Dias comments on Open thread, Sep. 28 - Oct. 4, 2015 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: MrMind 28 September 2015 07:13AM

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Comment author: Dias 03 October 2015 09:52:58PM 3 points [-]

I'm planning on running an experiement to test the effects of Modafinil on myself. My plan is to use a three armed study:

  • Modafinil (probably 50mg as I am quite small)
  • B12 pill (as active control) or maybe Vitamin D
  • Passive Control (no placebo)

Each day I will randomly take one of the three options and perform some test. I was thinking of dual-n-back, but do people have any other suggestions?

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 08 October 2015 12:01:37AM 0 points [-]

Keep in mind that modafinil has a half-life of ~16 hours. You might want to allow a day in between samples. If you don't, plan to take this into account in the analysis.

Whatever test you do, try it a bunch before starting the experiment to get through a lot of the learning period.

Comment author: Dias 08 October 2015 11:09:28PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for the suggestions!

  • My plan was to include a 1-day lag of the independent variable as a control variable in some of the regressions and see what effect that had.

  • Yep, plan to do that, and then also add a 'date' control variable as well.