Implementation of the official protocol --------------------------------------- Step-by-step_KY1792 Protocol_49TQVF **Experimenters** *Please describe the qualifications/training of those who will be conducting the testing, and how they were trained on the protocol. Note any expertise with the topic area or methods used in this study.* Although we have not completed and published an ego depletion study, we are in the middle of conducting a preregistered study on ego depletion. In this project, we trained our undergraduate research assistants without letting them know what the purpose of the study really is, in line with the protocol for this current APS replication project. Our lab also has extensive experience in administering laboratory-based cognitive tasks (especially executive function tasks similar to the ones used in the Sripada et al., 2014 study) on an individual basis. Thus, we should be able to collect high-quality data for this study. Our experimenters are 10 undergraduate psychology majors participating in our lab's research for independent study credit or payment. We will train them by first holding group sessions where they will be run through the study by either an experienced graduate student or professional research assistant (PRA). Next, we will have them run each other through the study (as if they are real participants) while being observed. Finally, when it is time to run pilot subjects, our lab's PRA will observe their first sessions with subject-pool participants. **Piloting / training** *Piloting should be done prior to registration of this plan -only after registration of this plan will participants' data be included in the final dataset. Please indicate here who in your lab has piloted the experiment and what they did - ran a pilot participant, ran another lab member as if they were a participant, etc.* After the initial training described above, we will open the study up on our subject-pool. Each of our 10 undergraduate RAs running this study will run an initial session while our lab's PRA observes. These initial 10 sessions are considered as pilot sessions. During these pilot sessions, the experimenters will follow the protocol exactly like they will in the real data collection, but in the presence of the PRA. If necessary, the experimenters will be given critical feedback after these sessions regarding their performance running the study, but, because they have already been trained extensively before running these pilot sessions, we do not anticipate any major issues with their abilities to follow the procedure. Only after these pilot testing sessions are complete, we will start collecting "real" data. **Experimenter knowledge of expected outcomes** *The person running a participant ("experimenter") is required to explain the tasks to the participant, so the experimenters won't be blind to the condition. Thus the only way demand characteristics might be entirely avoided is if the experimenter doesn't know about the ego depletion phenomenon. Please note whether this is the case for your experimenters, and in the Results component you can later note how you verified this, or whether the experimenter learned during the course of the experiment what the meaning of the conditions was* We recently completed data collection for a preregistered study on ego depletion. In this project, we used a similar between-subjects design where experimenters must explain tasks directly to the participant, thus being aware of condition differences. For this study, we were able to train our RAs without letting them know the purpose of the study. At the end of data collection (early this February) these RAs submitted written responses to the question of what they thought the purpose of this experiment was. None of the RAs came close to identifying the purpose of the study. For this replication project, we have selected 10 RAs from this group to run sessions. Because we already had been accepted to participate in this project at the end of data collection in the prior pre-registration study, we purposely did not reveal any information about the ego depletion phenomenon to the group. Thus, because of the timing between both of these ego depletion studies, we are confident going into the replication project that our RAs are unaware of the purpose of this replication study. Because of our IRB requirement, we are choosing not to implement the delayed debrief. As a way to keep RAs as blind to the purpose of the study as possible, we plan to have pre-sealed envelopes containing the debriefing forms in the lab rooms for RAs to give to participants upon completion of the study. Because of this, we will not have our RAs verbally describe the purpose of the experiment to participants. RAs will instead read out loud: "I'm not allowed to know the purpose of this study, but here is a debriefing form that explains it. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us" ("us" refers to the PI of the study, Akira Miyake, not the experimenters). RAs will then give the participants the envelopes and dismiss them from the study. **Recruiting** *Explain how and from where the participants will be recruited. The study should be described as being on “word and number recognition and reaction time”* Subjects will be drawn from the online class credit subject pool from the introductory psychology course offered by the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. Subjects voluntarily participate in the pool based on class requirements to obtain research points. The study description will be brief and simply state "this is a study on word and number recognition and reaction time" in addition to the duration and number of credits earned. **Sample, subjects, and randomization** *Please add details about the planned number of subjects (must be more than 50 in each of the two conditions) in terms of the stopping rule for the data collection, including how you will ensure that they meet the demographic requirements of the protocol (e.g. you will keep running participants who self-register from your subject pool, in blocks of 10, until you have more than 50 in each condition that are 18 to 30 yrs old and until between 30% and 70% are female), how you assess whether the subject had English as their native language, etc.