For this week’s discussion, begin by checking out this link about different kinds of graphs and how to read them: http://www.clips.edu.au/displaying-data/.

Then, you’ll check out this article about the social response of rats to tickling: https://www.scienceintheclassroom.org/research-papers/if-you-give-rat-tickle. You don’t need to read the entire article, but you should read enough to know (a) what they were investigating, (b) what they did to answer their research question, and (c) what they found, overall. Based on the graphs in this article, your job will be to interpret what’s going on and explain the reasoning behind your claim.

To find the Methods section, youll have to go to the Supplementary Data file, which I will also link here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2016/11/09/354.6313.757.DC1/Ishiyama.SM.pdf. Dont worry about understanding every aspect of this, but skim through it to get an idea of what they did (to link it to last weeks discussion).

Note that the linked article is an annotated version of the original article published in Science, in order to make it more accessible for you to read. For easy access to some of the definitions youll need, I suggest checking the box to turn on the Glossary option (see image below) this will allow you to get definitions just by clicking on the highlighted words. I chose this article since it wasnt overly technical, and also fun for you to see the rats in the video. While some of these graphs may be less readable than others, you can use that annotated version of the figure legends to figure out what is going on as you read through the paper.

Questions to answer in your post:

1.  What research question are they trying to answer, and what is their hypothesis?

2. How did they collect their data? Comment on their experimental design, based on what you’ve already discussed last week (What was good? What was bad? How would you have designed it differently?).

3. Their results are summed up in 4 figures. Do the best that you can to summarize the big picture of what they found for each of these figures individually (1 sentence summary for each of the 4 figures).

4. From one of the figures, choose a single graph and specify which graph you chose. (e.g., Panel B from Figure 2) Deeply explore these graphical results, using what you have learned so far about reading graphs. Be sure that you choose an actual graph, and not just a schematic or other image. Answer the following questions in your analysis:

              (a) What variables are present in this graph, and what types are each variable (discrete or continuous or categorical / dependent or independent)? Explain why you defined each variable as a particular type, based on the definitions given on the CLIPS website (provided above).

              (b) Look at the figure legend for your chosen graph. Is the figure legend descriptive or assertive? Explain.

              (c) In your own words, what is going on in this graph? What are the data showing?

5. Then, combine details from all 4 figures to answer the following questions about your interpretation of the data.

        (a) What influence, if any, do you claim that tickling has on the rat social or emotional response?

        (b) What influence, if any, do you claim that the location of the tickling or type of touch has on the rat social or emotional response?

        (c) What, if any, other conclusions did you come to, based on this data?

Make sure to refer to the assigned resources and/or to other resources that you found useful in your research