
Toward Psychoinformatics: Computer Science Meets Psychology (2016) - lainon
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4923556/
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mettamage
Psychoinformatics... I think it just goes to show that computer science is
less of a science and more of a tool / method for other disciplines. Yes, you
can be scientific about the tool that you're building (and measure it, test
it). You can even have scientific theories about the tool that you're using
(theory of computation) but to call this psychoinformatics would imply that
the informatics part is scientific [1].

In my opinion it isn't. Collecting data through the use of big data methods
(or whatever you want to call it) has nothing to do with science and
everything to do with tool use. We never called psychology something like
surveypsychology or fMRIpsychology. Why should psychoinformatics be different?
Moreover, merging psychology with informatics could probably already be
subsumed under artificial intelligence.

I am in favor of computational methods if applied ethically but I don't think
it justifies something with a new name. Especially not if it is one of tool
use since tools can change, then this field will either be stuck in old tools
or have a nomenclature issue.

[1] Not to mention that computer science researchers are even debating among
themselves whether the discipline is scientific.

Full disclosure: bachelor in psychology, bachelor in information science,
master in computer science and master in game studies. I'd love to work at an
intersection of psychology + computer science (+ games perhaps as well).

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0xdeadbeefbabe
Names are just a tool too. The debate is settled for me when I read about
Norbert Wiener, Von Neumann, etc.

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mettamage
Hmm, names are tools, I agree. Could you give some sources? I'm curious.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing
Personal is a good source on Von Neumann, Wiener, Licklider, and more. The
book makes computing look like a science.

The names comment is from me. I wish they'd replace "Artificial Intelligence"
with "Algorithms++", for example. Either way though, it's not so much the name
that matters, unless it's a terrible name... loop.

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hutzlibu
Well, it seems to me, that Psychoinformatics is surely going to be
established. In practice, facebook, google, etc. are working on it allready
since years and with great ressources. It just has not been called that, as
far as I know.

But what they describe, collecting data 24/7 and analyzing it with
psychological methods - is allready beeing done. It is just not done out of
medical or scientific reasons ... and thats the problem with me.

So it was actually a scary read to me. I mean, there is no doubt about, that
you get much better results, if you have more and better data.

And under certain condition I might be willing to share all my data for a
science project or my psychotherapeut. (if I would counsel one)

And the research will surely benefit the latter as well - but I believe, most
of the use cases will be for - advertisement on the one hand and population
surveilance/control on the other hand.

I live in the former DDR. And the old ones still tell how horrible the spying
of the Stasi was. Yet they are all fine (or don't understand) how much more is
known about them today. There is a difference, sure, you don't go to prison
today, if you criticize the government. But if the system goes into dark mode
again - and there are some signs that this might happen - then any opposition
to it, won't stand any chance. And then hello to totalitarian dystopie.

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johnny_and1
Using psychology on data collected 24/7 can also have a positive effect. We
(researchers from the Menthal project + psychologists) are planning to run
this project in the following months: [http://www.pi.uni-
tuebingen.de/arbeitsbereiche/klinische-psy...](http://www.pi.uni-
tuebingen.de/arbeitsbereiche/klinische-psychologie-und-
psychotherapie/forschung/stoerungen-im-kindes-und-jugendalter/whats-up-studie-
ein-fruehwarnsystem-fuer-kinder-und-jugendliche-mit-depressionen.html)

Extra info here: [https://www.startnext.com/whatsapp-against-
depression](https://www.startnext.com/whatsapp-against-depression)

We plan to detect early signs of depression in children and teenagers.

(I'm sorry that everything is in German.)

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hutzlibu
I believe I said that as well ... of course it is good for medical or
scientific reasons to have more and better data. And I don't see any problem
with that, when the patients know and consent about the surveilance. So go on
with that and good luck ...

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johnny_and1
Yes, you did. I was just providing an example. Thank you!

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wu-ikkyu
Faceless corporations have aggregated psychological profiles rivaling those of
psychologists on billions of people. Why shouldn't this information have the
same, if not more, protections as HIPPA?

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s-shellfish
Psychology can be whatever you want to make it.

