Term 2

Practical Lab Practise

Define the aim of a study. State a research and null hypothesis of a study State the independent and dependent variable in an

experiment. State operational definitions of variables. Describe potential confounding variables. Explain the controls needed for an experiment Explain effects of participant and researcher

expectations and bias Discuss the strengths and limitations of experimental

designs

Today’s learning outcomes

What you should have already…

A aspects of design should be described.

State what your independent variable(s) (or classification variable) and dependent variable are.

In research where there are two or more conditions in the study, define condition names, use same names throughout report.

For example: This experiment used a between-subjects design. The independent variable was drug dosage (high or low dosage). The dependent variable was the number of problems successfully completed.

For all experiments, you should also explain how you decided which experimental condition was performed by which participant– usually by random allocation.

Order the conditions were presented (e.g. in repeated measures designs where a set of tasks are being given) again this can be done by randomising the order of trials or by counterbalancing blocks of trials.

Method: Design

State how many participants were tested, who they were (i.e., from what population they were drawn), how they were selected and/or recruited and any other important characteristics (e.g. the age range, males/females, educational level).

Which characteristics are important will depend upon the task you are asking people to perform and the kinds of conclusions you wish to draw.

Depending on the research, these details may be trivial or extremely important (depending who you want to generalise results to).

Method: participants

Words, problems, questionnaires etc. are materials,

Should describe what these are and how you devised them (or who did devise them if you did not).

If there is an extensive list, it should be provided in an appendix.

Method: materials

Describe exactly what took place during the testing session

Write impersonally, slanting the description towards the events that happened to the participant during the study.

Should include description of instructions given to participants including any particular emphasis (e.g., instructing participants to be as fast and as accurate as possible, or to look closely at each item and try to remember it)

There should be enough information for them to repeat your study in every important respect.

Include info on how you were ethical If YOU cannot work out from your description what

happened to the participant, an independent reader has NO chance of understanding your research.

Method: Procedures

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Theory of emotion that assumes that facial expressions provide feedback to the brain concerning the emotion being expressed, which in turn causes and intensifies the emotion.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

It maintains that the pattern of facial muscles feed back into the brain, provides it with information for the subjective feel of emotion.

The idea that the face influences emotions has adapted and mutated over the years, providing variation and viability to its descendants.

Psychologists studying the effects of the face on emotions trace their inspiration to Charles Darwin and William James.

Darwin (1872) noted that enhancing or inhibiting the expression of an emotion alters the intensity of that emotion.

Background to theory

Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988)

Investigated the hypothesis by having subjects hold a pen in their mouth in ways that either inhibited or facilitated the muscles typically associated with smiling without requiring subjects to pose in a smiling face.

Participants told they were taking part in a study to determine the difficulty for people without the use of their hands or arms to accomplish certain tasks

Participants held a pen in their mouth in one of three ways. The Lip position result in a frown. The Teeth position would result in a smile. The control group would hold the pen in their nondominant hand.

All had to fill a questionnaire in that position and rate the difficulty involved. The last task, which was the real objective of the test, was the subjective rating of the funniness of a cartoon.

Those with smile rated cartoon as funniest

Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988)

Zajonc et al (1989)

◦ The hypothesis that changes in facial expression can produce corresponding changes in emotion

◦ Had subjects repeat vowel sounds.◦ Making some sounds - “ah” and “e” - caused

smiling and elevated mood.◦ Making other sounds - “u” and “ü” - caused

frowning and lowered mood.

Mori (2007)

Aim: To examine experimentally whether an artificial tearing would cause an emotion of sadness.

One hundred and eight-nine Japanese undergraduates (101 males and 88 females) participated.

One hundred and thirteen were assigned to the experimental condition, and 76 to the control condition.

Small plastic pipettes and warmed water were used.

Mori (2007) The participants acted as testers and raters in turns. In the experimental condition, the tester dropped about 0.2 ml of warmed water from a small plastic pipette near the lacrimal duct of the rater, allowing it to run down the medial side of cheek like real tears.In the control condition, the water dropped on the temples of the raters.Then, the raters rated their subjective emotion on a seven point scale.

Experimental Condition

Control Condition

0

10

20

30

40

50

Sad Neutral Cheerful Mixed

CheeksTemples

Results：

Water dropping on the cheeks tended to cause the sad emotion more often than the cheerfulness.

Criticisms of Facial Feedback ResearchFirst, studies often contain implicit suggestions to participants about how they should act (Buck, 1980).Second, Fridlund (1994) suggests that these just mentioned facial tasks (e.g., holding a pen in one's teeth) are silly or embarrassing, and this is what causes the changes in emotion. However, that both negative and positive affective changes result from the tasks makes this confound less plausible. For example, why does voicing e make one feel silly, and voicing a make one embarrassed, and not the reverse; why is reading a story with many u's more aversive than humorous?Affect occurs even when facial muscles are

paralyzed. The stimulus, not facial muscles may ultimately be responsible for affect.

Task•Read through the journal and highlight areas that you think are relevant

•Using the information from the session and from the journal, write your introduction

Present the reasoning behind the study Begin at a general background level and progress through to

the specific reasons for and aims of the study-might go something like this:o Describe/define the area that you wish to study, perhaps

explaining why it is interesting and/or importanto Describe previous work by others on the topico Explain why the previous work is not sufficient-methodological

problems/extending previous work/not been replicated beforeo Be clear how the present study addresses unresolved issues

or how it extends our current knowledge.o Given the results previously found, and your proposals, what

would you predict the outcome of your study to be, and why?o Your research hypothesis

Introduction (Why you did it)