Dave Markowitz

a cartoon of spongebob using a vacuum cleaner and iron Alt: a cartoon of spongebob using a vacuum cleaner and iron

It's August 1st.

U.S. academics on the semester system:

Meta Explains Why The Ideal VR Session Is 20-40 Minutes Meta is telling developers that the ideal VR session length with today's hardware is 20-40 minutes, and has explained its reasoning.

Looks like someone at Meta has been doing their Stanford homework.

www.uploadvr.com/meta-ideal-v...

VHIL suggests "30 minutes" for VR sessions. Robby Ratan & colleagues tested it. 30 participants met regularly over 3 months. Duration had an inverted U-shaped relationship with peer social presence. Many peaks are in the 30 minute range but varied by participant.

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

Personality activates differently depending on environmental context. Also in VR!

@davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social shows groups with extraverts excel in large spaces. Extroversion detectable by speech in platforms who can "shard" users by world size for group success.

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

!!!!

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding.

It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job.

unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

I think we did!

So THAT's where my boot went!

Five canonical findings from 30 years of psychological experimentation in virtual reality - Nature Human Behaviour This Review presents five canonical psychological research findings in virtual reality (VR) over the past three decades. These findings have been consistently replicated and are useful for both resear...

Five enduring, in-lab VR results (w/ @stanfordvr.bsky.social): (1) presence depends on activity, (2) self-avatars shape behavior, (3) VR better for procedural than abstract learning,(4) body tracking is powerful but privacy-risky, (5) people underestimate VR distance.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Five canonical findings from 30 years of psychological experimentation in virtual reality - Nature Human Behaviour This Review presents five canonical psychological research findings in virtual reality (VR) over the past three decades. These findings have been consistently replicated and are useful for both resear...

Study: "the benefit of being there [VR] depends on the activity; self-avatars influence behaviour; procedural training works better than abstract learning; body tracking makes VR unique; people underestimate distance in VR." #VirtualReality #ImmersiveLearning #EdTech

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

5 robust, replicated, & meta-analyzed findings from 30 years of psych research in VR. Timeline of events in experiment history, recommendations for consumers & scholars new to the medium, and the DICE model on when to use (and not use) VR.

@nathumbehav.nature.com

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

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We’re thrilled to feature two keynote speakers who are shaping the field:
🗣️ The Mohrmann Lecture: Dr. Dana Mastro from UCSB (@ucsantabarbara.bsky.social)
📣 Conference Keynote: Dr. David Markowitz (@davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social) from MSU (@msucomartsci.bsky.social)

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This year’s theme — Media, Health, and Society — brings together 53 unique research presentations on topics including AI and algorithmic influence, social media and well-being, information integrity, and public health communication.

A pair of black over-ear headphones placed over three upright books—one beige, one pink, and one blue—against a beige background, visually representing the concept of audiobooks.

🧵/
The 2025 Comm Horizons Conference (communication.ucdavis.edu/horizonconf2...) is almost here! From May 16–18, UC Davis will host scholars from around the world to explore how media, health, and society intersect across lifespans and diverse communities @ucdavis.bsky.social @ucdlands.bsky.social

Congratulations to psychologists Rich Petty, Phoebe Ellsworth, BJ Casey, Jamie Pennebaker, & Alison Gopnik on their election to the National Academy of Sciences today!!

Who speaks next?

@PortiaWang.bsky.social analyzed a VR dataset of 77 sessions, 1660 minutes of group meetings over 4 weeks. Verbal & nonverbal history captured at millisecond level predicted turn-taking at nearly 30% over chance. To appear @acm-cscw.bsky.social.

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

James Pennebaker and the Power of Physical Markers in Social Research APS’s incoming president describes the lessons and impacts of his research in social psychology.

Meet James Pennebaker, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who is set to become APS's next president later this year. Read more to discover how Pennebaker describes the lessons and impact of his research in social psychology.

Frontiers | From silicon to solutions: AI's impending impact on research and discovery The social sciences have long relied on comparative work as the foundation upon which we understand the complexities of human behavior and society. However, ...

With all of the big announcements about AI-facilitated scientific research, like OpenAI's Deep Research and Google's AI co-scientist, it appears as though our thinky-piece on AI in the research process might be worth a re-read: www.frontiersin.org/journals/soc...

This was such a fun and informative project between @stanfordvr.bsky.social and me. We can learn a lot about a field through large-scale literature overviews facilitated by NLP and LLMs. Check out the paper in Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking! www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...

Three books, colored yellow, red, and blue, between a pair of over-the-ear headphones.

🚨 Join us for #CommHorizons25, hosted by the Department of Communication @ucdavis.bsky.social!

Theme: Media, Health, & Society: Exploring Wellbeing Across Lifespans & Diverse Communities

Keynotes: Drs. Dana Mastro & @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social.

Info: communication.ucdavis.edu/horizonconf2...

Screen capture of the manuscript’s first page. Includes the journal name, article title, author, and abstract.

Outgoing EIC Sungeun Chung reflects on communication science’s growth in publications and impact but questions its overall cumulative progress. For the field to advance—they argue—we need: greater theoretical refinement, critical debate, and careful integration + synthesis doi.org/10.20879/acr...

12/7/2024 -- Songs & Stories with my good pal, Steve DeMaria. This night of community, music, friendship, and reflection was one of the most meaningful experiences I have ever had. Many thanks to all who joined! Here's a small glimpse into the night, with videos to come soon.

Hey, it's finally up! I'm hiring a postdoctoral researcher for our new and growing computational social science lab! If you're passionate about Computational Social Science, Social/Personality Psychology, and AI/NLP, don't be shy — apply! jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/28227

Hang this in the louvre.

It seems like many people have migrated to #commsky! I hope this becomes an inviting, fun, and thoughtful community. If people on here happen to also be at #nca24, please say hi!

It seems like many people have migrated to #commsky! I hope this becomes an inviting, fun, and thoughtful community. If people on here happen to also be at #nca24, please say hi!

Numbers Are Persuasive—If Used in Moderation Despite high levels of innumeracy and math anxiety, people often appreciate numeric data

Numbers Are Persuasive—If Used in Moderation

Despite innumeracy/math anxiety, people often appreciate numbers

Thanks to @davenussbaum.bsky.social and Daisy Yuhas for great advice on this new piece with @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social

www.scientificamerican.com/article/numb...

From complexity to clarity: How AI enhances perceptions of scientists and the public's understanding of science Abstract. This article evaluated the effectiveness of using generative AI to simplify science communication and enhance the public's understanding of scien

New research in PNAS Nexus reveals that AI like GPT4 can simplify scientific writing, improving public understanding of science and perceptions of scientists. When AI crafts lay summaries, readers grasp content better and view scientists as more credible.

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ad...

Readers prefer to click on a clear, simple headline − like this one Typical news readers prefer news headlines with simple language over more complex wording.

Bad: The simpler-writing heuristic posits that in competitive information environments readers choose simpler headlines, confirmed by large-scale experimental evidence

Good: Readers prefer to click on a clear, simple headline
(by @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social and collaborators) #journalismsky

2.5 lies per minute seemed high to me, so I asked a friend who is a deception expert how this compares to other data. Apparently, research on this topic tends to find that people lie 1-2 times *per day* so this rate is...high.

More here: "Lying in everyday life"
psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-...