If you don't want to be psychologically profiled, be an outlier and/ot be more
careful about what data you divulge.

The same thing happens in psychological settings. Faceless corporations and
practitioners profiling people for what purpose - to sell more psychiatric
medication? Or to actually help? You can't ever really tell the difference
walking into those places.

HIPPA can protect you from how people outside of psychology will use that
information, but it can't protect you if the practitioners of pyschology don't
actually have your best interest aligned with their best interest.

This problem is a revolving door. It could be bad to get more eyeballs on it,
but it could also be a good thing. The point is, that's uncertain.

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wu-ikkyu
The difference is it's much easier to choose not to walk into a bad
psychologists office than it is to completely forsake using the internet,
where nearly everywhere is overrun with advertisers tracking your every move
and adding it to a psychological profile. Whether you're "giving" them your
data or not, they're taking it. Suggesting the average person simply "be
careful" about the data they divulge is absurd in light of advanced tracking
methods such as browser fingerprinting.

~~~
s-shellfish
> The difference is it's much easier to choose not to walk into a bad
> psychologists office than it is to completely forsake using the internet

I can't agree with this. Abstractly it's the same problem. Requires knowing
information you don't have, before you have it.

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wu-ikkyu
Can't you read reviews about a psychologist on the internet before you decide
whether or not to go into their office?

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s-shellfish
I don't know if I can explain why a review from a patient isn't information
that reduces the problem space. To me, it offloads the complexity of the
initial problem to another constructed variant.

As analogy, suppose I tell you to only focus on information coming from other
corporations about 'big data' and what these organizations are going to do
with your data. From that, derive whether their security practices are held at
a high standard.

You can't know these things until things proving to the contrary happen.
Likewise, I can't know whether my personal experience in a psychologist office
is going to be similar or different from another patient - yielding the same
results (what is the goal?). Every single statement spoken in the office of a
mental health care professional - all of these things matter to the
psychologist, and I am aware of that (psychology can't cure neurosis because
psychology is neurotic). Every single behavioral mannerism, every quirk, every
habit. All 'data' collected, to yield diagnosis. The psychologist themselves
might reason themselves out of that belief by telling themselves 'I ignore it,
I validate my theories against the science' but the science is mutable because
the mind has no set definition that is 'valid' and 'correct' with respect to a
standard. They are not God - they do not have omniscience on the definition of
mental wellness, mental clarity. I've had counselors tell me it's weird that
my 'grounding' techniques are thinking about reality and math. They are not
programmers, computer scientists, mathematicians!

It's the same as you worrying about every single statement or bit of
information you divulge on the internet. Could be worried about all of it,
could shrug it all off. Could go into a psychologist's office and not worry
about any of that. Won't, because it fundamentally conflicts with my core
values, self identity, principles, beliefs - things I need for my mental
health, sanity, security, things that keep my future stable and under my
control (being able to reason correctly with respect to code). Conflating all
of that with a neurotic obsession over the functioning of my mind? Just as
bad, if not worse, as having shit security with data. Data can't predict the
future. It's a choice to trick oneself into that belief. That's the problem
with these organizations that yields mental peace. Collect all the data they
want! It controls their minds more than it controls mine.

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johnny_and1
If you want to find out more about the project that sparked this paper you can
find it here [https://menthal.org/](https://menthal.org/)

I'm one of the researchers that works on the project.

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eli_gottlieb
Any relation to computational cognitive science?

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johnny_and1
In my opinion, psychoinformatics is just that. Now we have better tools for
data collection and analysis plus outside knowledge from computer science.
When we talk to psychologists, they have ideas that have been there for a long
time but they did not know how to actually run these experiments. We bring a
large scale view into their field. They are usually overwhelmed and we need to
guide them extensively. (I've had to specifically craft dataframes into SPSS
data file formats in a specific order for them to actually be able to work
with.)

You'll see that definitions have evolved over time. Each new wave has a new
vision based on the latest research trends and tools.

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bcaa7f3a8bbc
Computational psychology has became a thing around the same time targeting ads
and trackers became prevalent online. You may not agree with the political
opinion in this article but I think it's fascinating to read.

[https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-
propaga...](https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-
machine)

