Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

  Where are we now? The Turing Test, originally called the "Imitation Game," is a concept proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 to address the question, "Can machines think?". Instead of trying to define the complex notion of "thinking," Turing suggested a practical test to determine whether a machine could exhibit behavior indistinguishable from that of a human (Vation Ventures.com). How it works Participants: Three individuals participate: The Interrogator (Judge): A human whose goal is to determine which of the other two participants is human and which is a machine. Human Participant: A human who aims to convince the interrogator that they are human. Machine Participant: A computer program that strives to imitate human conversation and responses so effectively that the interrogator cannot reliably distinguish it from the human participant. Communication : All three participants are isolated from each other and communicate solely through a text-based interf...

  Can the practice of gratitude actually improve mental health? Many studies extol the benefits of expressing gratitude. What’s different about this study by Joel Wong and his colleagues are the participants. All of them were psychotherapy patients. The research question: Would gratitude writing add value to psychotherapy?   The patients All 293 volunteers were young adults having an average age of 22 and the youngest were age 18. Most were women (65%). And most identified as “White/European.” They were seeking psychotherapy services at a university. The plan The researchers randomly assigned the patients to one of three groups. 1. Gratitude Letter writing and Psychotherapy . In three gratitude sessions, the participants wrote letters of thanks to people—most wrote to friends, mothers, and fathers. They had the option to send their letters or not—23% sent a letter. 2. Expressive Writing and Psychotherapy . In their sessions, the expressive writing group wrote...