* Although we are aware that the sample size requirement has been reduced to a total of 100, we plan to include 200 usable subjects in our data set (100 in each condition). Once we have 200 useable subjects, evenly split between the conditions, who meet the inclusion criteria, we will stop data collection. If we experience difficulty in securing the planned 200 usable subjects due to the relatively small subject pool we have this semester, we will keep collecting data until the last day of data collection for the Spring 2015 semester (May 1, 2015). As in most of our studies, we plan to have experimenters record demographic information about subjects on an experiment log via Google Drive that lists subject number, time of study, assigned condition, experimenter initials, and any notes regarding some details of the session that might affect the inclusion of the subjects' data (e.g., inattentive participants, leaving early etc..). Because of our university demographics (45% female, 55% male), we do not anticipate having issues with meeting the above requirements regarding the male/female ratio of the subjects. Additionally, subjects who are recruited from our pool are students in introductory psychology classes that typically fall in the 18-30 age range. These requirements will be listed on the study description in the subject pool, and those who participate without meeting the requirements will be excluded. Along with the shared study log, participants will fill out a hard copy questionnaire immediately following the consent form with the following questions: - What is your age? (free written response) - What is your gender? (Circle Male, Female, or Other) - Is English your Native Language? (Circle Yes / No) If not, what is? (free written response) *Will you use truly random assignment (flip a coin for each subject that comes in) or, e.g. generate a sequence containing 50 of each condition in random order and assign subjects based on the sequence until you run all 100? Give details. How will you collect additional data if some Ss have to be excluded? e.g. running blocks of 10 additional participants (with 5 assigned to each condition) until both conditions have at least the minimum sample size* We plan to generate randomized predetermined condition assignments in blocks of 20 (10 in each condition). We will continue running these blocks of 20 until we finish collecting the data from 200 usable subjects or we reach the end of the data collection period (May 1, 2015). **Setting/Lab/Equipment** *Please add a detailed description of the testing environment. Include details of any equipment/computers you will use. Please indicate the version of the EPRIME software are your machine(s).* We will use 4 different lab rooms with one computer in each to run the experiment. The rooms are on the basement level of the psychology building in a quiet wing among other testing rooms. Each room has a large desk with a computer and a 22 inch display monitor. We will use Apple computers (Mac minis) with Windows 7.0 installed via bootcamp with E-Prime version 2.0.10.353. **Additional Changes to the Step-By-Step Document** (1) "Task 1" "Task 2" labeling of letter 'e' task: During initial training sessions, there was some confusion among RAs when the two conditions of the letter 'e' tasks (originally labeled as "easy" and "hard") were distinguished using the labeling "Task 1" and "Task 2". Because the "Task 1" and "Task 2" labels are easily mistaken as the sequence of two tasks that each subject is expected to perform (i.e., the "e" task, followed by the "MSIT" task), we decided to label the easy and difficult versions of the "e" task as "Condition 1" and "Condition 2" Instead. Below are changes to the experimenter instructions that our group initially raised. After they were discussed with Martin Hagger, Kesller, and Holcombe, they were implemented into the version of the step-by-step document that we are following. No real subjects were run before this implementation. (2) Letter 'e' task instructions for the hard condition: Initial RA training has also revealed some difficulty understanding the instructions provided in the "hard" condition of the letter 'e' task. This is primarily because, in some of the word stimuli, the letter "e" appears in the first or last position or the second or second-to-last position of the word, such as INVISIBLE. Because the checking of the data output indicated that all of these cases are eligible as instances of "lonely e," we added the following clarifications, read out loud by the experimenter, at the end of all the instructions provided on the computer screen: "If there are no letters or only one consonant letter on one side of the 'e', it could still be considered a "lonely e." Is that clear?" (3) Task instructions pertaining to each task: In addition, during training sessions with our RAs, we realized that, in all of the tasks, it may not be clear that subjects can still respond to the target letters/numbers AFTER the fixation cross appears on the screen. Thus, at the end of each of the practice task instructions, we have experimenters say, Letter e Task: "After each word appears, the word will quickly be replaced by a cross on the screen. You can still respond after the word is replaced by the cross, but go as quickly as you can." MSIT Task: "After each set of numbers appears, they will quickly be replaced by a cross on the screen. You can still respond after the numbers are replaced by the cross, but go as quickly as you can."