The class experiment is taken from a popular area of cognitive and perceptual psychology. The research is concerned with face recognition, in particular, the effects of facial inversion on memory for unfamiliar faces.
In the first part of the class experiment, the ‘encoding phase’, participants will observe a series of faces shown one after the other on a screen. In the second part of the experiment, the ‘test phase’, participants will be required to rate how likely it is that they have see each face before during the encoding phase (rating 4 = highly likely, rating 3 = quite likely, rating 2 = quite unlikely, rating 1 = highly unlikely).
The current study will use black-and-white photographic images of faces presented for six seconds each with inter-stimulus intervals of three seconds. A PowerPoint presentation will be used to project the images onto a screen. Faces will be presented either upright or inverted.
In total, 48 facial images will be used for the experiment. For the encoding phase, 32 faces will be presented. For the test phase 16 previously-see faces (old) will be presented at random with 16 novel (new) faces. Eight of the previously seen faces will be upright and eight inverted, and eight of the novel faces will be upright and eight inverted.
The unfamiliar female facial images were sourced from the University of Sterling Face Database (http://pics.psych.stir.ac.uk/) and PhotoShop was used to mask the background of each face.
When writing up the experiment as laboratory report, the Results section should contain both descriptive and inferential statistical tests suitable for use with rating data. Comparisons should be made of ratings for upright faces with inverted faces for both previously seen faces (old) and novel (new) faces.
Important:
The introduction should provide the rationale for your study. It should begin by introducing the general area and providing necessary background information (such as previous studies and findings and the outline of any relevant theories). It should then focus on the particular area you are addressing and explain why it was important to perform your study. This part of the introduction may be a critique of previous work (if that is necessary to motivate your study). When you introduce your own study, make it a continuation of the first part of the introduction, rather than a separate section (though it may be in a separate paragraph).
You will need to state your specific aim(s) and your prediction(s) (i.e. experimental hypothesis/hypotheses) at the end of your introduction. This should be incorporated into your text as a sentence (rather than being just a statement at the end of the introduction). The null hypothesis is essentially the same for all experiments, that no effect or difference will be found. It is not normally given in a published paper but could be requested in a college report so that the marker can see that the student understands the difference between the experimental and null hypothesis.
The introduction should only contain information that is directly related to your study. Avoid presenting irrelevant details or presenting details of previous work as lists of facts. Back up all of the arguments you develop with pointers to previous work, and work the facts/arguments into the justifications for your study.
There is normally no fixed length for the introduction section of a published paper (though there will be a word count for student reports of 400 words plus or minus 10%), but it usually consists of between five and ten paragraphs. The first paragraph should introduce the area (possibly by defining any terms used in the title). Subsequent paragraphs should present the main findings of previous research, with the presentation aimed at justifying your experiment. The final paragraph will then focus in on your experimental hypothesis (or hypotheses), ending with a clear statement of the hypothesis/hypotheses.
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