The Behavioral and Social Sciences Achievements and Opportunities (1988) / Chapter Skim
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7. Raising the Scientific Yield
7. Raising the Scientific Yield
Pages 237-250
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From page 237... ...
7 Raising the ScientiLc Yield
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From page 239... ...
We recommend that the initiatives and resources we call for be implemented within 3 to 4 years. RESEARCH FRONTIERS Behavior, Mind, and Brain Three major developments have propelled new inquiries into the connections among behavior, mind, and brain: improved observations on the course of individual human growth, exploration of the relationship between the information-processing capabilities of humans and machines, and further discoveries of biological and behavioral commonalities between humans and other animals.
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From page 240... ...
Neurophysiological studies of the brain, investigations of sign language, and comparative studies of grammatical structures have yielded rich findings on the genetic foundations of language, the association of language functions with particular brain areas, and the formal properties of language. New advances are also evident in the computer recognition and production of language.
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From page 241... ...
We note several areas of particular interest, ferment, and advance concerning affective and social contexts of behavior: · How have emotional and motivational processes driven human development, human behavior, and human evolution? Advances have been made in pinpointing the neural bases of such motivations as hunger and sex, as well as predatory and defensive fighting.
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From page 242... ...
Increases in the amount of investigator-initiated research are needed to sustain and advance quality research, as are additional resources for doctoral and postdoctoral support, interdisciplinary programs of research, and advanced technical workshops and seminars. Choice and Allocation Research on the mechanisms of choice and allocation ranges over politics, organizational relations, and economic phenomena.
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From page 243... ...
There is also more extensive use of newly devised laboratory experiments for studying the impact of contractual and market rules, behavior under uncertainty, and other topics; this development calls for more appropriate laboratory facilities. While instrumentation needs are probably not as extensive for these research areas as for others, there is great need for upgrading computational hardware and for software development.
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From page 244... ...
Methods of Data Collection, Representation, and Analysis Methodological advances play a special role in the generation of behavioral and social sciences knowledge. Sometimes these advances arise in the struggle to solve difficult substantive research problems; sometimes they involve separate discoveries; sometimes they involve selective borrowing of techniques from elsewhere; and sometimes they arise as new and better sources of data permit new and more sophisticated techniques to be tried.
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From page 245... ...
Several mechanisms are of central importance: investigator-initiated grants, which are the locus of many methodological innovations; summer institutes, colloquia, seminars, and postdoctoral study, where scientists can be exposed to methodological developments in their specialties and to the methods appropriate to their new lines of research; and more powerful computational resources, which are key to further methodological advances. RECOMMENDED NEW RESOURCES The character of research covered in this report is varied, but all scientific work retains much in common.
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From page 246... ...
Behavior, Mind, Contexts Choice Institutions and of and and Type of Resources Brain Behavior Allocation Cultures Methods Total Human resources Predoctoral support Postdoctoral fellowships 3 Advanced training institutes Research workshops Technological resources Neuroimaging devices Animal care I aboratory technology Computers and software Data resources Access to federal data Access to other data New data 44 2 2 1 2 3 10 3 1 _ 6 1 18 7 1 1 3 3 1 9 S1 2 2 4 12 5 2 1 - 20 7 ~ 4 ~ 4 22 SO 4 4 8 2 collections S 15 12 8 40 Research centers 4 9 4 7 1 2S Investigator initiated grants 20 13 20 13 4 70 Total 61 56 56 51 16 240 degree programs, but to direct the best students' efforts much more intensively toward research training. At the postdoctoral level, we recommend an additional $18 million annually in support to be directed to all levels, from new PhDs to senior career awards.
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Data Resources The role of extended data collections in advancing knowledge is a significant feature of behavioral and social sciences research. Such collections are most often acquired and maintained under research auspices and protocols, but a large contribution has been made by researchers using public and private statistical files and historical archives generated primarily or originally for administrative or other nonscientific purposes.
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From page 248... ...
At the international level, new data collection initiatives are recommended on international economic transactions, migration, shifts in religious participation, and other processes parallel to ones under intensive study in the United States (Chapter 43. The new data collections should be based principally on sample survey methods, but the value of these core collections can be greatly enriched by incorporation of research efforts using ethnographic, archival, and field experimental methods.
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From page 249... ...
We recommend that the National Science Foundation and other funding agencies encourage the fusion rather than the separation of research on natural and artificial intelligence. We recommend staff increases in grant programs commensurate with the research initiatives proposed here, since the management and facilitation of interdisciplinary research demand more internal staff work, and such research is differentially threatened by staff reductions or individual grant-load increases.
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From page 250... ...
It is clearly weighted heavily toward what is usually classified as basic research, and the most favorable opportunities lie more in some portfolios than in others. We estimate that the National Science Foundation should account for about $60 million of the new funding, and the National Institutes of Health and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration should receive about $80 million, with the rest divided among other departments and agencies and private sources.
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