages of each other and balance point. Please be clear, simple and forceful. You have to get the point in a short time, otherwise the listener not only feel confused but also hit back at your point easily. Yes or No is to depend on your question and good reason. Guess what! What happen to those hot potato documents? I persuaded my supervisor successfully; I passed the difficult task to my coworker who speaks excellent Japanese.

The Discovery Files: Birth And Syntax

Cognitive scientists at Johns Hopkins University have new evidence that confirms an older theory that human beings are born with some innate knowledge of certain rules of linguistics that make learning human languages easier.

Credit: NSF/Karson Productions

Audio Transcript:

Wired for Speech. (Sound effect: newborn baby cries)

(Sound effect: theme music) I'm Bob Karson with the discovery files -- new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation.

"Gleej, slergena, glawb" do not adjust your ear buds. I'm trying to speak 'verblog' an artificial nanolanguage developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University to test a hypothesis from over a half-century ago.

Let me back up a bit. 50 years ago, linguist/philosopher Norm Chomsky[1] put it out there that we are born already knowing some grammatical rules or at the very least having certain language sense kind of wired into our brains.

The Johns Hopkins study demonstrates that perhaps Chomsky was right, and in addition to death and taxes[2], we might have two more things on the 'sure' list: birth and syntax. We come into this world knowing certain rules that make it easier to learn language.

To test the theory the team came up with this made-up language called 'verblog,' constructed to utilize word-order combinations not usually found in most human languages. Sure enough, participants had difficulty learning verblog in its pure form, but could more easily grasp versions of it if some of the word-order combinations were adjusted to match those commonly found in human languages. It's as if the brain knew that the structure was unlikely.

Now we may be born with some linguistic capabilities but I'm sure one of them wasn't how to diagram a sentence; still can't do that.

The Discovery Files" covers projects funded by the government's National Science Foundation. Federally sponsored research -- brought to you, by you! Learn more at nsf.gov or on our podcast.

-----------------
Notes:

[1] Norm Chomsky
-- An great American linguist. For more information, please visit at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
[2] Death and tax
-- A proverb. Please refer to
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/death-and-taxes.html