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The cognitive costs of air pollution

patrickcollison.com

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Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#181

Post by learc83 »

georgeburdell wrote: post #146
learc83 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>does not make the test itself invalid for comparison across cultures If you can't accurately quantify the cultural component, then yes it does. >Claims that basic pattern recognition is somehow not a valid means of assessment across cultures are dubious at best. Basic pattern recognition isn't the only thing that's being measured--that's the problem. Even something as simple as how often a student has been exposed t…

If it’s the best thing we have, then it’s worth using. You are proposing no alternative.

If you have only one poll with an unknown margin of error and it shows Candidate A at 51 and Candidate B at 49, then assuming Candidate A is winning just because it's the best thing we have is worse than just admitting we don't know.

Wrong information is often worse than no information.

That's one of the problems with PISA results. Policy makers look at other countries with higher scores and try to emulate them without understanding why their scores are higher. In that case it's just cargo culting education.

This doesn't mean that standardized testing is completely useless, but you have to know the limitations, and comparing results between cultures is one of the limitations.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#182

Post by H8crilA »

yagurastation wrote: post #122

Anyone interested should also check out the open source citizen science project https://luftdaten.info/en/ Build your own inexpensive sensor, contribute to the global network. See also https://github.com/opendata-stuttgart

Sorry for a pointless post, but this project gives me the CCC vibes. Y'all should attend one day, it's brilliant! In fact it's so rich in things and hacker exhibitions that you don't even have to go to the talks!

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#183

Post by ghufran_syed »

I think this is an important question to answer, but the shehab paper (the first link) provides vertically no useful information. They didn't blind the assessors carrying out the cognitive studies, which on its own invalidates their conclusion. They also didn't randomize the ordering, but appear to have "investigated for order effects", found "no statistically robust difference", then proceeded to have every participant do the "post exposure" test second, making it highly likely that fatigue alone could explain their effects. With only 30 subjects, their tests for ordering effects are likely underpowered.

Also note that they did 11 different tests, but didn't appear to correct for multiple comparisons [1]

This would be a really interesting problem to study, but you'd probably want to look at academic performance in college students before and after transfer between universities e.g urban vs rural (presuming you can measure differences in pollution) between the two, you'd expect to see a relative drop in academic performance going from rural to urban, now that would worry me. But this study is unhelpful.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_comparisons_problem

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#184

Post by stevenwoo »

zachkatz wrote: post #168
734129837261 wrote: post #160

From Western Europe I moved to Mexico City. I work and live here now, and this city suffers intense amounts of pollution almost every day. When you take an Uber somewhere they all drive with their windows open (airco's are expensive to run) and you get the full blast of diesel trucks and older cars' fumes. I came here for a girl. I'm leaving because of pollution. The city is amazing in its own right, but I feel like…

Damn, I’m about to go to Mexico City—was planning to stay for a few months, but I hate dirty air. Is it like that all over the city, or just certain parts?

I stayed for a week for work ( lot of traffic that seemed typical after walking around, San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico City, Federal District) in mornings when I awoke and blew my nose into paper tissue it was dark with the dirt? filtered by I guess my nose/respiratory system. This has never happened to me in Northern California or living near downtown Houston/Austin, Texas.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#185

Post by Baeocystin »

cameldrv wrote: post #83
rahuldottech wrote: post #17

This really bothers me. I live in a VERY polluted place, and unfortunately moving away won't be an option for me for at least half a decade. What can I do to minimise the health effects of such an atmosphere? I'm planning on getting an indoor air filter for my home.

Buy a cheap PM detector (There are a few on Amazon using the Plantower sensor that are ~$50.) Buy any HEPA air filter for your home. Buy the best cabin air filter you can for your car (Bosch makes HEPA filters for some cars), and try to get your office to install something, or just buy one for your desk. The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more tha…

As an aside, I recently bought a car that has a cabin air filter, a first for me. I am genuinely surprised at how much of a difference it makes, especially on air quality alert days. (I live in the Bay Area, which isn't too bad, but we've had plenty of Spare the Air alerts this year.)

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#186

Post by WalterBright »

amelius wrote: post #169
WalterBright wrote: post #149

> "Exposure to CO2 and VOCs at levels found in conventional office buildings was associated with lower cognitive scores than those associated with levels of these compounds found in a Green building." – Allen et al 2016. The effect seems to kick in at around 1,000 ppm of CO2. The last time this came up I bought a CO2 meter for my office. I was quite surprised how often it went over 1,000. Outside air runs around 450.…

Perhaps when we commit code, we should have a script that adds "this code was written at x ppm CO2" to the commit message :)

I learned long ago to not even try to write code when I'm above a certain threshold of tiredness. I just have to tear it all out again after a night's sleep.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#187

Post by WalterBright »

amelius wrote: post #167
WalterBright wrote: post #149

> "Exposure to CO2 and VOCs at levels found in conventional office buildings was associated with lower cognitive scores than those associated with levels of these compounds found in a Green building." – Allen et al 2016. The effect seems to kick in at around 1,000 ppm of CO2. The last time this came up I bought a CO2 meter for my office. I was quite surprised how often it went over 1,000. Outside air runs around 450.…

Curious, did you notice the cognitive effect yourself?

No. But I do notice I think better when jogging - whether that is due to fresh air outside or increased blood flow, who knows. Probably both.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#188

Post by WalterBright »

pastor_elm wrote: post #178
WalterBright wrote: post #149

> "Exposure to CO2 and VOCs at levels found in conventional office buildings was associated with lower cognitive scores than those associated with levels of these compounds found in a Green building." – Allen et al 2016. The effect seems to kick in at around 1,000 ppm of CO2. The last time this came up I bought a CO2 meter for my office. I was quite surprised how often it went over 1,000. Outside air runs around 450.…

I see low CO2 spaces becoming the next big thing for the privileged classes as CO2 levels rise. Weworks of the future will be advertising this as a definite selling point. Mansions with scrubbers getting it down to 200ppm

Opening a window works fine.

I recall reading once that the health of poorer people was better one or two hundred years ago because poorer people ate cheap food - i.e. vegetables - rather than a meat-heavy diet.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#189

Post by baroffoos »

novok wrote: post #145
umvi wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow, that must be a German project; Germany has nearly 100% coverage, the USA has almost none. I was expecting China and India to be dark purple

If you want a more international / american version, check out purple air: https://www2.purpleair.com/

Is purple air the proprietary version?

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#190

Post by admiral33 »

H8crilA wrote: post #182
yagurastation wrote: post #122

Anyone interested should also check out the open source citizen science project https://luftdaten.info/en/ Build your own inexpensive sensor, contribute to the global network. See also https://github.com/opendata-stuttgart

Sorry for a pointless post, but this project gives me the CCC vibes. Y'all should attend one day, it's brilliant! In fact it's so rich in things and hacker exhibitions that you don't even have to go to the talks!

What is CCC? Searching brings up many things.
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