Syllabus: Psychology 342-301 (#35091)
Experimental Psychology -- Spring 2003

Instructor: Dr. David Allbritton  408 Byrne  325-4799  dallbrit@depaul.edu Office Hours: See my web page

Class Time: MW 1:10-3:10  Class Location: 403 Byrne Lab: Wed. 1:10-3:10, 358 Byrne Course Web Pages: http://condor.depaul.edu/~dallbrit

---

Blackboard | Schedule | Readings | Assignment Details | Data Files | Student Pages | Resources

Prerequisites: Psy 105, 106, 240, 241, and 242, or permission of instructor.

Required Texts:

• A.P.A. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed.
• St. James, J., Schneider, W., & Rodgers, K. A. MEL Lab: Experiments in Perception, Cognition, Social Psychology and Human Factors. (1994). Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools.

Course Objectives

This course is intended to give you experience with all phases of research in experimental psychology and to build on your previous training in research methods. We will read classic articles from experimental psychology and evaluate them in seminar discussions. The main focus will be on research in memory and cognition. Each student will be responsible for helping to lead discussion at least once during the term. Laboratory exercises will allow you to experience some of these classic studies firsthand, and you will prepare lab reports in which you practice analyzing and reporting research. Each student will also design, conduct, write up, and report an original research project.

Grading

Evaluation will be based on participation in class discussions and lab exercises, completion of lab reports and other written assignments, and a final project.

• 20% Participation in discussions and lab exercises
• 40% Lab reports and other written assignments
• 40% Final Project

Grading Scale. The lower cutoffs for each grade are listed below. I sometimes make slight adjustments to this scale (in your favor), but this is not guaranteed.

A	A-	B+	B	B-	C+	C	C-	D+	D	F
93.33	90	86.66	83.33	80	76.66	73.33	70	66.66	60	<60

Academic Dishonesty. Cheating will be dealt with according to university policy, and will result in (at a minimum) a grade of F on the exam or assignment in question. Plagiarism (using the words or ideas of someone else as if they were your own) is also a form of academic dishonesty, and carries the same penalties as other forms of cheating. Plagiarism can occur as a blatant attempt to cheat (buying a term paper over the internet and turning it in as if you wrote it), but it can also occur through careless writing (failing to provide a reference for an idea that you found in a book or article). A good rule of thumb is to always provide a reference for any idea that came from someone else's writing, and if more than a few words in a row are repeated exactly either put it in quotes or rephrase it. It is also possible to plagiarize yourself -- by turning in a paper from a previous class as if it were original work, for example.

Students should consult the Academic Integrity Policy in the DePaul Student Handbook for more information on what constitutes plagiarism and other violations of academic integrity. Contact the instructor if you have questions about how to properly acknowledge source materials and the works of others.

Plan for the Course

During the term, we will focus on four different classic experimental studies in cognitive psychology. During the lab meeting we will conduct an experiment from the study with all the students in the class as subjects. To run the experiment you will need the MEL Lab workbook and accompanying diskette. The following class meeting, we will discuss the experiment in class and begin to discuss the assigned readings associated with the study. We will also analyze the data from the MEL exercise in the lab using SPSS, and a lab report will be due the following week. Beginning the second week of class, students will share responsibility for leading discussion, and each student will present at least once during the term.

As an alternative to leading discussion on one of the assigned readings (or in addition to it if you prefer), you may select and present one article related to your research project. You should let me know at least a week in advance if you wish to present an article. The article must be selected in consultation with the instructor, and you must provide copies of a summary of the article to all class members on the day you present the article.

Around the 6^th week of the term, students will present brief progress reports about the status of their research projects. One of the purposes of these progress reports is to enable you to discuss your plans, ideas, and findings with the rest of the class and get the input of your classmates to improve your project. Each student is required to present at least one progress report, but you may find it helpful to seek input from the rest of the class more than once as you work on your project. A written summary must be handed out to the class when you present your progress report.

