TED Talk Analysis, Research Paper Example

In Deb Roy’s presentation, “The Birth of a Word,” he attempts to track the development of a single word in his son’s vocabulary. His attempts to track the word’s development involve hours of video and audio that his MIT research team codifies and represents graphically. Overall, the presentation is effective but the research itself raises ethical questions.

Roy has a good rapport with the audience. The audience is seated in an informal manner, on couches and sofas. Matching the informal environment, Roy’s wardrobe is casual, a white shirt and black pants. His body language is very open and inviting with use of open hands and upright posture.

The purpose of the study that Roy presents is to understand how much data goes into learning a single word. Roy and his team attempt to map all of the data that influences how his son learns the word “water” in order to understand what factors influence language development. While he points out that privacy steps were followed in the recording of his home, he does not mention the most pressing ethical issues. His son was unable to give consent to participate in the study. His parents, one of them a researcher conducting the study, gave consent for him. The fact that Roy is the researcher and is also a participant in the study dilutes the applicability of the study and violates rules of rigorous scientific research.

The elements of this study could be misused easily. The idea behind the study is to record all factors in an environment in order to determine the outcome of those factors. The research could lead to attempts to create situations by manipulating factors in an environment. For instance, if one variable in an environment triggers a behavior, such as spending money, corporations could use it to make people buy products. We subconsciously acquire language, and consequently, we could subconsciously acquire other behaviors. The military could use the study to develop highly effective training by further controlling the training environment to develop certain skills within soldiers. Also, the same knowledge could be used to torture POWs.

Deb Roy had an engaging speaking still. I enjoyed his phrase “from sunlit morning to incandescent evening.” I would like to incorporate that type of pleasing word structure into my presentations. I do believe that some of his graphics were not well explained. He could have removed the “time worms” from his presentation without affecting its impact. I will be careful to make sure there are no extraneous elements to my presentation.