Psychology 2020L - Lab 1: Stroop Effect Laboratory

Due Feb. 27 (A2 & B2) & Mar. 1 (C2) - Completed in Partners

For this lab, you and a partner will be conducting a modification of the Stroop (1935) experiment. You will be asking the question, “Are reading and naming deliberate processes or do they occur automatically?” To conduct this experiment, you may use the colour naming version of this task demonstrated in class, you may use Elmes, Kantomwitz and Roediger’s (1989) variant of this task using digits (on ACME) or you may come up with your own type of Stroop experiment. If you do decide to design your own experiment, please come and talk to me (Karmen) first. Make sure that you think of your hypotheses before you start.

Your experiment will be a repeated measures design (the same participants will be tested on all levels of the independent variable). Also, you must have at least 3 levels of the independent variable (type of list) in your experiment and make sure that you counterbalance the presentation order of the lists (subject 1 – 1,2,3; subject 2 – 1,3,2; etc.). There is a table on ACME that provides an example. The dependent variable is the time it takes to read a list (in seconds). You may also record errors. Since you will be recording time, you will need a stopwatch of some kind. You will also have to decide on the instructions you would like to give the participants (e.g., fast, fast and accurate, etc.) because the instructions could change the pattern of results observed.

Once you have ensured that your experiment is ready to go, choose a convenient sample of 12 participants (e.g., people in residence, the SUB, etc.). Make sure to get informed consent from all participants prior to their participation in the study and provide them with all the necessary information typically required of informed consent (e.g., participation is voluntary, confidentiality, etc.). Make sure that you use the same instructions for all participants in both recruiting and in running the experiment. It is also critical that you keep track of the time accurately for the list that the participant is reading at the time – since you have to counterbalance the order of presentation, it is important that you report the appropriate time for the appropriate list or your results could be compromised. Following completion of the experiment, thank the participants and debrief them (i.e., explain your hypotheses, where they can contact you for further information etc.). Remember, do not violate any ethical guidelines!

Once you have collected your data, you will analyze it using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) – we will discuss this more thoroughly in class.

Following your analyses, you will write up a full APA style paper. You must provide an Abstract, as well as Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion and Reference sections. You need a minimum of 4 articles for your introduction. The Stroop (1935) paper must be included as one of your references. Although it is quite old, you can get the Stroop (1935) paper online as it is now available in PDF format. For the Method section, be sure to include the Participants, Materials and Procedure subsections and all necessary details for each of these sections. You can discuss your counterbalancing procedure in the Procedure subsection. For the Results section, make sure to include all appropriate analyses and report the values in the write up in proper APA format. In the Discussion section, be sure to discuss all of the various aspects that must be covered in a discussion section as outlined in first term (e.g., how your results fit with your hypotheses, how this finding relates to results of similar experiments reported by others, the implications of your findings, what factors may have influenced the results, ways to improve the study, etc.). Remember to hand in your SPSS printouts in an Appendix.