We may find that we need to spend more class time discussing your research projects (progress reports, student-selected article, etc.), therefore it may be necessary to adjust the schedule somewhat as the term progresses. You should, therefore, be prepared for the article that you are scheduled to present to be rescheduled if circumstances dictate.

Student Research Projects. Each student will design and conduct an original research project on a topic of his or her choosing. The project should not be one that you have already done for another class or an exact replication of a published study. It can, however, be an extension or variation on a published study, including those in the MEL Lab workbook. The experiment can be on any topic in cognition and learning (or other areas of experimental psychology with the instructor’s approval), subject to certain restrictions associated with obtaining approval for the use of human subjects in research. All participants must be DePaul students and must give informed written consent to participate in your study. The study must not subject participants to any risk of harm or discomfort beyond that assumed in everyday activities. No information of a sensitive nature (information that if made public could harm or embarrass the participant) can be collected, and to protect the privacy of participants you must not record participant’s names in any way. You will be required to submit a modified IRB (Institutional Review Board) application to the instructor before beginning your study to insure that proper procedures for the use of human subjects are followed.

Early in the term, you should select a topic or area of research for your project (such as short term memory, language comprehension, visual attention, etc.) and a more specific issue within that topic you think you might like to investigate. A good way to find a topic is to read through the experiments in the MEL Lab manual, the chapters in a Cognition and Learning textbook, or a recent handbook of psychology. We will discuss your proposed topics in class to help you refine your ideas, and then during the third week of the course you will turn in a proposal for the specific study you plan to conduct. Once your experiment is ready to run, you may schedule part of a lab session to collect data from others in the class, or just to try out the experiment and collect pilot data. At least part of your data collection will probably be done outside of class, however.

After collecting and analyzing your data, you will write a paper in APA format presenting your research. The paper is due on the scheduled final exam date for the course. Rather than having a final exam, the final exam period will be used for a poster session in which you will present your results. Posters are a format often used to present research at conferences, and you will be given specific instructions for the format of your poster later in the term. The poster presentation will be counted as part of the grade for your final project, along with the paper.

Optionally, you may choose to turn in a draft of your paper before the due date (no later than the ninth week of the term). If you turn in the paper by the ninth week, I will read and provide comments on the paper by the end of the last week of class. You will have the option of revising the paper in response to my comments, or receiving a 3-point bonus added to your grade for the project as a reward for finishing it early (note however that you can not receive both the three point bonus and the opportunity to revise the paper – you must choose one or the other). You also have the option of turning in your paper and presenting your poster on the last day of class rather than at the final if you wish (but without the 3-point bonus). Note that to do the poster on the last day of class, however, you must also turn in your completed paper at the same time.

Schedule

Week	Monday	Wednesday
1 3/31-4/2	· Overview of Cognitive Psychology & Research Methods · Assignment: Read about Cognitive Psychology	· Choose articles for leading discussion · Due: Project Topic Ideas and Questions (1/2 to 1 page) · Experiments on the Internet
2 4/7-4/9	· Discuss project topic ideas · Discuss research ethics and IRB procedures · Assignment: Complete IRB training (turn in certificate with Project Proposal)	· MEL Lab 2.10: Encoding Specificity · Due: Project Topic (1/2 to 1 page)
3 4/14-4/16	· Discuss Readings for Encoding Specificity · Discussion Questions due on Blackboard before class · Discuss Project Proposals · Due: Web-based experiment	· Data Analysis for Lab 2.10 · Due: Project Proposal
4 4/21-4/23	· Due: Lab Report 2.10 · Optional: Article summaries begin (present to class; replaces leading discussion)	· MEL Lab 1.2: The Duration of the Icon
5 4/28-4-30	· Discuss Readings for Duration of the Icon · Discussion Questions due on Blackboard before class	Data Analysis for Lab 1.2 Due: Project Proposal Revision (if required)
6 5/5-5/7	· Due: Lab Report 1.2 · Due: Project Progress Reports (present to class)	· MEL Lab 2.5: The Symbolic Distance Effect
7 5/12-5/14	· Discuss Readings for Symbolic Distance Effect · Discussion Questions due on Blackboard before class	Data Analysis for Lab 2.5
8 5/19-5/21	· Due: Lab Report 2.5 · Pilot testing of experiments in class or lab · *Lab available for use today*	· MEL Lab 2.14: Inferences · *Lab room unavailable; meet in 403
9 5/26-5/28	· No Class – Memorial Day	Data Analysis for Lab 2.14 Optional early submission of final paper for feedback or extra credit. · Discuss Readings for Inferences Discussion Questions due on Blackboard before class
10 6/2-6/4	· Due: Lab Report 2.14	· Optional early submission of final paper and poster
Finals Week June 12	Final Paper due , Thursday, June 12, 11:45 am Poster Session, Thursday, June 12, 11:45 – 2:00

