I think the results of this lab do not support the view of humans as machines. Machines are preprogrammed and perform tasks in a consistent manner. My reaction times varied greatly with and without change in the experimental conditions. The reaction time improved for both my hands but but would often take a value greater than that in the previous trial. Machines do not posses the ability to learn and improve with practice. Further, my reaction times were different for each hand, whereas in a machine they would be the same. My reaction was also faster when I focused on the response.
I agree. My results also were extremely varied. They were so varied that it is difficult to decide if there was any improvement. Our nervous system however seems to be similar to machines. Machines have wires, directing signals to motors and sensors, all running through a central processing unit with programming telling it what to do. This is very similar to the human system. We have "sensors" of our sight, touch, etc. Our brain uses those signals and uses action potentials to excite our neurons in which the signal travels throughout our body to a specific body part that will react in some way.
I would also like to point out that machines aren't as perfect as we want them to be. More often than not there is a bug in the programming (i mean who hasn't had a problem with windows vista?). So maybe those bugs are similar to our inconsistencies and we are more similar to machines than we would like to believe.
I agree that human brains are not like machines. Unlike humans, machines are set to perform in a consistent manner and thereby cannot improve like the human brain can. Also, the inconsistency of the reaction times also differs from the expected uniformity in behavior or performance by machines. Moreover, the overall difference in reaction times fore each hand also illustrate that the brain functions in a more flexible and specific manner than do machines, which are more robotic and not as susceptible to change in response.
I agree that human brains are not like machines. Unlike humans, machines are set to perform in a consistent manner and thereby cannot improve like the human brain can. Also, the inconsistency of the reaction times also differs from the expected uniformity in behavior or performance by machines. Moreover, the overall difference in reaction times fore each hand also illustrate that the brain functions in a more flexible and specific manner than do machines, which are more robotic and not as susceptible to change in response.
My results were highly variable, often ranging about a point with random, extreme outliers. At other points, they began a trend in one direction only to switch and begin the opposite pattern. A computer would produce far more consistent results with only the rarest of outliers. In the case of AI, it could learn and improve at a certain rate but it would not randomly begin (decide) to become slower or more inefficient.
The human condition allows for far too much variance in performance and easy influence and therefore discrepancy from what is expected. As such, humans can absolutely not be accurately compared to machines.
I would also have to agree that humans cannot be referred to as machines. Looking back at my results from the lab, there was a decrease in the amount of time (for both my weak and dominant hands) it took me to catch the ruler as I did more and more trials. However, there were times when I would get a really "out-there" result. This is something that would not occur for a machine. Machines are not programmed to have the capacity to "learn" how to improve on something as human minds do. Instead of learning and becoming better through practice, the machines are typically programmed to be the best they can be from the get-go (skipping all the steps that allow them to "learn" to become good at it). Also, at the end of all the trials for both the dominant and the weak hands, it was apparent that my dominant hand was able to react faster than my weak hand. In a machine, both hands would perform at the same level. The machine wouldn't even have a dominant or weak hand. They would both be equally good at reacting to the dropping ruler.
I would actually disagree with the last statement. I had fairly consistent results on my test (dominant-hand answers deviated by perhaps 5 inches; non-dominant answers by perhaps 3), but while yes, I realize this doesn't prove anything, we have to consider our minds a bit like computers that have full hard drives, insufficient RAM, and weak, but overclocked, processors. Machines aren't perfect either.
When we performed these tests we did not do so with a blank slate; rather, we had other processes operating in our mind (how the food felt going down, the best way not to cut yourself on the ruler, etc.) so that we did not offer this, or any activity in our daily lives, complete concentration--it's simply not possible.
I'd say that our minds do function as a system of inputs and outputs, much the way a computer, or any machine, would.
I have to agree with everyone else as well. I do not believe that humans can be compared to machines. As everyone has previously stated, I, too, got very scattered results. My hands provided different results between them, therefore disproving the idea of being machines. If humans were machines, the results would not yield such greatly varied results.
I disagree! Machines, with repeated completion of a task, can often become more efficient in their processes. My reaction times improved with practice; pathways to a task's completion can be streamlined. The data from my lab supports the machine-human connection
I agree. My results varied greatly, but I believe it was due largely to concentration, more than an inability to learn or practice. That greatly separates us from machines, considering how much focus can affect the results of any test on a human. A machine is not distracted like a human is. Their level of irritability is drastically different, making them almost immune to loosing concentration. Humans and machines may have a few similarities, but I find the comparison a little difficult, considering the complexity of the human body when seen as a machine.
I agree with you. My results also varied and were very spuratic. I believ that a machine would have fairly consistent results because the calculations that would go into catching this ruler would be the same every time. The would be no other contributing factors to the process of catching the ruler. The human mind has multiple things stimulating it at once. Whether it be the thought of something else,or the enticipation of catching the ruler, or even a body movement that the person dropping the ruler makes, we take in all these outside factors. Machines focus on one task at a time, and have one goal set. With this they can ignore all other factors and become consistent in their results.
I completely agree with you. My reaction times were extremely varied and inconsistant within the same conditions. If we had been similar to machines as portrayed in chapter 2 of the text, my reaction times would be consistant and precise, with little variation. There may be many factors which contribute to the inconsistancy. The brain may be preoccupied and there may be human error involved, again unlike a machine which is built to perform its task. There was a little improvement however, showing plasticity of the our adapting brain which separates us even further from machines.
