Psy 342 Lab 1

Experimenting on the Internet

In this lab, we will begin to explore the possibilities for doing research on the internet. First you will explore some of the research that is already being done on the web, and select a demonstration study to participate in and evaluate. Then you will try your hand at creating your own web-based experiment, using a prototype I will provide for you.

Exploring Research on the Internet. Go to the University of Mississippi’s PsychExperiments web site (http://psychexps.olemiss.edu) and look over the lists of experiments that are available. Select one that looks interesting to you from either the “Lab Experiments” or “Research Experiments” lists and do the experiment. If the experiment does not begin within a few seconds, you may need to download and install the Shockwave plug-in on your computer. Go back to the PsychExperiments home page and click on “What you need” for help. If you do one of the Lab Experiments, you can look through the “Instructors’ Page” afterwards to find out more about it. Do not do so before you do the experiment, though, or you might bias your results.

When you have finished the experiment, answer the following questions:

1) What experiment did you choose to do?

2) What was the experiment about?

3) How was it implemented?

Next, search the internet to see what other experiments are being done. You might want to try searching at http://www.google.com using terms like “psychology experiment” or perhaps something more specific if you are looking for a particular topic.

4) Write down the URL and a brief description of at least one (or more!) interesting site you found.

Doing Research on the Internet. Finally, it’s time to try your hand at creating your own web-based experiment. To do so, you must have your own web page and be able to place new files in your web directory. If you do not have a web page, you can create one on students.depaul.edu (formerly known as shrike.depaul.edu) by following the instructions at http://service.depaul.edu/dpo/homepage.html. Also try http://students.depaul.edu for more help or to see whether your home page is working yet. If you do not have an account on students.depaul.edu and do not have a web page elsewhere, you will need to stop by an ID Services office and set up your students.depaul.edu account and password first.

5) Carefully write down the rest of the URL for your home page or web directory:
http://

Now try out this simple experiment I have created. Once you have tried it, save it to your hard drive. Then use a text editor to change it in the places I have marked “CHANGE HERE” in the HTML source. Change my stimuli to create your own web experiment, and change the email field to send the data to you by email. Then try it out.

6) Carefully write down the rest of the URL for your new web-based experiment:
http://