Qualitative Research Critique Paper:
Temporal Binding: Digging Into Animals Minds Through Time Perception
The study focuses on animals and how their perceptions of time connect with their
thoughts, as suggested by the research's title. Temporal bindings are relationships between
events that humans interpret as occurring closer together in time than they do. This study makes
the case that the temporal bindings experiment may be used to investigate nonhuman animals
as well and that the findings of the temporal bindings experiment provide evidence of casual
reasoning that deviates from associative learning. They must explain and conceptually defend
a level of representation that lies somewhere between lower levels of linkages with sensory
components and higher symbolic representations to prove their argument.
The research starts with the psychophysics of time perception with a new approach to
causal cognition. It centers on the argument between psychologists and philosophers regarding
animal cognition. Furthermore, the majority of scientists agree that sharp and cognitive systems
are insufficient to account for human and animal behavior. Humans utilize causal reasoning
because it helps them understand how things are related to one another and how to plan their
activities effectively. Animals and humans can both change their behavior in response to links
even if the individual does not see them as causal. It is still an experimental question whether
a nonhuman species can experience a comparable temporal illusion just like humans. The
research proposes a suggestion for testing the binding effect in animal subjects. In the basic
experiment, the animals undergo the process of training where they are divided into two groups:
Primary and Yoked animals. The animals used in the experiment would be trained to recognize
brief and long intervals between two cues, such as the interval between the display of two tones,
T1 and T2, and the first "start" signal. If animals responded to brief intervals by going directly
to spot A instead of location B, they would receive a food reward. The reward/non-reward
locations would be switched for longer interval occurrences. The next type of experimental
design is the yoked design, where each person from the yoked control is partnered with an
animal from the primary group. The key, button, or lever given to the experimental group
remains inactive until the signal starts. Pressing it causes the first tone (T1) to be released upon
activation, and the second tone (T2) is released shortly after. The animals will receive rewards
depending on where they arrive first. The primary subjects will undergo temporal binding, and
the experiment indicates that they will produce more brief judgments than the yoked
individuals. To sum up, the primary animals can distinguish the first tone as being closer than
the second cue right away. However, because the experimental set-up variables vary depending
on the phase and subject, we cannot simply ignore them. The experimental outcome has five
possible interpretations: No binding, Same binding, and Different Binding from the primary
and yoke subject only.
Comparatively more easily than in animals, human temporal binding may be examined.
We can assign participation for the animals as well by proposing this research and experiment
and by giving theoretical justifications for explicit causal representation verifying in animals.
Additionally, this research must offer precise information and theoretical data about the people,
which serve as the experiment's animals. They must also take into account the subject animals'
limits.
Quantitative Research Critique Paper:
Solar Thermal Processing to Disinfect Human Waste
The world's population is currently approaching 8 billion people and is growing every
day. Access to well-run sanitation services is a problem for 55% of the world's population.
Most of these people come from East and Southern Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the
Caribbean, where sanitary care is dangerous and unreliable. In terms of the risk of infection,
illnesses, and environmental harm, the absence of cleanliness may result in more serious issues.
Due to a lack of resources and unaffordable pricing, rural areas will experience increasing
difficulties, particularly regarding water, sanitation services, and service gaps. The study's
authors suggest a cutting-edge Sol-Char prototype sanitation toilet system.
The topic's researchers suggest a prototype that might possibly employ engineering to
help address the issue of lack of sanitation and health risks. By using renewable energy under
specific circumstances and converting it into biochar, this unique Sol-Char prototype is utilized
to cleanse human waste. The prototype includes insulated solar thermal receivers, squat-plate
toilets, reflective parabolic solar concentrators, optical fiber bundles for delivering
concentrated sunlight for heating, and reflective parabolic solar concentrators. The use
concentrators were designed to provide enough heat to the receiver such that feces from 4 to 8
people were dried, disinfected, and potentially pyrolyzed in the daylight hours of a typical
sunny day. Utilizing concentrators enabled the drying out, disinfection process, and likely
pyrolysis of 4 to 8 people's worth of stool during the daytime hours of a typical sunny day.
Concentrated solar energy is safely sent through optical fibers from solar concentrators to a
receiver for solar thermal treatment. The prototype was built to estimate how effectively
sunlight would reach the reactor using acceptable estimations based on engineering and
theoretical facts. The use of a flat turning mirror in front of the nominal point simplified the
overall design. To lower the peak flux on the fiber bundle surface and transfer the bundle
attachment position to the back, the researchers additionally inserted a homogenizing rod into
the prototype. A 316SS solar thermal receiver is to heat the feces of 4–8 individuals per day,
or around 0.2–0.4 kilogram, by collecting concentrated sunlight using fiber optic bundles. The
receiver's inner radius was 4.78 cm, and its wall thickness was 0.31 cm. The experiment
measured the height of the feces at 15.4 cm. The expectation is that better receiver insulation
and the structure of the system will let pyrolysis produce char, and the char might be used as a
fertilizer minimizing the need for plants and wood for this purpose by burning it instead. To
test the experiment, the researchers used measured flux distribution and tracking performance,
and power measurement. In addition to providing theoretical solutions and graphs, the
researchers supplied the necessary data for the experiment. Based on the conducted experiment,
the disinfection process of the novel solar prototype can disinfect between 4 and 6 people’s
waste in 30 minutes without the use of electricity, chemical input, or added water.
One of the biggest problems we are now facing, the lack of sanitation in rural areas, is
the focus of the investigation. The use of their prototype, which efficiently disinfects human
waste, will make it possible. Despite the research's significant shortcomings, they employed
theoretical explanations to generate experimental findings. The prototype's model must also be
enhanced to provide more accurate data.
References
Allen, A. T. (2022, January 28). Temporal binding: digging into animal minds through time perception.
Retrieved from SpringerLink: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-022-03456w#rightslink
Fisher, R. P., Lewandowski , A., Tesfayohanes, Y. W., . Ward, B. J., Hafford , L. M., Mahoney , R. B., . . .
Weimer, A. W. (2021, April 21). Solar Thermal Processing to Disinfect Human Waste.
Retrieved from MDPI: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4935