Fritz - Curtin Old vs New test - why I don't trust it

[JohnCockburn]

Surely you mean "enjoyed" and not "suffered thru"?

[Carl Stross]

You don't have to have suffered thru a course of statistical analysis to understand that a violinist who can correctly identify 5 of 6 is doing a whole lot better than chance! 

 

Not in this study. In this study, the people around him drag him down until he's as bad as them.

And no, this was not a joke. 

[James M. Jones]

You don't have to have suffered thru a course of statistical analysis to understand that a violinist who can correctly identify 5 of 6 is doing a whole lot better than chance! 

as a singular yes one of the people involved was better than chance  ...but, not as a group. and a group was what was being studied. the question asked was not if it was possible by someone to tell or not ,but rather, on the whole, if Old were preferred for tonal reasons over new....

Remember...the old chestnut is that Old are better...Not some old or some very rare persons are able to....  

[James M. Jones]

Not in this study. In this study, the people around him drag him down until he's as bad as them.

And no, this was not a joke. 

How do you know it was a HE? If you want to pick nit's....

 We could also say thank gawd he/she  was there, otherwise ...they would have done less than chance.unless ,giving even less fuel for your fire.

[JohnCockburn]

Are we not done with this now?

[Will L]

How do you know it was a "he/or she?"  Today, we can't be TOO politically correct— must cover all the bases!!!  HE/SHE/IT(AND EXCUSE ME FOR ANYONE WHO MAY FEEL LEFT OUT) may be more inclusive.  It takes a lot of time to write every time we want to say "he" which should equal "all personsordaughters," all chairmenorwomenorwomenorwomen..."  Whew!  But in the long run, it will be worth the heorheroic effort.   By ther way, who put ther "he in "the"? 

[David Burgess]

 

There should be no reason to suspect that violinists can separate out violins effectively or efficiently, especially in the time they were given, and in fact most people who do adjustments and sales of violins will tell you that--it's common knowledge in the field, from observation.

 

If I believed that, I reckon I could be saving a lot of time during the making process by paying less attention to sound and playability.

[apartmentluthier]

If a "top soloist" is able tell the difference between old and new, then they naturally would approach the market for an instrument accordingly.  If they can't, then they are free to chose whatever.  Seems like everybody wins.  Why such a bone of contention?  

[AtlVcl]

Mr. Jones,

It may well be that "it was a group that was being studied."  I, however, specifically said "a violinist", which, of necessity, is singular.   If a singular violinist can pick the proper instrument 5 times out of 6, my contention is correct, i.e., a lot better than chance. You could shorten the life of this thread by not changing the argument around to suit your own conclusions.

[Carl Stross]

Mr. Jones,

It may well be that "it was a group that was being studied."  I, however, specifically said "a violinist", which, of necessity, is singular.   If a singular violinist can pick the proper instrument 5 times out of 6, my contention is correct, i.e., a lot better than chance. You could shorten the life of this thread by not changing the argument around to suit your own conclusions.

 

Larry, this study was so wondrously conceived that it can NOT detect a violinist who gets 5/6 from the group. 

[Torbjörn Zethelius]

People, you are going in circles. This thread is dead.

[Carl Stross]

People, you are going in circles. This thread is dead.

 

Then what are you doing here ?

[Jacob]

Thank you for your suggestion I understand and accept there are things I do not know. That does not mean I do not know anything. I don't think David Burgess or Michael Darnton will mind as long as you do it civilized and you actually say something beside "You are wrong".

 

CIVILIZED????

[Jacob]

My apologies for the dan_s_ation of my previous post. (See post #259)

[Carl Stross]

CIVILIZED????

 

What is the problem ? Are you on the wrong thread maybe ?

[martin swan]

People, you are going in circles. This thread is dead.

Generally it's possible to sustain a thread for a few more pages with the use of FORUM EMPHATIC CAPITALS

Failing that, mentioning Mengele usually works (or did someone do that already) ...

[dan_s]

Generally it's possible to sustain a thread for a few more pages with the use of FORUM EMPHATIC CAPITALS

Failing that, mentioning Mengele usually works (or did someone do that already) ...

 

Or Hitler, or Stalin. Or the easy one : you on MN .

[Jacob]

Mr. Jones,

It may well be that "it was a group that was being studied."  I, however, specifically said "a violinist", which, of necessity, is singular.   If a singular violinist can pick the proper instrument 5 times out of 6, my contention is correct, i.e., a lot better than chance. You could shorten the life of this thread by not changing the argument around to suit your own conclusions.

 

Surprise, surprise.

 

Yet another one who doesn't understand statistics, despite the exhaustive efforts in this thread towards education and elucidation.

 

For you, it works like this: you believe that grass is green (which can be true according to season). Somebody else says: "the sky is blue". You counter: "I disagree: GRASS IS GREEN!!"

