Describe your article search process by answering each question:

Instructions:

 

Purpose

The purpose of these assignments is to give you hands-on experience working with some of the experiments that we discuss in class.  You will also interpret your own personal data and compare it to the expected results and global data from thousands of people who have participated in these experiments before.  You will also practice writing up and interpreting your data in a lab report, and you will practice searching for relevant background sources and citing them.

 

What to Do? – I HAVE COMPLETED THE LAB AND BELOW IS ALL THE INFORMATION PERTAINING TO THAT LAB I NEED THE REPORT TO BE DONE

For each lab, you will log in to https://coglab.cengage.com/ and complete whichever lab is assigned for that date.  You must read all of the instructions for each lab before participating.  Try to be in a quiet space with no distractions so that your results are not altered.  Each lab should talk about 5-15 minutes to complete.

 

When you are done you will have the option to contribute your data to the global results (I recommend doing this).  You will then be presented with your data in a graph and/or table format.  You must save your data graph!  To do this, just right click on the graph and you will be able to save the image or copy it into a word document.  You will also have access to the global data after you complete the lab.  You should save this graph too because you will use it later.

 

Lab Report

After you participate in the lab, you must write about your results in a lab report.  Each lab report will have three main sections.

 

Section 1:  Introduction and Method

In this section, you must read and cite the original article that the lab is based on, discuss the purpose and goals of the lab, read and cite a modern article related to this lab, mention the variables in the lab (independent and dependent variables), describe the procedure of the lab, and make a hypothesis for the expected results of the lab based on the background research.

 

Right now, you might be wondering, how do I find the original article and a modern article?  Let’s start with the original empirical article.  Each experiment that you do is based on a published article.  You must find, read, and cite that article.  Each of those articles is listed below:

 

False Memory: Roediger & McDermott, 1995

 

To find that article, you will use https://scholar.google.com.  All you need to do is type in the author last names, the year of the study, and you should easily be able to find the article.  There should be a full-text linked PDF to the article, which you can see on the right side.  Importantly, you should never buy an article.  The free version is always available somewhere.

 

The second article that you must read is a modern application of this finding.  You can read and cite any article that is based on the experiment in the lab, but it must have an applied component to it.  For example, if I were doing the lexical decision task lab, I would cite an article about how lexical decision task performance is related to bilingual language processing.  This is an applied article because it is related to a real-world concept (being able to speak multiple languages).  To find this article, you will also use https://scholar.google.com.  You should type in the name of the lab, read some article titles until you find something interesting and relevant, and then read the abstract for more detail.  If the article looks good to use, then find the full-text PDF and read it.  In the introduction section, you will cite this article, briefly describe it, and discuss how its findings are relevant.

 

To summarize, here’s what must be done in the introduction section:

Read, cite, and discuss the original article

Discuss the goals and purpose of the experiment

Read, cite, and discuss a modern applied article

Mention the independent and dependent variables in the lab and describe the procedure

Make a hypothesis of the predicted pattern of results in the lab

 

Section 2: Results

In this section, you must mention the main outcome of the experiment, whether this is in line with your hypothesis, a potential explanation any inconsistent or weird results, what the global results showed and if your results are consistent with the global results. Finally, you must include the figure of your data, and the figure of the global data.

 

Section 3: Discussion

I will provide you with several questions to answer in the discussion section for each lab.  Each lab will have questions specific to that lab.  Your answers should be about a paragraph for each question.

 

Formatting

Each lab report should be double spaced, 12 font, and either Times New Roman or Calibri.  If you want to practice APA format you should do so, but I will not take off any points for incorrect APA formatting.  You should label each of the three sections, include your name, and the title of the lab.

Plagiarism

All of your writing should be in your own words.

