Each person will write up a proposal. You need to have your introduction, method section, references, informed consent, and first page of each article you use. The introduction is to be complete (thorough examination of the field) with hypotheses/prediction, a complete method section (include appendix of all materials), a design and analysis section (to include independent (with levels) and dependent variables plus the analysis that you think you will be running on the data), and references. In other words, the introduction and methods are to be as if you were writing a full experimental paper. You need to have stapled the first page of every article that you use to the introduction to the paper, so make sure to give yourself time to get any articles through interlibrary loan. Worth 50 points. For help finding references, go to the PSYCHINFO Ovid WebSPIRS in the library. While these are just abstract, they are MUCH more complete than PsycARTICLES (Journals @Ovid), Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection (EBSCO), or PsycINFOEBSCOhost). If you have difficulty using this, see below. I also highly recommend using the thesarus. For some reason, I have better luck using this technique that actually typing in the term. DO NOT use web sites or non-journal articles. DO NOT JUST RELY ON FULL TEXT ARTICLES ON THE WEB!!! YOU WILL NEED TO GO TO THE LIBRARY! Make sure you use research articles.
After you get the graded proposal back, if I have stated this is an acceptable project, submit it for IRB approval (see link below). You need to give IRB 2 weeks for approval, so I recommend you do this immediately (Most of the time it will take less than 1 week). You cannot start your experiment before approval has been given. Make sure you keep your approval number because this needs to be included in the final project. If I state that this project will not work, you have 2 weeks after I hand back the proposal to redo it. Typically I only reject proposals that are illegal (getting people stoned), possibly dangerous (getting people drunk, putting people in pain), are beyond our capabilities (wanting to work with certain populations of individuals, need equipment we do not have), or make no sense (I can't see an independent and/or dependent variable). If you change your project in any other way, please make sure that I review the paper again.
Turn in the completed paper (which should include title page, abstract, corrected introduction, method section, results, discussion, references and a figure or a table of your data). Include your data analysis and IRB approval. Also include your proposal so I can see if you make the recommended changes. Failure to do so will cause a 10 point deduction on the final paper. Both papers are to be typed in APA style. See Dr. Browne's website for APA help. Every day either paper is late will result in a 10 point deduction on that paper. Worth 100 points.
I do not require the experiment to have a set number of articles or a set number of pages – however, you need enough articles that I can see how you developed your hypothesis. The argument of “The library didn’t have that article” is NOT VALID – interlibrary loan it then. You are to write the paper until the paper is done. You will also need to address the issues for your experiment in your introduction and again in your discussion when you discuss your results. Please note: If you turn in a paper that is the same as you turned in for another class or if you do not obtain IRB approval, you will fail the final paper. Making up data is considered cheating and will result in a failure for the course. This assignment is not just for learning how to write experimental papers, but also how to do an experiment.
IRB approval must be obtained (and notification included) in the full experimental write-up. Information about student projects and how to write up a proposal for IRB approval and informed consent can be found under FORMS at the Grants and Contracts web site. You also need to complete modules 1-6 under SBR section with 80% or better located at this site www.citiprogram.org. You can also find a sample of a filled out IRB form at Dr. Whatley's web site.
Projects that others have done:
Many of these have been related to gender, age, race, personality characteristics,
various design changes, etc. as well as the ones listed.
Various spatial illusions - Mueller-Lyer, Poggendorf, Ponzo,
Horizontal-Vertical
3-D illusions/autostereograms - knowing and
not knowing item in picture
Ambiguous images
Active and passive touch
2 point threshold - various parts of body, dominant/nondominant
hand
Odor - memory, gender of odor, discrimination, recognition
Subliminal perception - expectancy
Taste - color, labels, temperature, smell, water
Auditory and visual information processing and memory
Visual search tasks
Eyewitness memory
Threshold - varying size but keeping weight constant, Weber's law,
methods developed by Fechner
Color afterimages
Localization of sound
Time perception
Eye color and ability to perform a task
Some other ideas can be found at this
site.
NOTE – HOW TO USE ERLs
Most of the on-line papers will NOT work – you need experimental studies that are typically older pieces of work. Many of the on-line papers are too recent and/or not experimental papers. However, you might find a few studies on-line at these locations
FIRST AUTHOR AFFILIATION: City U
SOURCE: Psychological-Bulletin. 1983 May; Vol 93(3): 539-548
JOURNAL NAME: Psychological-Bulletin
PUBLISHER: US: American Psychological Assn.
ISSN: 0033-2909
PUBLICATION YEAR: 1983
URL-Publisher: http://www.apa.org
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1037//0033-2909.93.3.539
URLs etc: DIGITAL-OBJECT-IDENTIFIER (DOI); URL; URL-PUBLISHER (URLP)
LANGUAGE: English
ABSTRACT: Reviews research showing menstrual changes in basic processes in 5 sensory modalities. Although substantial variations of stimulus conditions and procedures make generalizations difficult, both visual and olfactory thresholds in women appear to be lower around the time of ovulation. Sensitivity to painful stimuli has generally been found to be lower in the premenstrual phase of the cycle. Auditory performance, less extensively investigated, has shown 2 peaks throughout the cycle, one around ovulation and one at menstrual onset. No generalizations emerge from scattered research on menstrual changes in taste, temperature sensitivity, or 2-touch thresholds. Four methodological points are discussed as important in future research directed toward identifying mechanisms underlying sensory changes associated with menstrual cycle. (63 ref)(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved)(unassigned)
KEY PHRASE: menstrual cycle and changes in visual and auditory and olfactory and taste and tactual perception, literature review
MAJOR DESCRIPTORS: *Auditory-Perception; *Literature-Review; *Menstrual-Cycle; *Tactual-Perception; *Visual-Perception
MINOR DESCRIPTORS: Olfactory-Perception; Taste-Perception
CLASSIFICATION CODE: 2540-Physiological-Processes; 2540; 25
POPULATION: Human
PUBLICATION TYPE: Literature-Review-Research-Review
SPECIAL FEATURE: References
UPDATE CODE: 19830901