Statistical learning / Learning statistics
Humans have a remarkable ability to learn from the statistics of our environments. From infancy throughout the lifespan, our responsiveness to environmental regularities allows us to effectively adapt our knowledge and behaviors.
In stark contrast, humans tend to be very bad at working with explicit representations of statistics via numbers or graphs. While these tools are intended to concisely convey precise and useful information, information illiteracy causes misunderstandings and poor decisions.
How do we bridge the gap between intention and results in information literacy and in statistics? It is a complex problem with issues ranging from education to visual perception to ethics (e.g., when is a plot or proportion “intentionally” misleading?).
For my small part, I do my best to simply be passionate about making information literacy and statistics universal topics of education and discussion in our information-rich world. Nobody should be scared of statistics because of complicated formulas or arcane rulesets.
Growth Through Mentoring
In the social and interconnected process of scientific inquiry many of the greatest opportunities arise when fostering the work of less-established researchers. I have been fortunate enough to mentor several undergraduate thesis projects and undergraduate summer research projects, and these projects have provided me the impetus for expanding my own research into areas such as perceptual adaptation and the Approximate Number System.
Aaron Cochrane 