 

 

Sample Lab Report (please follow this format and wording). – THIS IS A SAMPLE REPORT (AN EXAMPLE)

CogLab #X: Lexical Decision (Sample Report)

Introduction & Method

The purpose of this experiment was to determine how the mental lexicon is organized.  The mental lexicon is a dictionary in our mind that stores the meanings of all words that we know.  The researchers who originally discovered this effect wanted to investigate whether there is any organization to this mental lexicon (Fischler, 1977).  For example, if the mental lexicon is organized, then words that are close in meaning should be stored closely together.  Words such as cat and dog should be stored next to each other whereas words such as fork and tree should be stored farther apart.  The closeness in storage would determine how quickly words are responded to.  For example, if I process the word dog, I should then be faster to process the word cat because they are stored closely together.  The activation of the word dog would then activate the word cat.  On the other hand, activation of the word fork would not activate the word tree, and I would therefore not respond any faster to the word tree after processing the word fork.  This effect has been used in applied research to study the mental lexicon of children with dyslexia.  Lexical decision response patterns of children with dyslexia indicate that they do not process words as whole units as non-dyslexic readers do (Araujo et al., 2014).

The independent variable in this study is the relatedness of the word pairs.  Word pairs were either closely related (cat: dog) or not closely related (fork:desk).  There were also non-words (flurp) in this experiment that functioned as a control group.  The dependent, or outcome variable, was the reaction time.  Reaction time is a measure of how long it takes someone to respond to a stimulus.  If you respond more quickly, then it was easier for you to process that stimulus.  The opposite can be said if you respond more slowly.

The design of the experiment was as follows:  A plus sign (+) was presented in the center of the screen to focus the participant’s attention.  After a delay, the plus sign disappeared and a word appeared.  The participant had to press the “m” button if the stimulus was a real word, and the “z” button if the stimulus was not a real word.  After each trial, the participant pressed the n button to control the onset of the next stimulus trial.  There were 96 trials.  If the participant answered incorrectly then the participant was notified, and the word appeared again later in the experiment.

I expected that words that were closely associated would have faster reaction times because of the closeness of the organization in the lexicon.  Words that were unrelated would be responded to more slowly because they were not closely related in the lexicon.  Non-words would be responded to the slowest because they do not exist in the lexicon.  If the mental lexicon is not organized, then there would not be a difference in reaction times between associated and unassociated words.

Results

The main finding of this experiment is that there was a difference between associated in unassociated words, but this went in the opposite direction of the hypothesis.  This can be seen in Figure 1.  My reaction times to associated words was 656.50ms and my reaction time to unassociated words was 592.62ms.  However, both words were responded to more quickly than non-words, which had an average reaction time of 821.75ms.

 

Figure 1.  Reaction times to associated, unassociated, and nonwords in milliseconds for my personal data (ms).

 

This finding is surprising given the hypothesis.  One explanation might be that there were outliers in the original data set.  Typically, researchers review each trial and determine if there were outliers that could be skewing the data.  I looked through the trial-by-trial data, and it appeared as though one of the associated trials had a very high reaction time.  This could be artificially increasing the average reaction time for that condition, and not truly representative of the actual result.  If I removed that trial, it is likely that the results would have been as predicted.

The global data were perfectly as predicted, which can be seen in Figure 2.  One difference between my personal data and the global data is the overall reaction times.  My reaction times were much faster than those of the global data by about 100ms.  This quite a large difference and represents some processing differences.  One potential explanation for this is that I have a Ph.D. and study language.  My knowledge about words is likely to be superior to those of the average participant in this study, so I would on average respond faster to these words than other participants.

 

Figure 2.  Reaction times to associated, unassociated, and nonwords in milliseconds for the global data (ms).

Discussion

Overall, my data would suggest that the mental lexicon is not organized meaningfully, or even might suggest that the lexicon is purposefully organized in an unmeaningful way.  However, we know this not to be the case because the global data of thousands of participants suggests otherwise (in addition to countless other studies).  As discussed previously, it is likely that an outlier in one of the conditions resulted in the surprising results in the opposite direction of the hypotheses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lab:

Background

An important issue for theories of cognition is how well we remember things. It is important because nearly every aspect of cognition depends on memory to some degree. To understand problem solving, decision making, attention, and perception, you need to know the abilities and limits of memory. The quality of memory is important for practical reasons as well. Many significant events depend on reports from human observers. From eyewitness testimony in murder trials to arguments with a spouse about who said what, memory and memory accuracy is critical. A surprising finding is that there is no way to assess memory accuracy without objective evidence (such as a tape recording or a photograph). The vividness or confidence of the person recalling the memory is not an accurate indication of the truth of the memory. This is not to say that most memories are inaccurate. We must be pretty accurate much of the time or else living would be quite difficult. However, for those situations in which accuracy of detail is important, memories cannot be trusted, no matter how adamant the recaller is about the vividness of the memory.

This experiment demonstrates one methodology that biases people to recall things that did not occur. The memories associated with experiments of this type are often called false memories. The method was first used by Deese (1959) and has been extended more recently by Roediger and McDermott (1995). The task is like many other memory experiments. A sequence of words is presented (verbally or visually) and the participant must subsequently classify a set of words as either in the sequence (old) or not in the sequence (new).

What differentiates this experiment from other memory experiments is that the sequences are specially designed to bias participant to report a particular word that was not included in the list. When people report that one of these words was in the sequence but it really was not, they are having a false memory. In some cases, people will report that they vividly recall seeing (or hearing) the word, so their memories are very strong, despite their inaccuracy.

 

Lab Instructions

If you have logged in, you’ll see a rectangle below. Make sure that you can see the full area before you begin the lab.

On each trial, a sequence of words will appear, with each word presented for one second. After the full sequence has been presented, a set of buttons will be shown, each labeled with a word. Some of these words were on the list, and some were not. Your task is to click or tap on the buttons to indicate which words were in the sequence. You may click or tap on the buttons in any order.

There is no way to correct mistakes, so be careful!

The experiment includes 6 trials.

At the end of the experiment, you will be asked if you want to save your data to a set of global data. After you answer the question, a new Web page window will appear that includes a debriefing, your data, your group’s data, and the global data.

 

My Summary Data from Lab:

 

What methods did we employ in this experiment?

A list of words was shown one at a time, with each word presented for one second. Then, the response buttons were labelled with words from the list as well as with distractor words that were not on the list. You were asked to click on the buttons to identify which words were on the list.

The independent variable in this experiment was the type of word presented at test: (1) original list item, (2) unrelated distractor not on list, and (3) related distractor not on list. The dependent variable was the percentage of each type of item reported.

What do we predict participants will do? Why?

People should report the related distractors very often. The idea is that many of the words presented are related to the distractor, and most likely you thought about the distractor item as the words were being shown. At test, you have a memory of thinking about the word, but thought this was because it was presented rather than realizing you had just thought about the word.

How robust is this effect? Are there limits to this effect?

The effect is quite robust and perhaps most surprisingly, it works well even when participants know what the experiment is about (i.e., you were asked to do a lab on false memory, read background information about the phenomenon, and then still most likely exhibited false memory).

 

Type Of Item	Percent Recognized
Original List Item	54.762
Unrelated Lure (not in list)	2.083
Related Lure (not in list)	50.000

 

 

 

 

 

My Trial by Trial Data:

 

Trial Number	Related Lure	Original List Item	Unrelated Lure (not on list)	Related Lure (not on list)
1	needle	3	0	1
2	rough	3	1	0
3	sweet	6	0	0
4	mountain	4	0	1
5	sleep	4	0	1
6	chair	3	0	0

 

 

Global Data (needs to be put in lab report pls look at sample):

 

Means based on data from 123190 participants.

Type Of Stimulus	Percent Recognized
Original List Item	79.661
Unrelated Lure (not in list)	6.408
Related Lure (not in list)	74.608

Standard deviations based on data from 123190 participants.

Type Of Stimulus	Percent Recognized
Original List Item	12.876
Unrelated Lure (not in list)	11.552
Related Lure (not in list)	25.742

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion Questions (please put these at the end of the report):

 

1. Describe your article search process by answering each question:
   a. What search engine did you use?
   b. What key terms did you use?
   c. How did you refine your search to find the articles?
   d. How did you find a free full-text pdf of the articles?
   e. How did you determine that the applied article was a good and valid source?
   2. Why do you think people recall the lure word despite it not being on the list? How does
   this relate to other issues in memory that we have discussed?
   3. What do you think would have happened to this effect if there was a one-day delay
   after presenting the word list?
   4. Why do you think our memory processes work this way?  What is a potential benefit to
   the fact that we do not recall everything exactly as it was presented?