Seth Roberts, Ph.D., (1954 – 2014) was a professor of psychology at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley.
He was on the editorial board of the journal Nutrition and had published dozens of scientific articles on many topics, including health, nutrition, and weight control.
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Articles by
- unpublished Roberts, S. Three things statistics textbooks don’t tell you.
- unpublished Roberts. S. What makes food fattening? A Pavlovian theory of weight control.
- 2011 Roberts, S. How economics shaped human nature: A theory of evolution. In S. Cai & N. Belz (Eds.), Mind and Cognition. Beijing: Springer, in press.
- 2011 Roberts, S. The reception of my self-experimentation. Journal of Business Research, in press.
- 2010 Roberts, S. An alternative to dieting: The body-fat set point and Shangri-La. On the website for Tim Ferriss, The Four-Hour Body.
- 2010 Roberts, S. The value of self-experimentation. In Tim Ferriss, The Four-Hour Body. New York: Crown Archtype.
- 2010 Stahlman, D., Roberts, S., & Blaisdell, A. D. Effect of reward probability on spatial and temporal variation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 36, pp. 77-91.
- 2010 Roberts, S. The unreasonable effectiveness of my self-experimentation. Medical Hypotheses, vol. 75, pp. 482-489.
- 2009 Roberts, S. Plot your data. Nutrition, vol. 25, pp. 608-611.
- 2008 Roberts, S. McCloskey and me: A back-and-forth. Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 37, pp. 485-488.
- 2008 Roberts, S. Transform your data. Nutrition, vol. 24, pp. 492-494.
- 2007 Gelman, A., and Roberts, S. Weight loss, self-experimentation, and web trials: A conversation. Chance, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 59-63.
- 2007 Roberts, S. Something is better than nothing. Nutrition, vol. 23, pp. 911-912.
- 2006 Roberts, S. Dealing with scientific fraud: A proposal.. Public Health Nutrition, vol. 9, pp. 664-665. later version.
- 2006 Roberts, S., and Gharib, A. Variation of bar-press duration: Where do new responses come from? Behavioural Processes, vol. 72, pp. 215-223.
- 2006 Sternberg, S., and Roberts, S. Nutritional supplements and infection in the elderly: Why do the findings conflict? Nutrition Journal, vol. 5.
- 2005 Roberts, S. Diversity in learning. Ideas That Matter , vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 39-43. Longer version (with different title: “What do students want?”).
- 2005 Roberts, S. Guest-blogs at www.freakonomics.com: Pleased to Meet You, Dietary Non-Advice, Freakonomics and Me, Acne, The Elephant Speaks, Thank You.
- 2004 Roberts, S. Self-experimentation as a source of new ideas: Examples about sleep, mood, health, and weight. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 27, pp. 227-262. replications. Excerpt in Harper’s.
- 2004 Gharib, A., Gade, C., and Roberts, S. Control of variation by reward probability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 30, pp. 271-282.
- 2003 Roberts, S., and Sternberg, S. Do nutritional supplements improve cognitive function in the elderly? Nutrition, vol. 19, pp. 976-980.
- 2003 Carpenter, K. J., Roberts, S., and Sternberg, S. Nutrition and immune function: Problems with a 1992 report. The Lancet, vol. 361, p. 2247.
- 2002 Roberts, S., and Pashler, H. Reply to Rodgers & Rowe (2002). Psychological Review, vol. 109, pp. 605-607.
- 2002 Roberts, S., and Temple, N. Medical research: A bettor’s guide. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, vol. 23, pp. 231-232.
- 2001 Roberts, S. Surprises from self-experimentation: Sleep, mood, and weight. Chance, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 7-12.
- 2001 Gharib, A., Derby, S., and Roberts, S. Timing and the control of variation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 27, pp. 165-178.
- 2000 Roberts, S., and Pashler, H. How persuasive is a good fit? A comment on theory testing. Psychological Review, vol. 107, pp. 358-367.
- 1998 Roberts, S., and Neuringer, A. Self-experimentation. In K. A. Lattal and M. Perrone (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in human operant behavior (pp. 619-655). New York: Plenum.
- 1993 Roberts, S. and Sternberg, S. The meaning of additive reaction-time effects: Tests of three alternatives. In D. E. Meyer and S. Kornblum (Eds.) Attention and Performance XIV: Synergies in Experimental Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, and Cognitive Neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 611-653. abstract and table of contents
- 1987 Roberts, S. Less-than-expected variability in evidence for three stages in memory formation. Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 101, pp. 120-125.
Talks By
- 2011 (May) Roberts, S. Why does personal science matter? (PowerPoint file). Plenary talk at the First Quantified Self Conference, Mountain View, CA.
- 2011 (April) Roberts, S. The value of personal science (PowerPoint file). Talk given at the Tsinghua Centenary Psychology Conference, Tsinghua University, Beijing.
- 2010 (August) Roberts, S. Arithmetic and butter (video). Talk given at a meeting of the Bay Area Quantified Self Meetup Group. PowerPoint file
- 2010 (July) Roberts, S. Discovering causal relationships with self-tracking (PowerPoint file). Invited lecture at the annual meeting of the American Statistical Society, Vancouver.
- 2010 (January) Roberts, S. You had me at bacon (video). Talk at EG (Entertainment Gathering), Monterey, California. PowerPoint file
- 2007 (November) Roberts, S. Rapid effects of omega-3 fats on brain function (PowerPoint file). Talk given at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, CA.
- 2009 (March) Roberts, S. Two lessons about how to do experiments (video). Talk at a Quantified Self Meetup, San Francisco.
- 2007 Roberts, S. “What I learned from self-experimentation.” (PowerPoint file)
- 2006 (September) Roberts, S. “How economics shaped human nature.” (PowerPoint file) Talk given at George Mason University. Related paper Book chapter
- 2005 (November) Roberts, S., and Gharib, A. Where do new responses come from? (PowerPoint file) Talk given at the annual meeting of the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior, Chicago, IL.
- 1992 (November) Derby, S., and Roberts, S. Use of time-course measurements for functional analysis. Talk given at the 33rd annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St. Louis.
R Workspaces By
- 2011 (May 14) Roberts, S. Percentile feedback. Introduction. More information. Last revised 2011 May 20. Works with both Windows and Mac OS. After loading workspace, type “instructions” and hit return.
Media About
- 2011 (April 25) Hill, K. Taking my measure. Forbes.
- 2011 (March 6) Harrell, E. My body, my laboratory. Time.
- 2010 (October 2) Carlson, K. B. The Quantified Self: Self tracking your every move. National Post (Toronto). Supplemental data.
- 2009 Mann, A. Lessons from the field: Interview with Seth Roberts. Certification Map. About teaching.
- 2008 Minkel, J. R. Self-experimenter freed himself from insomnia, acne, and love handles. Scientific American Online.
- 2007 (July). Burkhardt, A. Professor im Dauertest. Emotion, p. 14.
- 2007 (May 14). Gibbons, M. Seth Roberts, PhD: Do-It-Yourselfer’s researcher. Advance for Respiratory Care Practitioners, vol. 20, issue 11, p. 9.
- 2007 (March). Slack, G. The self-experimenter. The Scientist, vol. 21, issue 3, p. 24.
- 2006 (September) Schneider, R. Zuerst fernsehen, dann frühstücken. NZZ Folio, pp. 74-75. English translation.
- 2006 [TV documentary] O’Neill-Yates, C. The secret life of Dr. Chandra (part 1, transcript). CBC’s The National.
- 2005 Dubner, S., and Levitt, S.
Does the truth lie within? New York Times Magazine.
Related material and letters: 1 2 3 4 5
More about the author
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