In the Number Game study in the Brannon Lab, I completed
several tasks involving numbers, arithmetic, and deciding which group of
abstract quantities had more or less. In the first task, I had to decide if the
three numbers presented on the screen were in increasing order or not. This
task was at first very simple, but the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) varied between
1, 3 and 5 seconds and not surprisingly with a short time between stimuli, the task increased in difficulty. I then had to do the same task except
this time, instead of numbers, I was deciding between abstract quantities
represented by a splatter of dots. At this point in the study, I was thinking
to myself that the experimenter was testing perceptual priming, or where my
exposure to a repeated stimulus would influence my subsequent response to the
next stimulus.
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| A sample arithmetic problem |
I then completed an arithmetic task, which involved adding or subtracting
as many sets of numbers I could in the given time frame. After I completed this
task, I realized the importance of only testing right-handed individuals, as
the number pad on the keyboard is constructed for use with the right hand. A
left-handed individual’s final score could be a bit skewed due to his lack of
ability with the right hand.
Although I still think priming could have had an effect on
my responses, the purpose of the study was actually to see if there would be a
positive correlation between an individual’s arithmetic ability and an
underlying ability to quickly distinguish between abstract amounts.
Hey Ross,
ReplyDeleteYour study sounded like it was pretty cool! I remember when you were first telling me about it based on the description given when you signed, I thought you had wound up with something really boring. And, although you may have been bored during the task, I find performing math tasks really gratifying because you can work on your mathematical sharpness, which is something I think many of us lose as we get older. At the very leas, at least it's better than just pressing a response button. I also totally identified with that feeling of wanting to figure out the point of the experiment while in it (during my experiment I was doing the exact thing), especially because we are vaguely familiar now with basic social/cognitive neuroscience experimental designs. Anyways, it's been really fun to read your blog posts this semester!! Congrats on being almost done