Alper Soydan | Koç University (original) (raw)

Drafts by Alper Soydan

In this project, we analyzed the decision-making process which took place at Steel Inc.

In this project, I attempted to suggest ways of improving motivation of a coworker named Emrah. T... more In this project, I attempted to suggest ways of improving motivation of a coworker named Emrah. The suggestions I made below are derived from the theories of motivation.

Bu makalede tüketim toplumunun özellikleri ve bireyler üzerindeki etkisi Oniomania (Alışveriş Has... more Bu makalede tüketim toplumunun özellikleri ve bireyler üzerindeki etkisi Oniomania (Alışveriş Hastalığı) özelinde irdelenerek tüketim toplumunda kendine yabancılaşmanın nedenleri araştırılacaktır. Diğer kaynakların yanı sıra Tahsin YÜCEL' in aynı konu üzerinde yazdığı Kumru ile Kumru romanındaki ana karakter Kumru'nun yaşamı incelenecek ve kitaptan alıntılar yapılarak konu somutlaştırılacaktır.

Often referred to as one of the best anime movies ever made, Ghost in the Shell is a science fict... more Often referred to as one of the best anime movies ever made, Ghost in the Shell is a science fiction movie which deals with the themes of self-identity, consciousness, mind-body problem and artificial intelligence. The film's plot is largely centered around the public-security agency Section 9's chase for a hacker called as Puppet Master. The Puppet Master, in fact, is an artificial intelligence program created by another section of the same public-security agency. Equipped with the ability of implanting false memories into other's minds (i.e., this ability is also called as " hacking ") and of travelling through endless information networks, the Puppet Master managed to gain self-consciousness and to disobey its manufacturer's orders. Motoko Kusanagi, who is a cyborg woman (i.e., cyborg is an abbreviation for cybernetic organism: a humane-machine mixture composed of both organic and mechatronic body parts) and the head commander of Section 9, tracked down and found the Puppet Master. When they encountered, the Puppet Master explained her that he will be destroyed by its programmers since he became sentient and gained self-awareness. At the end of the movie, the Puppet Master and Kusanagi decided to merge their ghosts (i.e., a ghost is a metaphor for consciousness used in the movie) and all the skills of the Puppet Master transferred to Kusanagi. In this paper, I will interpret the content of the movie from a cognitive science perspective. The key theoretical issues which I will discuss includes artificial intelligence, mind-body problem and consciousness. I would like to start by introducing the advanced state of artificial intelligence depicted in the movie and its effect on humanity. In the movie, the capacity of intelligence exhibited by the machines is often equal and in some cases (such as cyber-brains) superior to human intelligence. Indeed, the mental capacities of the computer programs are elevated to a level that these programs can solve any kind of problem humans faced. The current aims of artificial intelligence are accomplished as the machines can think and act rationally...

Our understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) improves day by day as numerous scientists be... more Our understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) improves day by day as numerous scientists began to pay more attention to the autism research. In this paper, I will outline two of the recent findings related to ASD. The relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and ASD has been long known by scientists since symptoms of hyperactivity and inattention are common to both ADHD and ASD.

Scientific interest in researching the impact of parental behaviors on the development of childre... more Scientific interest in researching the impact of parental behaviors on the development of children has been growing in recent years and the need for cross-cultural studies is more than obvious. One related question which researchers try to answer is whether same parental behaviors will lead to similar outcomes in different cultures. Here, researchers defending cultural relativism argue that the influence of parental behaviors on children will depend on the culture, meaning that parental behaviors which are beneficial in individualistic cultures (e.g: U.S and Western Europe) are not going to be that beneficial in collectivist cultures (e.g: Chine, Japan, India etc.). A notable example of cultural relativism is Chao 's (1994) culture-specific

