SLRT Experiment 2  Experimenter Script

The first thing to say about this experiment is that it’s not related to any other research you might have done with other people in the department, so if you could try not to guess what is going on that would be great!

The experiment is very simple, it’s all about the effect of practice on your ability to respond quickly to stimuli.  During the experiment the screen will be black and two white circle outlines will appear on screen.  These will fill in white, one at a time, and you should respond to these as quickly as possible by pressing the “x” key if it comes up on the left hand side of the screen, or the “>.” key if it comes up on the right.  In the centre of the screen will be a white square outline, which will fill up before each circle flash with a colour.  It will fill up with different colours to draw your attention back to the centre of the screen, so that your eyes are equidistant from both circles, and you are ready for the next trial.  This will make you faster overall, and also means you aren’t looking at one circle rather than the other.

If you make a mistake the computer will beep at you to tell you that you have pressed the wrong key and move on to the next trial.  This will also happen if you press any other key on the keyboard or do not make a response within about 4 seconds.  While I know it’s frustrating to make a mistake, especially when the computer beeps at you, the experiment as I said is about your reaction times so please try and respond as quickly as possible whilst avoiding too many errors.

This session will last around one hour, and comprises of twenty blocks of the same length.  In between each block there is an enforced 30 second break, which you can use to rest your eyes and hands.  Please feel free to take longer than this to rest if you like.  I will ask you some questions at the end about the experiment and then pay you.

I will sit with you for the first block to make sure everything is working fine, and in summary your task is to look at the coloured square when it flashes and then respond as quickly as possible to the circle.  Have you got any questions?

If you could try and keep the way that you respond the same throughout the experiment that would be great.  Please use your index fingers on the response keys and keep your hands flat on the table.  Also, if you have a mobile phone, please either have it on ‘silent’ or switch it off to avoid being disturbed during the experiment.

When you are ready to start you should press the ‘spacebar’ and then press the ‘spacebar’ again to start the experiment.