 

How does one conduct a discourse with a rabid wasp?

[Jacob]

What is the problem ? Are you on the wrong thread maybe ?

 If you don't get what I'm getting at, no wonder you don't get the point of the reseach about which this thread is (or was).

 

Post #259.

 

Does it make sense for that poster to exhort anybody else to act in a "civilized" manner?

 

That is my "problem" - anonymous non-entities acting out from behind bushes which cannot hide their ignorance and arrogance.

 

How does that suit you?

[not telling]

People, you are going in circles. This thread is dead.

Clearly it is just getting good. I'm gonna make some popcorn and have a beer and watch.

Go team rabid wasp!

Eta...I agree, this thread probably should just be done. Considering it's in all probability ( nyuk nyuk) no longer about the study.

[Jacob]

Claudia,

 

I can not speak for others but I did sit down and thought what would be wrong with that approach. NOTHING is wrong with that approach.

EVERYTHING is wrong with your approach because this is NOT a coin flipping situation. You must PROVE it is. You ASSUMED it to be and without that assumption you could not have drawn the conclusion (?) you drew. 

 

Even with your assumption, you printed the WRONG conclusion to the data. You should have wrote :

 

"Our study COULD NOT show that the soloists are UNABLE to distinguish new from old"

 

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU CLAIM TO HAVE FOUND, IS IT NOT ????

 

It is NOT that " players failed to distinguish new from old at better than chance levels" as you recklessly wrote, it is that your

study could NOT show it. It also could not show they CAN.   The only logical step then was to avoid SENSATIONALIST conclusions.  

 

WHY then write things like :

 

"Soloists...were unable to tell old from new"    or

"the data clearly demonstrates the inability of the players to reliably guess an instrument's age"     or

"first rate soloists ...are unable to distinguish old from new at better than chance levels"  ( Sig Stat )   or

"Soloists failed to distinguish new from old at better than chance levels"  ( abstract )

 

 

 Just for the record, in case it's too much trouble to look up post #259 - here it is.

[Carl Stross]

 If you dont' get what I'm getting at, no wonder you don't get the point of the reseach about which this thread is (or was).

 

 

 

Jacob, what makes you believe that your nonsensical rants would measure one's ability to understand how a statistical model fits a question ?

[martin swan]

I was a participant in part 3 of this experiment in which, for those who haven't watched the video or read any of Claudia or Fan Tao's posts, a large number of professionals (players, dealers, collectors, makers) were also called upon to make a new vs. old judgment, along with more relevant judgments about projection, and about whether particular players sounded better on their own instrument or on an instrument which was unfamiliar to them. We will hear about that in due course, and hopefully everything will make a bit more sense.

I think it's important to see day 1 of this experiment in the larger context of the experiment as a whole. Some baseline player preferences were established, which would then be measured against acoustic data for the instruments, and the divinations of this much larger group of listeners assessing the violins in an orchestral context.

The issue of whether one soloist was able to tell old violins from new violins is not what the experiment as a whole was about, and is, I think most would agree, a fruitless sidetrack. 

The part which interested me was to do with projection.

I took myself along to this experiment because it was an unmissable opportunity to learn something.

I thought I would learn about myself - I suppose I hoped I could tell an old violin from a new one. I suppose I also hoped to discover whether Strads had particular powers of projection (I've edited this bit, I think I genuinely had an open mind on the matter, and would have been happy to discover a truth either way).

Amusingly, in relation to the first, Claudia knows the answer (since she can look at my results) but I don't.

Actually I learnt about violins instead.

In a nutshell, out of all the violins we auditioned, there was one violin in which the E string didn't really cut through against an orchestra, and there was one violin with an unusually strong presence. But they were all plenty good enough for the purpose, and in my view the remaining instruments were interchangeable. The quality of the playing and the sound of each player over-rode all other considerations.

There was a fantastic spread of cakes afterwards, described inimitably by Christophe Landon as the "concurrence des tartes". They appeared to have been submitted by friends and supporters rather as the violins had been.

I think everyone felt it was easier to have a preference about the cakes than about the violins!

[Carl Stross]

Eta...I agree, this thread probably should just be done. Considering it's in all probability ( nyuk nyuk) no longer about the study.

 

You are probably right. But not absolutely sure. There seems to be people like you still having something to say.

[Carl Stross]

 

In a nutshell, out of all the violins we auditioned, there was one violin in which the E string didn't really cut through against an orchestra, and there was one violin with an unusually strong presence. But they were all plenty good enough for the purpose, and in my view the remaining instruments were interchangeable. The quality of the playing over-rode all other considerations.

 

 

Thank you Martin, that must've been very instructive indeed and an unique opportunity. I am quite sure overall the benefits of the study will far outweigh the shortcomings. Actually one really serious shortcoming. Not too much in the big picture.