Rory Allen | Goldsmiths, University of London (original) (raw)

Papers by Rory Allen

There is an elegant and simple approach to solving first order differential equations, which cuts... more There is an elegant and simple approach to solving first order differential equations, which cuts across the special methods and ad hoc tricks which are normally used in basic courses. This approach relies on one-parameter Lie groups, and the present paper is an attempt at an elementary presentation of how and why it works.

This is a pre-publication version of a draft currently under review by the Mathematical Gazette.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Integrated Science Book Series, 2020

Science is sometimes defined as the systematic study of the physical world with the aim of discov... more Science is sometimes defined as the systematic study of the physical world with the aim of discovering laws of nature. Laws embody generalizations connecting different phenomena, often involving a causal link between one concept and another. I suggest that much of science in fact depends on the opposite idea: the “unlaw”, defined as the
proposition that two variables have no causal or mathematical link with one another. This idea unifies such apparently distinct notions as thought experiments, conservation principles in physics and experimental design paradigms in the life sciences, as well as highlighting the importance of diversity in the human condition. I
propose that the importance of unlaws be acknowledged, and that this category be given due consideration in the philosophy of science, where it may help to resolve some persistent misunderstandings.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

In 2018, Academic Press published a book in their series "Progress in Brain Research", entitled "... more In 2018, Academic Press published a book in their series "Progress in Brain Research", entitled "The arts and the brain: psychology and physiology beyond pleasure."

This chapter was the contribution of myself and my colleague, Pam Heaton. It attempts to show that there is no fundamental gulf between the arts and the sciences based on a claimed distinction between the "creative" arts and the "objective" sciences. Instead the two areas are on different sites in what is essentially a continuous spectrum of human endeavour.

This is a pre-publication draft and the chapter title was altered in the final version. The final chapter title is given above.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

In the course of writing a book on statistics, I discovered that the F-ratio could be simply repr... more In the course of writing a book on statistics, I discovered that the F-ratio could be simply represented in a diagram, as the ratio of the slopes of two lines. The technical note explaining this and one of the book chapters is reproduced here, as the idea may be of more general interest. The book itself, which gives a model comparison treatment of orthodox statistics, should be appearing some time in 2017.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Depression and reduced awareness of illness (anosognosia) can be frequent complications following... more Depression and reduced awareness of illness (anosognosia) can be frequent complications following a brain lesion, but the relationship between these two syndromes is still unclear. While some researchers suggested a protective function of anosognosia from depression, others deny a functional relationship. We investigated anosognosia and depression in a group of 30 left-brain-damaged patients using specialized methodology for aphasic patients. We observed that anosognosic patients showed levels of depression comparable to those of aware patients and that anosognosia was highly selective for specific deficits. Our findings suggest that reduced awareness for a deficit does not play a crucial role in mood disorder, whereas “simply” suffering for a deficit can per se increase the likelihood of depression. Moreover, whereas depressed and nondepressed patients did show a similar impairment on the nonverbal executive function test, almost all patients showed anosognosia associated with impairment on executive functions. Finally, depressed patients tend to deny or minimize their own mood disorder, confirming that anosognosia can also concern mood status and that self-rating measures for depression could be quite
controversial.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The presence of double dissociations in patients with neurological damage has long been used as e... more The presence of double dissociations in patients with neurological damage has long been used as evidence that the dissociated functions cannot be explained in terms of a common system or module. Shallice (1988) has suggested that a
second procedure, the double critical variable method, can provide evidence for a similar conclusion. In this paper we examine the situation where double dissociations are not naturally present, suggesting that the two phenomena are
merely aspects of the same underlying condition. We propose that the logic of the double critical variable method can be applied in this situation, whenever responses to treatment vary in a particular manner across syndromes and patients.
This logic was previously used by Beschin, Cocchini, Allen, and Della Sala (2012) to show a dissociation between anosognosia and neglect in stroke patients; we suggest that it might have a more general application. As an aid in understanding the concept we also introduce the performance/performance
curve; this builds on the existing idea of performance/resource curves to draw a single graph from two such curves, whose points may be derived from direct
observation. It enables the empirical testing of hypotheses about the functional form of unobservable performance/resource relationships, and may be of use
beyond the existing application to treatment response profiles.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

