Steps in RA paradigm 1. Before anybody arrives. a. Check SONA to see if you’re expecting just one participant. If so, the male RA will need to change roles. b. Prepare the essay materials by placing the “black” envelopes [Essay Materials > Participant Envelopes] in their appropriate letterboxes. Under these, place a blank sheet of loose-leaf paper and a [Essay Materials > Essay Prompt Form]. c. Place fresh sanitary covers on each pair of headphones. d. Get a [Blank Measures > RA Notes Sheet] and a timer and put them on your clipboard. 2. Prepare the cubicles. a. Make sure all computers are on. The password is “SCN2013lab”, case-sensitive. For the iMac, make sure it is in Windows mode! If it isn’t, restart it while holding the OPTION key, then select the WINDOWS hard drive. b. Place two copies of the consent at each cubicle. c. Check the Subject Assignment Spreadsheet to see what the next few subject numbers and conditions will be. 3. As participants arrive. a. Escort them immediately to a cubicle, dividing them evenly between 117 and 117A. We don’t want them to get chummy with each other. b. Get a sticky note from atop the filing cabinet nearest the door. Put a sticky note with the next subject number in each cubicle. c. Allow them to read and complete the consent forms. 4. Once everybody has arrived and filled out their consent form: a. “Hello, my name is ______. Thanks for coming today. The purpose of today’s experiment is to examine the relationships between persuasive ability, video game skill, and the ability to perform a computer task while distracted. We will also take measurements of both your hands as a rough measurement of your developmental hormone exposure. I’ll now take you, one by one, to get your hands scanned. Since we want to make sure everyone has the same experience in this study, please do not chat with the other participants. Also, please turn off your cell phone now, and keep it off for the remainder of the study.” b. Please make CERTAIN that cell phones are off. c. Collect the consent forms and throw them in the appropriate letterboxes. 5. Hand scan. a. Ask the participant to place both hands on the nearest edge of the scanner so that the heel of the palm is on the glass and the fingertips extend along the glass. i. Hands completely flat – fingers must be fully extended, not bent. ii. If both hands will not fit, you may scan them one at a time. b. Gently close the scanner lid and press the “Auto-Scan” button on top of the scanner. Ask him to hold still! c. When the scan is finished, the JPG image will pop up in its folder. Press the “F2” key to rename it to “###” where ### is the subject number. d. Open the image briefly to make sure there is no movement distortion or bent fingers. 6. Distribute the essay prompt to the subjects. a. For each participant, bring a “black” envelope, an essay prompt, and a blank sheet of paper. Papers go outside the envelope. i. Follow the envelope code system, but don’t obviously inspect the envelopes. ii. Make sure everyone has a pen. b. “For this next portion, you will write a brief essay of your views on abortion using the paper provided. Please write in favor of the argument that best represents your personal opinion on abortion – pro-choice or pro-life. You’ve been assigned at random to be partnered with one of the participants in the other room. We’ve found that participants are just as good as trained research assistants at judging these essays, so you will judge your partner’s essay, and he will judge yours. Please review the sheet of paper I’ve given you – it has some instructions for the format of your paper. [wait for participants to read essay preparation form] [MAKE SURE THAT THE OTHER ROOM IS READY TO START AT THIS TIME!] If everyone is ready, we’ll start now. Write ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’ at the top of your paper, and begin.” c. Start the timer for 5 minutes. d. When the timer finishes, instruct participants to place all papers in the envelope. Collect the envelopes and remove them from the room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with essays for you to judge.” i. Place each essay in the appropriate letterbox. 7. Bring in confederate essay, grade & exchange a. Open each essay envelope and see whether PRO-CHOICE or PRO-LIFE is written across the top of the sheet of paper. b. Fetch the envelope with the opposite opinion & matching station number. The confederate’s essay must disagree with their opinion. So, for a subject who wrote a pro-choice essay, bring him the pro-life essay, and vice versa. Pro-choice is in the “blue” envelope and Pro-life is in the “red” folder. Make sure there are only two sheets in this envelope: the essay and the essay preparation form. Make sure nobody’s scribbled on the essay. c. Get blank essay evaluation forms from [Blank Measures > Blank Writing Evaluation] d. Make sure the other room is also ready to receive essays at this time. e. Bring the folders and an essay evaluation form (outside the envelope) to the appropriate subjects.“Please read the essay your partner wrote, then use the form provided to rate his essay. Put the form in the envelope when you are done.” f. Have each participant put the essay and evaluation back in the envelope. Take the envelopes from the room. g. “I’ll be right back and we’ll begin the game.” 8. Prepare game session a. Check the appropriate condition for each subject’s number. i. Get the appropriate cover story from [Game Materials] for each participant ii. The cover stories are secretly labeled: ○ = 1, || = 2, Δ =3,  = 4. b. “Here are four pages which will explain important information about the backstory and controls of the game you will play today. Please read them now. It’s important that you read about the backstory, as we’ve found this helps people enjoy the game more.” c. Open the subject station folder, then the Hilgard folder, then the VG Distraction folder, then the game folder. Drag and drop “game.WAD” onto “game.exe”. d. “So, place your left hand on the W A S and D keys, which you will use to move around. Place your right hand on the mouse, which you will use to turn left and right. Your character will automatically aim up or down if necessary. Press the space bar to activate switches and open doors. Flick the mousewheel to change items. You can’t jump, and there are no secrets to be found. Just get as far as you can, eliminating all the aliens as you go. If you get lost, follow the blue arrows. Remember that you pick up powerups automatically by walking over them, so long as you actually need those powerups. There’s a switch at the end of each level. Pressing the switch lets you move on to the next level. When you see the level-end screen, please press the space bar a few times to move onto the next level. We want you to spend as much time as possible playing, not looking at your stats. You now have 15 minutes to play. Go ahead and put your headphones on. When your time is up, please do not quit out of the game yourself, as I will need to come by and log your progress. So please wait for me to come by instead of quitting the game.” Leave the cover story open to the last page with the controls. 