This study aimed to investigate the effect of colors (red and blue), stimuli types (verbal and vi... more This study aimed to investigate the effect of colors (red and blue), stimuli types (verbal and visual) and learning styles (verbal learning style and visual learning style) on the process of recall. Earlier studies have concluded that visual stimuli have higher rates of recall compared to verbal stimuli and that compared to cool colors (e.g., blue), warm colors (e.g., red) lead to better recall performance. However, the question of whether learning styles have an impact on recall performance is left unanswered. In line with earlier studies, we hypothesized that visual and red-colored stimuli will have a higher recall rate. Different from earlier studies, we predicted an interaction between learning styles and stimuli types. In order to assess the rate of recall for distinct stimuli, the participants (N=40) were presented with the four stimuli presentations. The participants filled out the Turkish translation of the Verbalizer-Visualizer Questionnaire (Kirby et al., 1988), so their preference for each learning style was determined. The results of this experiment indicated that stimuli type have a significant impact on the process of recall, yet there was no effect of learning styles and the colors of the stimuli on retention scores. Further research needs to be conducted to better understand the role of learning styles on the recall process.

In this paper, the influence of brand equity on perceptions of quality is investigated through a ... more In this paper, the influence of brand equity on perceptions of quality is investigated through a set of blind and branded tests. The influence of product knowledge and color on the ability to differentiate between brands of crayon in blind tests was the focus of analysis. The results indicated that the impact of brand name on quality perceptions is not influenced by participants’ product knowledge since high and low knowledge consumers appeared to have similar scores regarding their ability to distinguish between brands. Similarly, the influence of color on consumers’ capacity of differentiating between crayon brands was insignificant. The present study is worth paying attention since it investigated subjects that are either overlooked (e.g. color) or vaguely understood (e.g. consumer product knowledge).

Keywords: brand equity, color, quality, preference, perception

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the findings in Stroop literature generalize to... more The purpose of this study is to determine whether the findings in Stroop literature generalize to Turkish college students. Although most of the findings regarding the Stroop effect are based on Western populations, there are studies that examined cross-cultural performance differences on the Stroop task. For example, Alansari and Baroun (2004) have concluded that Kuwaiti college students displayed more interference than did British students. Nevertheless, current Stroop literature lacks studies that examine Turkish samples. Therefore, carrying out the classic Stroop experiment with participants from Turkish cultural backgrounds will close this important gap.

In this project, we analyzed the decision-making process which took place at Steel Inc.

In this project, I attempted to suggest ways of improving motivation of a coworker named Emrah. T... more In this project, I attempted to suggest ways of improving motivation of a coworker named Emrah. The suggestions I made below are derived from the theories of motivation.

Bu makalede tüketim toplumunun özellikleri ve bireyler üzerindeki etkisi Oniomania (Alışveriş Has... more Bu makalede tüketim toplumunun özellikleri ve bireyler üzerindeki etkisi Oniomania (Alışveriş Hastalığı) özelinde irdelenerek tüketim toplumunda kendine yabancılaşmanın nedenleri araştırılacaktır. Diğer kaynakların yanı sıra Tahsin YÜCEL' in aynı konu üzerinde yazdığı Kumru ile Kumru romanındaki ana karakter Kumru'nun yaşamı incelenecek ve kitaptan alıntılar yapılarak konu somutlaştırılacaktır.

Often referred to as one of the best anime movies ever made, Ghost in the Shell is a science fict... more Often referred to as one of the best anime movies ever made, Ghost in the Shell is a science fiction movie which deals with the themes of self-identity, consciousness, mind-body problem and artificial intelligence. The film's plot is largely centered around the public-security agency Section 9's chase for a hacker called as Puppet Master. The Puppet Master, in fact, is an artificial intelligence program created by another section of the same public-security agency. Equipped with the ability of implanting false memories into other's minds (i.e., this ability is also called as " hacking ") and of travelling through endless information networks, the Puppet Master managed to gain self-consciousness and to disobey its manufacturer's orders. Motoko Kusanagi, who is a cyborg woman (i.e., cyborg is an abbreviation for cybernetic organism: a humane-machine mixture composed of both organic and mechatronic body parts) and the head commander of Section 9, tracked down and found the Puppet Master. When they encountered, the Puppet Master explained her that he will be destroyed by its programmers since he became sentient and gained self-awareness. At the end of the movie, the Puppet Master and Kusanagi decided to merge their ghosts (i.e., a ghost is a metaphor for consciousness used in the movie) and all the skills of the Puppet Master transferred to Kusanagi. In this paper, I will interpret the content of the movie from a cognitive science perspective. The key theoretical issues which I will discuss includes artificial intelligence, mind-body problem and consciousness. I would like to start by introducing the advanced state of artificial intelligence depicted in the movie and its effect on humanity. In the movie, the capacity of intelligence exhibited by the machines is often equal and in some cases (such as cyber-brains) superior to human intelligence. Indeed, the mental capacities of the computer programs are elevated to a level that these programs can solve any kind of problem humans faced. The current aims of artificial intelligence are accomplished as the machines can think and act rationally...

