Saturday, September 24, 2016

WEEK 5 - Boolean

PART ONE: Looking Up Subject Terms
For this part, it was unclear if I needed to list the entire list associated with my subject search or just a few of the listed terms that corresponds with my research project. I went ahead and only included terms associated with the research topic. Also, I was unsure if I needed to click on the subject word link to display more terms associated with it or not. I
COLOR:
COLOR & language USE LANGUAGE & color 
COLOR -- Physiological effect 
COLOR – Psychology USE PSYCHOLOGY of color  
COLOR symbolism USE SYMBOLISM of colors 

PERCEPTION:
PERCEPTUAL learning
Scope Note     Here are entered works on long-lasting changes in behavior and perception as a result of exposure to sensory stimuli. Use only if a narrower term does not apply (e.g., "Perceptual-motor learning"). [EPC]
Broader Terms            NONVERBAL learning
                                    PERCEPTION
                                    PSYCHOLOGY of learning
                                    SENSORY stimulation
Narrower Terms          AUDITORY training
                                    PERCEPTUAL motor learning
                                    SIMULATED environment (Teaching method)
Related Terms             PERCEPTUAL disorders
Used for                      PERCEPTUAL learning -- Psychological aspects
                                    SENSORY training
PART TWO: Practicing Boolean Search Phrases / Statements
1.     What is the health impact of hand blowers compared to paper towels?
a.     Health impact of hand blowers AND paper towels.
2.     Are big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target good for the economy?
a.     (Wal-Mart AND Target) AND economy.
PART THREE: Written Reflection

            The Boolean system was new to me and would help me focus my research questions down to basic search terms in the future. In the past, using the right search terms to conduct research seemed to be one of my main issues. I could input several different term combinations and still not produce a result relating to my research; very frustrating. Using the Boolean system helps me speak the search algorithm’s language. The area I believed I had a struggle with is the use of parenthesis. I am not sure if I understood the concept but I attempted at it in the above example. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Amanda, nice work on this. I was just asking for the subject terms that are relevant to your topic, so if Perceptual learning is what you were looking for that is fine. There might also be a subject term for perception more generally.
    Parentheses are used like in algebra to tell the database which operation to perform first. They aren't necessary if you are only using AND, but they are necessary if you have more than two search terms and you are using OR or NOT. So you could search for color AND (perception OR vision) to get results that all had the word color and either the word perception or the word vision. You could also search for (color AND perception) OR vision to get results that either had both of the first two words or the third word. That would be a much broader search because you would get all the results related to vision.--Sam

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