9. Play game 15-20 min a. Press return a couple times to start a game on the default difficulty. b. If everybody seems to understand the controls, set the timer for 15 minutes. c. Stick around until everyone has made it through the first level and moved on to the 2nd. d. Put a [Confederate Materials > Insults] in their original “black” envelope. e. WHEN FIVE MINUTES REMAIN ON THE TIMER, put one dozen ice cubes in each pitcher of refrigerated water. Leave the pitcher in the fridge until time is up. f. WHEN TIME IS UP, bring the pitcher of water, a towel, and a note sheet into each room. g. “Time is up. Please press the escape key to pause the game. DON’T QUIT THE GAME YET, as I need to come by and log your progress.” h. Go to each subject’s game. If it’s paused, unpause it by pressing ESC. Then, press the p-key and then ESC. On the note sheet, write down the six numbers in the top right corner (e.g. “1.213.7.244.7.38”). Then press ALT+F4 to quit. Do NOT quit by using the game menu! i. Go up one folder level, then open the folder labeled “e-prime”. j. Collect the cover stories, to be returned to their folders later. 10. 5-second coldpressor sample a. “In this next task, we hope to measure how distraction affects decision making. You will place your hand in a bucket of ice water for a portion of the next task. To make sure that you’re okay with the ice water, we’re going to sample it now. I’ll come by with the ice water, and you’ll put your hand in it for five seconds.” b. Count out loud the time, slowly, “one one-thousand, two one-thousand…”. c. When the five seconds are up, allow participants to towel off. 11. Provocation a. “We’ll start this next task soon, but first I need to return your essays. We’ve put your scores into the computer, so you can have them back now.” b. Leave the room and return with the original “black” envelopes, which should now contain an insulting evaluation. c. “Please read over your partner’s evaluation of your essay.” Make sure they actually read the insult! 12. Aggression measure a. Get the blank distraction assignment forms and give one to each participant. b. “To keep the experiment free from experimenter bias, we’re asking the participants to assign each other to the various amounts of distraction. You will assign your partner’s duration of distraction, and he will do the same to you. You both make the decision at the same time, so how long you assign him to distraction will not affect his decision about how long you will be distracted. Use the form to indicate how long your partner will hold his hand in the water. Please read the instructions at the top of the page before circling your choice. When you’re done, please place it into the envelope.” c. Gather the envelopes and remove them from the room. i. Place the envelopes into the appropriate letterboxes. ii. Get the Post-Questionnaires from [Blank measures > Post-Questionnaire] iii. Get the debriefing questionnaire from [Blank measures > Debriefing Questionnaire] 13. "Skip" the distraction task a. [Anxiously check watch] “It looks like we’re starting to run out of time, so we’re gonna have to skip the distraction task and move directly on to the postquestionnaire.” 14. Postquestionnaire a. “We are still trying to improve our experiment and our video games. Please answer the questions on these forms by circling the number that best represents how you feel. We will also collect some information about your age, ethnicity, and video game experience. Write your subject number from the post-it note on it and begin.” 15. Debriefing questionnaire. a. Give each subject a debriefing questionnaire from 16. Debriefing. a. Give them a debriefing form to review. Get it back from them before they leave. b. If the other room is at this part, you can say: c. “You were never actually paired with one of the subjects in the other room. Please don’t feel bad if you recommended a long distraction period, because the other participant never had his hand in the water. We needed you to believe that you were insulted by a partner because we were interested in how different types of video games affect the amount of distraction time people set. We apologize for the deception, but it would be impossible to perform this research otherwise.” d. “Even though the experiment is over, we still really need your help. We need you to not talk about the study with anybody else. We need to run a LOT of people through this study this semester, and if word gets out that we are using a deception, it will be hard to convince people and get the data we need. So please, don’t talk about the details of this study with anyone. You have more interesting things to talk about with your friends anyway [ha ha]. Here’s the debriefing sheet that tells you the goals of this study. Please return it to me before you leave.“ 17. Cleanup a. Refill the ice cube trays. Move frozen ice cubes to the left stack, putting fresh trays on the right stack. b. Dump out the pitchers and refill them with ~1200ml of tap water. c. Put the towels in the hamper in 121. d. Windex off the scanner, if necessary. e. Take off the old sanitary headphone covers and throw them away. f. Take all papers out of the “black” envelopes so that they are empty. Destroy the participants’ essays. i. Label each distraction assignment sheet with that participant’s number and condition. The session is worthless if you do not do this. Use the envelope’s number with the subject assignment spreadsheet to make sure you have the right subject number on the distraction assignment sheet. ii. File the insults back for re-use. g. Remove the essay feedback from the “red” and “blue” envelopes and file it. Make sure nobody has scribbled on the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life essays. h. File the red and blue envelopes for re-use.