It has been suggested that individuals with autism will be less responsive to the emotional cont... more It has been suggested that individuals with
autism will be less responsive to the emotional content of
music than typical individuals. With the aim of testing
this hypothesis, a group of high-functioning adults on the
autism spectrum was compared with a group of matched
controls on two measures of emotional responsiveness
to music, comprising physiological and verbal measures.
Impairment in participants ability to verbalize their emotions
(type-II alexithymia) was also assessed. The groups
did not differ significantly on physiological responsiveness,
but the autism group was significantly lower on the verbal
measure. However, inclusion of the alexithymia score as a
mediator variable nullified this group difference, suggesting
that the difference was due not to absence of underlying
emotional responsiveness to music in autism, but to a
reduced ability to articulate it.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

As time passes I am more and more aware of the inadequacy of these notes. This has driven me to w... more As time passes I am more and more aware of the inadequacy of these notes. This has driven me to write a book on statistics from the model comparison standpoint, which will make the current approach obsolete in any case.

NOTE - this book is now out (October 2017). It shows how everything you do with significance tests and F-ratios can be done by comparing pairs of models, corresponding to the null and experimental hypothesis. This makes it all suddenly obvious why the F-ratio takes the form it does.

The book's website is at

http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0019

There are free-to-download sets of examples which explain almost as well as the book does, how it all works (though my publishers would want me to tell you to get the book as well...). Good luck.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Note added in October 2016: I am now in favour of using model comparison as the basis for orthodo... more Note added in October 2016: I am now in favour of using model comparison as the basis for orthodox statistics. An example of how this can work is given in the paper on the F-ratio most recently added to this site. The t-test can be seen in this light as well. To that extent, these notes have been superseded, though still of some interest in their own right as a sort of half way house to the full model comparison approach.

I will be exploring this in more detail in a forthcoming book on statistics, due out next year.

Further note: the book is now out and available at a discount on Amazon. The official website is at

http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0019

The supplementary material has a set of worked examples to show how you can use model comparison to do standard statistical tests.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Autism, Jan 1, 2009

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 high functioning adults on the autism spectrum,... more Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 high functioning adults on the autism spectrum, in order to examine the nature of their personal experiences of music. Consistent with the literature on typically developing people’s engagement with music, the analysis showed that most participants exploit music for a wide range of purposes in the cognitive, emotional and social domains, including mood management, personal development and social inclusion. However, in contrast to typically developing people, the ASD group’s descriptions of mood states reflected a greater reliance on internally focused (arousal) rather than externally focused (emotive) language.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

This is a pre-publication version of a draft currently under review by the Mathematical Gazette.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Integrated Science Book Series, 2020

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

This is a pre-publication draft and the chapter title was altered in the final version. The final chapter title is given above.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The book's website is at

http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0019

There are free-to-download sets of examples which explain almost as well as the book does, how it all works (though my publishers would want me to tell you to get the book as well...). Good luck.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

I will be exploring this in more detail in a forthcoming book on statistics, due out next year.

Further note: the book is now out and available at a discount on Amazon. The official website is at

http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0019

The supplementary material has a set of worked examples to show how you can use model comparison to do standard statistical tests.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Autism, Jan 1, 2009

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Perhaps the greatest challenge in popularizing a mathematical idea is that of making Goedel's fir... more Perhaps the greatest challenge in popularizing a mathematical idea is that of making Goedel's first incompleteness theorem comprehensible. It has been credited with great philosophical significance, but what does it actually claim? And why is it true? This paper attempts to provide an answer.

To date, I have failed to find journal that will accept it, perhaps because it is not a very good paper, but possibly also because heuristics is an area that people are simply not willing to explore. It may, in other words, be just too outside the mainstream for journal reviewers to get what it is about. I am putting it on this website in the hope that somebody, possibly, will read it and get the point of the exercise.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact