The ability to recall a word depends on how meaningful the ...



PSY 231: Research Methods in Psychology

Fall 2019

Sections 01-05, Dr. Cutting

Class experiment

Our experiment examines the effect of (and possible interaction of) two factors on our ability to recognize the names of different kinds of websites. The first factor is whether the website is a social networking website (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) or a non-social networking website (e.g., Google, Wikipedia). The second factor is the presence or absence of a cell phone during this task. Your participants will be presented scrambled website names and be tasked to try to unscramble them in a short period of time. This document contains the instructions and materials required to carry out the experiment. To carry it out, you will need to find two willing participants (one in condition A, one in condition B). Make sure that you have them read and sign the consent form and debrief them following their participation. You will turn in their signed consent form and your data sheet in class.

Underlying Theories

The presence of a cell phone has been shown to distract people. Researchers have proposed that the cell phone is a reminder of the social network that you are not connected to when you are not using a cell phone. This reminder may create anxiety about a lack of connectedness which may in turn lead to negative outcomes such as less connectedness to a conversation partner and decreased performance on various cognitive tasks (e.g. Przybylski & Weinstein, 2013; Thornton, Faires, Robbins, & Rollins, 2014).

“Priming” results when exposure to a stimulus influences the processing of a later stimulus, often without conscious intent. For example, it has been demonstrated that priming can influence the speed and accuracy with which we solve anagrams (scrambled words; Srinivas & Roediger (1990)) regardless of what the words themselves mean or how frequently we see them. Unscrambling each word isn't necessarily a measure of how often we see that word, so much as it can serve as an indicator of what we are processing automatically/unconsciously.

So, our research examines whether the cell phone presence primes social connection and social processing, social processing should also be reflected in the word scramble task. It is up to you to make specific hypotheses as to what results you expect (these can be based on the articles that you read, what you know from other classes, your gut, etc.). Don’t forget to make hypotheses not only about each of the two factors, but also about how the two factors may interact (e.g., how the effect of the presence/absence of the cell phone may depend on the kind of website).

Instructions for running the experiment

The Stimuli

Within-subjects IV: Social words: Type of Website (Social networking vs. non-social networking)

Within-subjects means that every body will get both types of websites in their list of words.

Here is the list of websites we will test (the color coding is for you to know which types they are. DON’T present them in different colors to your participants):

facebook – google – twitter – wikipedia – reddit – amazon – instagram – netflix –

tumblr – apple – linkedin – yahoo – pinterest – microsoft – youtube - craigslist

Between-subjects IV: Social connectedness - Cell phone manipulation (presence vs. absence)

Between-subjects means that half of our participants will be in condition A and half will be in condition B.

- Condition A: Conspicuously place a personal cellphone to the right of your participant before you give them instructions

- Condition B: Make sure no cellphones (or other communication devices) are near your participant during experimentation.

Testing the participants (remember use different people for each condition)

1) Prepare the experimental environment, based upon one of the conditions above.

2) Have your participant read and sign the consent form (your participant MUST be at least 18 years old)

3) Provide each participant with a pen/pencil and the experimental task sheet

4) Read instructions:

“You are about to complete a short letter descrambling task. You will be presented with a set of scrambled internet company names. Your job is to unscramble the words on the sheet as quickly as you can. Do not worry about solving one item before moving on to the next one – do your best to solve as many as you can in any order you choose. When I say “go”, turn over the sheet and begin. You will have two minutes to complete this task. I will let you know when to stop. At this point, please put your pencil down. Do you have any questions?”

5) When the participant is ready, say “go”. At this point, you will begin your timing (e.g., use a watch or counting in your head to 120-Mississippi). Once you have reached two minutes, say “stop”. Do not let participants to continue working on the task. Collect the experimental task sheet from your participant.

6) Thank the participant for their participation. Read the debriefing statement (page 6 of this document) to each participant. Ask them if they have any questions. If there are questions that you can’t answer provide them with my contact information (Dr. J. Cooper Cutting, jccutti@ilstu.edu, 438-2999) and let them know that I will answer their questions.

Compiling the data

On a separate sheet of paper (see the provided “Data summary sheet”), report the number of correctly descrambled words in each of the 2 conditions (2 numbers for each participant). Turn in the sheet along with the signed consent forms in class on Monday.

Experimental Task Sheet

kocbafoe

eiwdaipki

tritewt

xilfent

ietdrd

sotmcofir

nlkneidi

logego

boueuyt

naoazm

rgiaastnm

plpea

umrtlb

ohoya

sntepriet

tsargicsil

Experimental Task Sheet

kocbafoe

eiwdaipki

tritewt

xilfent

ietdrd

sotmcofir

nlkneidi

logego

boueuyt

naoazm

rgiaastnm

plpea

umrtlb

ohoya

sntepriet

tsargicsil

Debriefing Statement

Read the following paragraph to your participant:

Thank you for participation in our research project. The primary purpose of this experiment is to provide some hands-on research experience for me in conjunction with my Research Methods in Psychology course. We’re investigating some of the factors that may influence peoples’ ability to recognize familiar website names. The first factor is whether the word is a social networking website (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) or a non-social networking website (e.g., Google, Wikipedia). The second factor is the presence or absence of a cell phone during this task. We predict that people’s ability to recognize (unscramble) website names may be influenced by they type of website and the presence or absence of a cellphone. If you are interested in the results of this class project, they will be available upon request from Dr. Cutting at the end of the semester. Do you have any questions?

If you’ve got a prediction (hypothesis) about how you think things will turn out, feel free to include that in your debriefing.

Data Summary sheet

Student researcher’s name: ___________________ (this is the name of the student enrolled in 231, NOT the name of the participants)

Your GA: ☐ Rosaury Hernandez ☐ Amanda DeVore

Count the number of correctly unscrambled words in for each participant. Record these numbers beside the corresponding conditions:

No cell phone: social networking ____ non-social networking ____ (age ___ gender___)

Cell phone: social networking ____ non-social networking ____ (age ___ gender___)

Return this sheet along with the signed consent forms in class on Monday.

Illinois State University Informed consent (Participants) Dept. of Psychology

Principal Investigator: Dr. J. Cooper Cutting

PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY. ALL PARTICIATION IS VOLUNTARY. SIGN YOUR NAME BELOW ONLY IF YOU AGREE TO PARTICIPATE AND YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND YOUR RIGHTS. YOUR SIGNATURE IS REQUIRED FOR PARTICIPATION. YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OF AGE TO GIVE YOUR CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH. FOR THIS PROJECT, YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OF AGE TO PARTICIPATE. IF YOU DESIRE A COPY OFTHIS CONSENT FORM, WE WILL PROVIDE ONE.

The policy of the Department of Psychology is that all research participation in the Department is voluntary, and you have the right to withdraw at any time, without prejudice, should you object to the nature of the research. Your responses are confidential. Any report of the data collected will be in summary form, without identifying individuals. You are entitled to ask questions and to receive an explanation after your participation. You are free to withdraw your participation at any time without penalty.

Description of the Study: During this experiment, you will complete a letter descramble task

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of the experiment is to determine the effects of certain manipulations on task performance. We are only interested in an evaluation of these variables, and how they are related to one another. We are NOT interested in any specific individual.

Possible Risks: The entire experiment should take less than 5 minutes. There are minimal risks associated with this experiment. Your data will be kept completely confidential. In addition, you are free to discontinue the experiment at any time.

Possible Benefits: A) When your participation is complete, you will be given an opportunity to learn about this research, which may be useful to you in your course or in understanding yourself and others. B) You will have an opportunity to contribute to psychological science by participating in this research.

Confidentiality: You will be randomly assigned an ID number, which will protect your identity. All data will be kept in secured files, in accord with the standards of the University, Federal regulations, and the American Psychological Association. No identifying information will be stored with your data. Finally, remember that it is no individual person’s responses that interest us; we are studying memory for people in general.

Opportunities to Question:

Any technical questions about this research may be directed to:

Principal Investigator: Dr. J. Cooper Cutting, Phone: 438-2999

Data should be fully available by Dec 1, 2019.

Any questions regarding your rights as a research participant or research-related injuries may be directed to:

Office of Research, Ethics, and Compliance, 438-8451.

Opportunities to Withdraw at will:

If you decide now, or at any point, to withdraw this consent or stop participating, you are free to do so at no penalty to yourself.

I have read the statements above, understand the same, and voluntarily sign this form. You are entitled to receive a copy of this consent form if you wish. Please ask the experimenter.

_________________________________ ________________________

Signature of Participant Date

Illinois State University Informed consent (Participants) Dept. of Psychology

Principal Investigator: Dr. J. Cooper Cutting

PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY. ALL PARTICIATION IS VOLUNTARY. SIGN YOUR NAME BELOW ONLY IF YOU AGREE TO PARTICIPATE AND YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND YOUR RIGHTS. YOUR SIGNATURE IS REQUIRED FOR PARTICIPATION. YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OF AGE TO GIVE YOUR CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH. FOR THIS PROJECT, YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OF AGE TO PARTICIPATE. IF YOU DESIRE A COPY OFTHIS CONSENT FORM, WE WILL PROVIDE ONE.

The policy of the Department of Psychology is that all research participation in the Department is voluntary, and you have the right to withdraw at any time, without prejudice, should you object to the nature of the research. Your responses are confidential. Any report of the data collected will be in summary form, without identifying individuals. You are entitled to ask questions and to receive an explanation after your participation. You are free to withdraw your participation at any time without penalty.

Description of the Study: During this experiment, you will complete a letter descramble task

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of the experiment is to determine the effects of certain manipulations on task performance. We are only interested in an evaluation of these variables, and how they are related to one another. We are NOT interested in any specific individual.

Possible Risks: The entire experiment should take less than 5 minutes. There are minimal risks associated with this experiment. Your data will be kept completely confidential. In addition, you are free to discontinue the experiment at any time.

Possible Benefits: A) When your participation is complete, you will be given an opportunity to learn about this research, which may be useful to you in your course or in understanding yourself and others. B) You will have an opportunity to contribute to psychological science by participating in this research.

Confidentiality: You will be randomly assigned an ID number, which will protect your identity. All data will be kept in secured files, in accord with the standards of the University, Federal regulations, and the American Psychological Association. No identifying information will be stored with your data. Finally, remember that it is no individual person’s responses that interest us; we are studying memory for people in general.

Opportunities to Question:

Any technical questions about this research may be directed to:

Principal Investigator: Dr. J. Cooper Cutting, Phone: 438-2999

Data should be fully available by Dec 1, 2019.

Any questions regarding your rights as a research participant or research-related injuries may be directed to:

Office of Research, Ethics, and Compliance, 438-8451.

Opportunities to Withdraw at will:

If you decide now, or at any point, to withdraw this consent or stop participating, you are free to do so at no penalty to yourself.

I have read the statements above, understand the same, and voluntarily sign this form. You are entitled to receive a copy of this consent form if you wish. Please ask the experimenter.

_________________________________ ________________________

Signature of Participant Date

Required References that must be included in your literature review. These papers are available as PDFs in the Resources & Materials section of the class ReggieNet web pages. You must also find a fourth source to use in your paper.

Srinivas, K. & Roediger, H. L. (1990). Classifying implicit memory tests: Category association and anagram solution. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 389-412.

Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2013). Can you connect with me now? How the presence of mobile communication technology influences face-to-face conversation quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30, 237-246.

Thornton, B., Faires, A., Robbins, M., & Rollins, E. (2014). The Mere Presence of a Cell Phone May be Distracting. Social Psychology, 45, 479-488.

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