Fandom to researchers: We are not your lab rats

by Yonmei

The problem people have who decide to “study fandom”, if they do not do sufficient prior research, is that they frequently underestimate fannish intelligence.

A pair of “cognitive neuroscientists”, ink barely wet on their PhDs, decide that online slash fandom is the perfect place to run an untested, untried, unreviewed survey to get material for a book deal for Dutton (a subsidiary of Penguin) about “how the Internet reveals new insights into some of the oldest circuits in our brain which control romantic attraction and sexual behavior”. [Update: this thread discusses in some detail the serious ethical issues raised by the way in which Drs Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam are conducting their research.] They launch the survey three days ago (29th August) after about a month’s prep work (apparently the book contract was signed in August), and…

Back a month or so ago, they had contacted some acafen: Shaggirl and Doctor Science. These acafen pointed out to them some key problems in their plan, not least that the title of their book is going to be Rule 34: What Netporn Teaches Us About The Brain, and many slash fans will find the use of “netporn” to describe what they write … dubious. (Update: also, from their literary agent’s website, the book deal is already made and the book will be published in 2010, which suggests that their claim to be doing “research” is wholly dubious: they would have had to have already written up their conclusions, not setting out to gather fresh data, if they plan to publish next year.)

The neuroscientists pay enough attention at least to know that they’d better not mention the title of their book from now on. They PM’d the maintainers of Kink_Bingo, Eruthros and Thingswithwings. Eruthros posts about how that went here. Their final rejoinder to the fresh neuroscientists:

It is obvious that we disagree on first principles. We do not believe, as you believe, in the existence of a “unified fabric of human desire” – a term you use several times, and that we assume isn’t yet another unfortunately awkward and hasty choice of phrase. We believe that the attempt to scientifically create something called a unified fabric of human desire is a creepy, undesirable, potentially harmful project. Directly harmful to people like us – fangirls, kinky people, queer people. We believe that othering is inevitable in your project, not because of some made-up “primal stage,” but because of the manner in which you conduct your investigation, the assumptions you have already made about the terms and subjects you are discussing, and the manner in which your particular branch of science is conducted generally.

The researchers do not pay attention to this either. On 29th August, they post the survey (I’m getting this date from the brand-new livejournal they set up for their survey.)

And some fans do start trying to reply to it. I found out this survey existed in a couple of posts on my friends-list yesterday, a signal boost with lots of links from Shoshanna, and a couple of posts from Slashpine, one of which linked to some rather unkind commentary on specific survey questions, as in How many kinds of fail in this question? Or, Are You Smarter Than A Neuroscientist?.

But quite soon after the survey is posted, a lot of fans start posting reminders and warnings to other fans that they shouldn’t take this survey because the neuroscientists appear to be (a) inethical (b) inexperienced (c) ignorant (d) hard of listening (e) stupid enough to imagine that they’re smarter than the fans they’re “researching”: it appears that while citing credentials from Boston University, they didn’t bother to do their Human Subjects Protection Training, required by Boston University before this kind of research can be carried out, and:

jonquil intends to inquire about the academic standing of this survey

Boston University to find out if these gentlemen ran the “survey” through their Institutional Review Board for research techniques on human subjects; it seems doubtful. There’s no evidence in his research vita that Dr. [Ogi] Ogas has done work based on human surveys before; his assistant, Dr. Sai Gaddam, is a new graduate with research focus on “modeling of physiologically plausible neural models of vision and memory”. I am particularly angry here because there are standards for what questions you can ask human subjects, most particularly for the security and integrity of the resulting data; a URL of fanficsurvey.appspot.com does not inspire confidence that the latter concerns were even considered.

The survey has been “temporarily shut down” (one of the posts for commenting on the questions has over 400 comments) but somehow, I don’t think it’s ever going to re-open. Or that anyone will respond if it does. (Update: metaroundup has more links.)

Intelligence does not merely measure IQ: intelligence is the ability to communicate and to make use of information. Anyone smart enough to successfully do scientific research inside fandom will be perfectly aware that fandom will likewise be researching them. Those cognitive neuroscientists with the book deal may have thought they were studying fannish lab rats… but I think they have just found out they were themselves running the maze.

DeadlyChamelon writes, 2nd September:

I called the Boston University IRB office. The direct approach works.

They’ve gotten a lot of emails regarding Dr. Ogas. He is no longer in any way affiliated with Boston University, except as a recent graduate. They have asked him to stop using his official Boston University email address in connection with this project, or his website. He is officially on his own, and this project is NOT IRB APPROVED.

That is the official status as stated by the Boston University IRB office.

The problem with this is threefold:

1. The researcher has no expertise in the area he is researching, nor has he recruited anyone to give him guidance.

2. The researcher has substantial profit motivation to produce work in this area (book contract with Penguin) which may lead to unethical conduct/a tendency to misrepresent his results.

3. The research is in no way overseen by any external body which can examine it for potential unethical conduct.

In addition to all of these, the researchers have now alienated their participant population, who are now very likely to become unreliable participants.

The only way to salvage the study at this point, I believe, would be for them to change it to an observational one.

ETA: if you want to share, please repost with attribution, that way people don’t have to click through to get the information. If people need to contact me, they’re certainly free to do so, but I’d like the discussion to spread out.

Also, all comments here are based on the information I had at the time of posting – if it turns out to be inaccurate, my deepest apologies. My statements regarding the problems with this research are based on my personal opinions, and should be taken as such.

ETA 2: I need to do other things for awhile, so I apologize if comments go unanswered. I should add that the IRB stated they contacted Dr. Ogas, and confirmed that this was indeed his project (they also gave him some basic methodological suggestions, despite the fact that he’s no longer affiliated). They claim he’s been very receptive to their suggestions. I say this just to confirm that YES THIS IS HIS PROJECT, and probably not a case of stolen identity.

- More blogging by Yonmei at http://yonmei.insanejournal.com

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