Preface
Welcome to this course on Sensation and Perception (aka, S&P)! This is one of my favorite classes to teach but over the years I have become increasingly frustrated at the rising cost of textbooks and this is especially true for S&P textbooks which can cost well over $100. In addition, I have not found any open-source S&P books that work well for my students. To address this I assembled single book chapters from varied sources and made these chapters available to students on the class Moodle page (affectionately known as Lyceum here at Bates). However, since these chapters did not perfectly follow what I was doing in the classroom, and since each chapter had a different author and style, this approach had somewhat limited success. Quite honestly I’m not sure how many students, if any, read the chapters or found this useful. So, what to do?
It occurred to me that with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, it is extremely easy to generate text. However, if you simply ask ChatGPT to generate an S&P textbook the resulting product is terrible. But if you use a more nuanced prompt and provide ChatGPT with the content you want described, the results are much, much, better. This works out nicely because when COVID-19 disrupted my teaching, I created videos for all of the lecture material in my courses and these videos have closed captioning.
To create this textbook I provided ChatGPT with the closed captioning of my lectures preceded by the prompt:
Use your knowledge about the field of Sensation and Perception and the text of the following lecture to create a chapter entitled [chapter name here] that could appear in a college-level textbook. Provide details and incorporate all of points discussed in this text. [I pasted the content of the closed captioning within quotation marks following this prompt]
Following this I (heavily) edited the material that was generated and inserted images that I created or images that were posted on the internet using a Creative Commons license. During this process I discovered multiple instances where ChatGPT would generate content that was entirely WRONG or confusing. In fact, there was one moment where ChatGPT generated material about the impact of greenhouse gases when given lecture content on auditory perception. I have no idea how this happened!
So, why didn’t I just write a book? …and if the professor of this course can use AI to write the textbook, does that mean students can use AI on assignments and papers?
In terms of the first question, writing a textbook takes time and if I wrote my own book this would not help students in the course, now. In addition, I have other writing projects that are more pressing (e.g., writing journal articles with student co-authors) and, quite honestly, if I were to spend my time writing a textbook then I might be reluctant to give the material away for FREE, which was the purpose of this endeavor.
In terms of the second question, yes, you can use AI in this class (where it is clear how AI was used and it is clear that the material originated with you) but you must follow the guidelines described in class and listed in the syllabus. Please also keep the acronym P.L.A.C.E.B.O. in mind when using AI in this class.
P = Prompts. The prompts you use are critically important and you tend to get better output if you include critical content in your prompt.
L = Learning objectives. It is important to use AI in a manner that doesn’t violate the learning objectives for the course (see the syllabus for the learning objectives).
A = Accuracy. You are responsible for checking the accuracy of all content you submit in this class. Note that it is easier to spot inaccurate information if you are an expert on the topic, so noticing inaccuracies related to S&P may not be as easy for you as they are for me.
C = Cumbersome. Be aware that it is sometimes much easier to write text without using AI. For example, it is overly cumbersome to ask ChatGPT to write a simple sentence about who your participants were.
E = Ethics. You need to use AI in an ethical manner. If you are specifically told not to use AI on an assignment then the use of this tool would be considered unethical (i.e., cheating).
B = Bias. Be aware that AI may have inherent biases. When you use information that was generated from AI you need to be mindful of this and consider whether bias exists (this can be seen in the cover of this AI-generated book, which I left for example purposes).
O = The work you submit must fundamentally originate from you. In this class that means that the content needs to be something you provided, rather than material that was fully generated from AI. To ensure this is not an issue you should consider your prompts and whether you are providing critical information.
If you include AI generated text in a manner that violates the policies described in the syllabus then there may be point deductions. If you have any questions about the use of AI in this class then you should come talk with me.
Please also be aware that there is no college-wide agreement on proper use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT. For this reason, you should ALWAYS check with your professor BEFORE you use AI on an assignment or paper.
This textbook closely tracks the material I present in class, since it was generated from my lectures. But this textbook is certainly no substitute for coming to class. In fact, it is highly unlikely you can do well in the course if you do not come to class on a regular basis! I add many other details that are not found in the content of the AI-generated prose found here. I hope you find this useful and if you find errors please let me know so these issues can be corrected in future editions.
-Todd A. Kahan