Inconvenient samples: Modeling the effects of non-consent by coupling observational and experimental results

Yue Yu, Elizabeth Bonawitz, Patrick Shafto

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Biased sampling of participants presents a major limiting factor for the generalizability of findings from behavioral studies. This effect may be especially pronounced in developmental studies, where parents serve as both the primary environmental input and decide whether their child participates in a study. To estimate the effects of parental non-consent, we coupled naturalistic observations of parent-child interactions with a behavioral test. Results showed that one particular parenting practice, the tendency to use questions to teach, associated with both children's behavior in the test and parents' tendencies to participate. Exploiting these associations with a model-based multiple imputation, we estimated that the means of the consented and not-consented groups could differ as much as 0.2 standard deviations for five of the seven test measurements we used, and standard deviations are likely underestimated. These results suggest that ignoring the role of consent may lead to systematic biases when generalizing beyond lab samples.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationCogSci 2017 - Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Subtitle of host publicationComputational Foundations of Cognition
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages1406-1411
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196760
StatePublished - 2017
Event39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Computational Foundations of Cognition, CogSci 2017 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: Jul 26 2017Jul 29 2017

Publication series

NameCogSci 2017 - Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Computational Foundations of Cognition

Conference

Conference39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Computational Foundations of Cognition, CogSci 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period7/26/177/29/17

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Keywords

  • exploration
  • generalization
  • learning
  • multiple imputation
  • parent-child interaction
  • sampling

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