Our understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) improves day by day as numerous scientists be... more Our understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) improves day by day as numerous scientists began to pay more attention to the autism research. In this paper, I will outline two of the recent findings related to ASD. The relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and ASD has been long known by scientists since symptoms of hyperactivity and inattention are common to both ADHD and ASD.

Scientific interest in researching the impact of parental behaviors on the development of childre... more Scientific interest in researching the impact of parental behaviors on the development of children has been growing in recent years and the need for cross-cultural studies is more than obvious. One related question which researchers try to answer is whether same parental behaviors will lead to similar outcomes in different cultures. Here, researchers defending cultural relativism argue that the influence of parental behaviors on children will depend on the culture, meaning that parental behaviors which are beneficial in individualistic cultures (e.g: U.S and Western Europe) are not going to be that beneficial in collectivist cultures (e.g: Chine, Japan, India etc.). A notable example of cultural relativism is Chao 's (1994) culture-specific

This study aimed to investigate the effect of colors (red and blue), stimuli types (verbal and vi... more This study aimed to investigate the effect of colors (red and blue), stimuli types (verbal and visual) and learning styles (verbal learning style and visual learning style) on the process of recall. Earlier studies have concluded that visual stimuli have higher rates of recall compared to verbal stimuli and that compared to cool colors (e.g., blue), warm colors (e.g., red) lead to better recall performance. However, the question of whether learning styles have an impact on recall performance is left unanswered. In line with earlier studies, we hypothesized that visual and red-colored stimuli will have a higher recall rate. Different from earlier studies, we predicted an interaction between learning styles and stimuli types. In order to assess the rate of recall for distinct stimuli, the participants (N=40) were presented with the four stimuli presentations. The participants filled out the Turkish translation of the Verbalizer-Visualizer Questionnaire (Kirby et al., 1988), so their preference for each learning style was determined. The results of this experiment indicated that stimuli type have a significant impact on the process of recall, yet there was no effect of learning styles and the colors of the stimuli on retention scores. Further research needs to be conducted to better understand the role of learning styles on the recall process.

In this paper, the influence of brand equity on perceptions of quality is investigated through a ... more In this paper, the influence of brand equity on perceptions of quality is investigated through a set of blind and branded tests. The influence of product knowledge and color on the ability to differentiate between brands of crayon in blind tests was the focus of analysis. The results indicated that the impact of brand name on quality perceptions is not influenced by participants’ product knowledge since high and low knowledge consumers appeared to have similar scores regarding their ability to distinguish between brands. Similarly, the influence of color on consumers’ capacity of differentiating between crayon brands was insignificant. The present study is worth paying attention since it investigated subjects that are either overlooked (e.g. color) or vaguely understood (e.g. consumer product knowledge).

Keywords: brand equity, color, quality, preference, perception

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the findings in Stroop literature generalize to... more The purpose of this study is to determine whether the findings in Stroop literature generalize to Turkish college students. Although most of the findings regarding the Stroop effect are based on Western populations, there are studies that examined cross-cultural performance differences on the Stroop task. For example, Alansari and Baroun (2004) have concluded that Kuwaiti college students displayed more interference than did British students. Nevertheless, current Stroop literature lacks studies that examine Turkish samples. Therefore, carrying out the classic Stroop experiment with participants from Turkish cultural backgrounds will close this important gap.