Readings

Most readings are available from the course Blackboard page in the “Course Materials” section.

WEEK 3: ENCODING SPECIFICITY (LAB 2.10)

Discussants:	Watkins, M. J. & Tulving, E. (1975). Episodic memory: When recognition fails. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 5-29.
	Bryant, D. J. (1991). Exceptions to recognition failure as a function of the encoded association between cue and target. Memory & Cognition, 19(2), 210-219.

WEEK 5: DURATION OF THE ICON (LAB 1.2)

Sperling, G. (1960). The information available in brief visual presentations. Psychological Monographs, 74, (Whole number 11).

Loftus, G. R., Johnson, C. A. & Shimamura, A. P. (1985). How much is an icon worth? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11, 1-13.

WEEK 7: THE SYMBOLIC DISTANCE EFFECT (LAB 2.5)

Moyer, R. S. (1973). Comparing objects in memory: Evidence suggesting an internal psychophysics. Perception and Psychophysics, 13, 180-184.

Paivio, A. (1975). Perceptual comparisons through the mind's eye. Memory and Cognition, 3, 635-647.

Sailor, K. M. & Shoben, E. J. (2000). The role of part-whole information in reasoning about relative size. Memory & Cognition, 28(4), 585-596.

WEEK 9: INFERENCES (LAB 2.14)

Carpenter, P. A. & Just, M. A. (1977). Reading comprehension as eyes see it. In M. A. Just & P. A. Carpenter (Eds.) Cognitive Processes in Comprehension. Hillsdale (NJ): Erlbaum.

Daneman, M. & Carpenter, P. A. (1983). Individual differences in integrating information between and within sentences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 561-584.

Samuel, A. G. (1981). Phonemic restoration: Insights from a new methodology. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 110(4), 474-494.

Assignment Details

(Expanded Notes on Assignments and activities)

Week 1:

• Assignment: Read about Cognitive Psychology
• Look through Cog Psy textbooks or handbooks to see what kinds of things Cognitive Psychologists study.
• Select one or two areas you find interesting and read those chapters.
• You may also want to browse through some psychology journals in the library, such as:
• Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition
• Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
• Journal of Memory and Language
• Cognitive Psychology
• Memory and Cognition
• Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
• Identify a topic or area you find interesting and would like to do a project about.

• Choose articles for leading discussion
• Each student must lead discussion once during the term.
• Order of selection will be determined randomly among students present at the beginning of class.
• Due: Project Topic Ideas and Questions
• 1/1 to 1 page
• State your preliminary ideas about what might interest you as a general area, a topic, or a specific question for your project.
• Ask questions about where to go for information, what topics might be related to what you are thinking about, etc.
• Note: ALL written assignments must be typed! The only place handwriting is acceptable on anything turned in for this class is for filling in pages and figures in the MEL workbook.

