Method Details Subjects will be recruited by sign-up postings at a location made known to all students enrolled in sections of “Introduction to Psychology” by their instructors. The recruiting procedure aims at keeping identifying information out of public areas (i.e., no subject names are posted anywhere). Specifically, the IRB-approved posting reads: To sign up, look for an open spot on the sheet(s) below at a time you are free for the entire hour and do the following: 1. Block that spot for yourself by writing (in pencil) an X on it. 2. Take a 3x5 card from the envelope below this sign and write on it all of the following information: i. Date and time of the session you marked with an X in the previous step ii. Your full name iii. Your email address iv. Time and instructor of the class in which you will receive extra credit for your participation in the research 3. Write down the date and time of the session you are signing up for – this will help you remember when to come to GA 430-G. 4. Slide the 3x5 card into the drop box located by the door to GA 430-F. You can only sign up for the study once – and only for one spot. If you do not show up to the time you signed up, you will not be able to reschedule it. Two extra credit points (in “Introduction to Psychology”) will be awarded for participation. The sign-up sheet reads: Subjects will be tested via a paper packet that contains the consent form, the study instructions, and the original crossword puzzle. Specifically, the instructions include: This experiment consists of several tasks. First, please pay close attention to the following video. PLEASE USE THE EARPHONES PROVIDED FOR AUDIO Please describe the appearance of the bank robber in as much detail as possible. It is important that you attempt to describe all of his different facial features. Please write down everything that you can think of regarding the bank robber’s appearance. It is important that you try to describe him for the full 5 minutes. [OR] Please name 50 countries and their respective capitals. It is important that you try to provide as complete an answer as possible for the full 5 minutes. Next we ask that you work on a crossword puzzle. Please do your best to complete it. Next you will see a lineup with 8 faces. Please identify the individual in the lineup who you believe was the bank robber in the video you watched earlier [by writing down his lineup number]. If you do not believe the bank robber is present please indicate ‘not present’ [or write down 0]. Please indicate your confidence in your selection from the lineup on a scale from 1 (guessing) to 7 (certain). Please identify your gender: ☐ Male ☐ Female Please inform your age: Please identify your race: ☐ White ☐ Other Thanks for taking part in our study. We will take a moment to clarify the nature and purpose of the study and to gather some of your reactions to the study. Among other things, the study asked you to identify the individual in the line up who you believe was the bank robber in the video you watched earlier. You need not dwell on your selection of “the suspect”, who may or may not have appeared in the lineup pictures we showed to you. You need not dwell on the crossword-puzzle answers either, as we know some people will find the puzzle more difficult than others. We are studying certain aspects of human memory and your participation will help us expand the scientific understanding of human memory as a whole. Because this is an ongoing study, we ask you not to discuss any of the tasks you performed here with any other student on campus to help us assure everybody is starting the study on equivalent grounds. The video and lineup files will be opened on a computer monitor by the research assistant conducting each data-collection session at the appropriate times. The subjects will otherwise on the paper packets and will be monitored by the research assistant. Subjects will not be excluded on the basis of race or age at recruiting; rather, participants who identify themselves as non-white or as older than 25 will be excluded from data analysis. Exclusions from data analysis will also apply to subjects whose data packets are incomplete (e.g., no evidence of attempting to complete the crossword puzzle or lineup identification without a confidence score) or show evidence of not following instructions (e.g., not describing the suspect when asked to do so in the experimental condition). I anticipate having an available pool of approximately 150 subjects. This is based on the total enrollment of 197 students across all sections of “Introduction to Psychology” on campus (as of August 28, 2013), assuming that approximately 75% of those students will seek to participate in experimental studies (all students are required to do so in order to complete coursework). Because an unknown number of subjects will be excluded, recruitment will stop after either 140 total students have signed up for the study or both conditions have reached at least 50 non-excluded subjects, whichever is observed first. After recruitment stops, students already signed up for future sessions will still participate. Research assistants will assign sequential numbers to subjects as signup cards are randomly picked up from the dropbox (which will happen once daily between noon and 1:00 p.m.); these numbers will then be mapped to the following sequence (generated in R with “round(runif(200))” and then swapping every fourth consecutive occurrence of 0s or 1s such that there were never streaks of 4 or more), in which 0 means control condition and 1 means experimental condition: 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1