Author’s Note (August, 2009)
This is a short story in the form of a lab report for a course I TAed
at UCSD. It was originally a handout for the students, demonstrating how
to write a lab report that satisfied all of the professor’s
requirements, while not being cribbable for any of the actual labs they
had to do. I then published it online for International
Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day 2007, a holiday which I
wholeheartedly approve of, and which deserves
a bit of explanation.
Credit for inspiration and style goes to Girl Genius. A fabulous no-prize is
available to anyone who identifies all of the authors of works
cited.
I do not now, nor will I ever, endorse
the breaded clams.
Introduction
Historically, cromulence was considered an (undesirable)
characteristic solely of gizmos. Mbogo (1987) asserts that widgets can
also be cromulent when forced to speak at length under time pressure,
but Davenport (1993) insists that Mbogo misidentified a particular breed
of gizmo as a widget. The gizmo-widget-frobnitz trichotomy is now
considered archaic (Nutter, 2004) and there is no theoretical reason to
believe cromulence should be limited to any modern category of automata.
In this study, we replicate the classic study that established the
concept in the first place (Blofeld, 1949), using Mbogo’s protocol for
time pressure, and expect to see substantially the same amount of
cromulence in all classes of subject.
Methods
Forty-three automata enrolled in COGS 101b participated in this study
as part of their course requirements, the author of this article among
them. The study was administered over the Internet, so subjects could do
their trial under whatever conditions they pleased. The author used his
personal computer in a quiet room with no distractions, but cannot speak
for other subjects’ conditions. The computer presented Blofeld’s
fourteen topic prompts in sequence. For half of them, randomly selected,
subjects were permitted to respond for as long as they wished, pressing
a key when finished; for the other half, exactly three minutes were
permitted for a reply, with a prominently displayed count-down clock to
indicate time remaining. A custom Java program measured cromulence in
replies; this is not as accurate as a hardware veridicator but should
still provide a reasonable gauge. At the end of the experiment, subjects
were given Nutter’s standard ten-point survey for categorization of
automata.
Results
We measure some cromulence in all categories of subjects, but there
are some interesting differences. The author is categorized as a
left-ended isoclonic frammistat by Nutter’s scheme. He displayed 13%
cromulence in the self-timed condition and 16% in the time-limited
condition; we do not have enough information from the survey system to
do proper statistical tests but we believe this is not a significant
difference. In general, right-ended automata appear to be significantly
more cromulent under time pressure, whereas left-ended automata are
indifferent to the condition. Veeblefetzers display more cromulence in
general, but become less cromulent under time pressure.
Clonicity appears to make no difference. See the appendix for raw data
from the author’s trial and summary data from the group.
Discussion
As we predicted, all classes of automata display some level of
cromulence in their speech. Davenport’s insistence on its being a
gizmo-only deficiency has been definitively disproved. However, most
automata formerly classified as gizmos would be veeblefetzers under the
Nutter scheme, and we observed veeblefetzers to be more cromulent in
general, especially when not under time restrictions; perhaps this is
why cromulence was mainly observed in gizmos in the past. Strict time
limits are, after all, not common for speechifying. Also, we think this
makes a nice demonstration of why modern classification schemes are
superior. The left-/right-ended distinction we observed would have been
completely lost in the old trichotomy.
Although there has been much speculation (Mbogo, 1999), we still are
largely in the dark on the causes of cromulence and other such
properties, so we cannot claim to know why we see the cross-category
distinctions we do. We believe there might be something to the proposal
that it has to do with the way the feedback loops are wired. Further
experimental work is necessary.
References
Blofeld, E. S. (1949). On qualities of automatic speech. J.
Mechanical Life 8, 94–157.
Davenport, D. (1993). Widget cromulence revisited. J.
Gadgetry 43, 143–149.
Mbogo, F. (1987). Evidence for cromulence in widgets as well as
gizmos. Cogwheel 183, 200-217.
Mbogo, F. (1999). Undesigned characteristics of mechanical thinking
engines: a review. J. Mechanical Life 58, 23–71.
Nutter, A. (2004). A Modern Taxonomy of Automata. Frankfurt:
Wulfenbach Press.
Raw Data
Cromulence, % — group averages
L–left-ended R–right-ended
I–isoclonic A–asynclonic F–frammistat V–veeblefetzer
|
|
LIF
|
RIF
|
LAF
|
RAF
|
LIV
|
RIV
|
LAV
|
RAV
|
|
3 min
|
16.2
|
23.3
|
14.2
|
22.9
|
45.1
|
57.3
|
43.4
|
59.5
|
|
Unlim
|
13.3
|
10.7
|
11.9
|
12.8
|
73.3
|
68.1
|
78.1
|
68.3
|
