The sample size is too small to be definitive. But that could be fixed by doing the same tests in smartphone voice recognition programs and providing the results to advertisers. Facebook probably has enough information already to recognize cannabis users.
Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
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Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#52> Subtle differences in speech timing, vocal effort, and voice quality may exist between cannabis and control groups, however data remain equivocal.
Sorry but this is straight up goofy. Stoners maybe sound a little different subjectively sometimes in a subtle way but scientists can’t prove it?
Who is this information for? What is the purpose of this?
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
"To point out the absurdity of this study using only 31 users with varying degrees of other types of drug use, as well as measuring some highly subjective metric, " This is the reason he does not like the study.
That is the reason they gave publicly, not the reason they don't like the study. The study used participants without a history of other drug use. And having the effect appear with only 31 randomly sampled users means the effect is easy to detect. This is a normal number of participants for this sort of study. You see this sort of motivated reaction to a study every time there is one that triggers a population.
" You see this sort of motivated reaction to a study every time there is one that triggers a population. "
This is true, but in both directions.
Because unlike you said, they actually only tested 31 cannabis users against a controll group of 40. And found that maybe subtle differences exist.
"Speech samples were collected from a carefully described cohort of 31 adults with a history of cannabis use (but not use of illicit stimulant drugs) and 40 non-drug-using controls."
"Subtle differences in speech timing, vocal effort, and voice quality may exist between cannabis and control groups, however data remain equivocal"
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#54Reminds me of Bem’s ESP research.
https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/06/daryl-bem-prove...
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#55Wow, is it really normal to publish results from such small sample sizes? This feels like tossing dice and publishing the result.
Yeah. There are other tricks to make a tiny n seem more relevant, like making the relevant (tiny) n a subset of a bigger sample, taking many separate samples from different populations and looking for correlations in them separately, and so on. Trust the science.*
*Whereas science is defined as getting a certain score in an abstract statistics game.
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#56The way America’s legalization effort has progressed has been really unfortunate. It seems as though no attempt at finding a middle ground was made, and consequently we wound up with complete legalization. Marijuana is an addictive highly potent mood altering substance that’s become available on demand with no real discussion about the consequences. Will anyone argue that having 15% of the otherwise young and product…
Comments like this remind me why I avoid this place
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#57The title seems like a stretch since they then go on to say, "Audio samples were analysed objectively using acoustic analysis for measures of timing, vocal control, and quality. Subtle differences in speech timing, vocal effort, and voice quality may exist between cannabis and control groups, however data remain equivocal." "After controlling for lifetime alcohol and tobacco use and applying a false discovery rate, o…
I feel like it’s more of a culture thing. You spend time with people who talk a certain way because of X reason and then you pick up their way of talking over time. This sounds like someone’s half assed attempt at a disertation for their graduate degree
Would be interesting to see a study comparing «lifestyle stoners» who surround themself with the culture and other smokers, to people who use cannabis, but does not identify with the stoner culture.
(Although I suspect this might be an oversimplified dichotomy)
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#58Others have pointed out the flaws in this study. I want to add: at first blush, the basic premise seems plausible on its face. I bet I'd be able to pick out many long-time regular cannabis consumers (of whom I'm one) based on audio recordings of their conversational voice.
> based on audio recordings of their conversational voice
While they are high??
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#59The title seems like a stretch since they then go on to say, "Audio samples were analysed objectively using acoustic analysis for measures of timing, vocal control, and quality. Subtle differences in speech timing, vocal effort, and voice quality may exist between cannabis and control groups, however data remain equivocal." "After controlling for lifetime alcohol and tobacco use and applying a false discovery rate, o…
The sample size was also 31 users, 40 controls. This really isn't a meaningful result.
I don't really participate in scientific literature or journals, but I see a lot of notes in HN around papers that appear to be overblowing the significance of their findings.
Is there a way for researchers to publish 'interesting observations' as just that, something that they measured that may or may not be noteworthy but felt worth sharing with the broader community?
Re: Adults with history of recreational cannabis use have altered speech production
#60Is recreational cannabis somehow different than medical cannabis? Why specifically mention "recreational" at all instead of just cannabis itself? If you're taking it medically and in a comparable quantity/frequency, somehow it doesn't affect speech?