Week 2

• Due: Project Topic
• 1/1 to 1 page
• A statement of the topic you have chose for your project, and your ideas about what you will do for your project.
• Be as specific as possible about what you are thinking about doing, so that I can give you feedback before your proposal is due.
• Include at least one reference to a scholarly empirical article (probably a journal article) that is closely related to your topic. You will give the class a short (5 minute) presentation describing this article later in the term.
• Assignment: Complete IRB training
• NIH has a web-based training course
• Follow the link from the DePaul IRB web page (which is linked from my home page) and complete the training if you have not already done so.
• Print out and turn in your certificate of completion along with your project proposal next week

Week 3

• Due: Web-based Experiment
• Turn in your completed assignment sheet for web-based experiments.
• Due: Discussion Questions on Blackboard.
• Each student must post at least one discussion question per article to the Blackboard course Discussion Board. These must be posted before class, and you must also bring a printed (NOT handwritten!) copy of your questions to class to turn in. Discussion questions are due before class for each class meeting that has readings assigned.
• Due: Project Proposal
• The project proposal must be submitted using IRB and Psychology LRB project proposal forms. Begin at the Psychology LRB home page (linked from my home page) and follow the instructions carefully.
• The only changes from the instructions on the LRB web pages are as follows:
• Submit only one copy of the proposal and all required forms, rather than 4 copies.
• If you have not yet obtained or created the materials for your project, you can instead include a sheet that describes what they will be and promises to provide them to me for approval before you begin data collection.
• In the “Plan of Work” section, give a complete description of the project you plan to conduct, including:
• Identify and operationally define your Independent and Dependent Variables.
• Clearly outline your proposed methods and procedures
• Clearly state your hypothesis, or the question your study will answer.
• Include a timeline of when you plan to complete each step in your project. The steps may (depending on the nature of your project) include creating materials, getting the instructor’s approval for the materials, creating computer programs to run the experiment, running subjects, coding the data, analyzing the data, and writing the paper.
• Be sure to download the forms and edit them with a word processor, so that all your information is typed, not handwritten. Do not print out the forms and then write the information in by hand.

Week 4

• Due: Lab Report 2.10
• All lab reports should be written in APA style, including an abstract, introduction, method section, results section, discussion section, and references. Any tables or figures included from your lab workbook should be labeled “Figure 1” or “Table 1” at the top, and referred to by those labels in the text. The introduction and discussion sections can be minimal – a single brief paragraph will do.
• Consult the APA style manual for details.
• Also see the links under “Research Methods Resources” on my home page for help.
• Optional: Article Summaries (present to class) beginning this week or in subsequent weeks.
• Prepare a one-page summary of a journal article that is related to the topic of your project. Bring enough copies for everyone in the class.
• Give a brief (5-10 minute) presentation of the article. These presentations should just give us the main point of the article, the evidence (very briefly) that supported that point, and why you find it interesting or how it relates to your project.
• This can substitute for leading discussion on one of the assigned readings.

Week 5

• Due: Project Proposal Revision (if required)
• If my feedback to your project proposal indicated that you needed to make any changes, your revised proposal including those changes is due this week.
• Turn in any “pending” materials or other missing parts of your proposal as well.

Week 6

• Due: Project Progress Reports (present to class)
• ½ to 1 page
• Prepare a brief description of your research project – hypothesis, methods, IV and DV
• Also include a brief summary of what you have done so far, and what you need to do next.
• Include any questions or problems you would like the class to help you with.

Week 8

• Pilot Testing
• We will try to set aside at least one day for you to pilot test your experiment on the rest of the class, or to collect data for your project if you are past the pilot testing stage.
• You may also ask for class time earlier in the term for pilot testing if you like, either instead of or in addition to using this designated day for it.
• Pilot testing is a good way to find potential problems in your materials and procedures, and to get ideas from classmates.

Week 9

• Optional early final paper or first draft submission
• I will provide feedback on your paper and return it by the last day of class.
• If the paper is acceptable, I will also grade it. You will then have the option of either
• Taking the assigned grade, plus a 3 point bonus for early submission, or
• Revising the paper and resubmitting it (without the 3 point bonus)

Week 10

• Optional early paper submission of final paper and poster
• You may do your poster on the last day of class only if you also turn in your final paper at the same time (or earlier).
• There is no extra credit for turning in the paper on the last day of class.