**EXPERIMENTERS** ----------------- The team of experimenters includes Dr. Christopher Poirier, Associate Professor of Psychology at Stonehill College. Dr. Poirier teaches, among others, courses in introductory psychology, developmental psychology, and research methods. In addition to publishing his perceptual and cognitive development research in numerous journals, including Developmental Psychology and Infancy, his scholarship on teaching and learning (SoTL) has been published in Teaching of Psychology and Computers in Human Behavior. More recently, he has conducted experiments on the own-age and own-race biases in face recognition memory. In addition to Dr. Poirier, three undergraduate research assistants will assist with data collection and analysis. These assistants include Griffin Sullivan and Kathleen McConnaughy, both Senior Psychology majors, and Jessica Pappagianopoulos, a Junior Psychology major. Within the past year, these students enrolled in a Research Methods in Psychology course, in which they conducted a research project from start to finish. During the fall semester, they are enrolled in an upper-level research course. This APS Replication Project is the “course.” Dr. Poirier will meet with them weekly to discuss the project and train them to collect data. After data collection, they will be involved in analyzing and summarizing the data. Because of the nature of the experiment, the experimenters are not blind to condition assignment. **PARTICIPANTS** ---------------- **Sample Size:** Our final sample will consist of 110 participants, 55 in each condition. To reach this target, we expect to run 110 to 120 participants. **Sample Demographics:** - 100% 18-22 years of age - 100% undergraduate students - 100% White - Between 20% and 80% female **College Demographics**: We will recruit students from Stonehill College, a small (approx. 2,472 students enrolled) private liberal arts college located in southeastern Massachusetts. Stonehill identifies as a Catholic institution. - 100% undergraduate (no graduate school program) - 60.4% Female, 39.6% Male - 91.8% White - 3.7% Hispanic/Latino - 2.3% Black - 1.4% Asian We will use Sona-Systems to recruit participants from the Psychology Department’s participant pool. The majority of participants will be enrolled in a General Psychology course. In addition, some may be enrolled in Developmental Psychology or Sport Psychology. All participants will receive experimental credit for their course. When registering on Sona-Systems, participants completed a prescreening questionnaire. We will use the results of the prescreening to recruit participants that match the target sample demographics (i.e., race, age, gender). **Stopping Rules**: We will stop collecting data after we have 50 or more participants in each condition or 110 participants in total (not counting excluded participants), whichever comes later. **Exclusion Principles:** Participants will be recruited using Sona-Systems, which will allow us to exclude participants who do not meet the requirements prior to collecting data Data from a subject may be excluded if: - They did not follow instructions on the experimental task or control task - They did not complete all tasks - The Experimenter incorrectly administered the task or instructions - SuperLab freezes, skips, or experiences some other computer-related problem that interrupts the task - Although we do not expect this to occur, any sort of major distraction (e.g., a knock at the door, a phone ringing) occurs during the video, experimental task, control task, the identification, or the confidence rating - Participant shares knowledge of true purpose of study - Data may only be excluded prior to examining the recognition task performance and should be based on factors unrelated to the outcome measures - Any excluded data and the reason for exclusion will be identified and included in the data sets **Random Assignment**: We will randomly assign participants to the conditions with the constraint that equal numbers of participants are assigned to each condition. We used an Excel file to create the assignments. In column A, we listed the participant numbers from 1 to 110. In column B, we entered 55 1s (for the experimental condition) and 55 0s (for the control condition). In column C, we used the RAND function to create a list of random numbers between 0 and 1. Then, we highlighted columns B and C and used Custom Sort to sort the 2 columns by Column C. This resulted in a random order of 1s and 0s in Column B, which we used to assign participants to conditions. **MATERIALS** ------------- Detailed information about the materials is provided under the Materials node. **DESIGN** ---------- Participants will view a test video of a bank robbery and immediately afterward they will spend 5 minutes either describing the robber (experimental condition) or listing countries and their capitals (control condition). Then, they will complete an unrelated filler task for 20 minutes (crossword puzzle). Finally they will view an image depicting 8 people and select the one who was in the bank robbery video and rate their confidence in their selection. **PROCEDURE** ------------- Data collection will take place in a research laboratory in the Shields Science Center at Stonehill College. See Lab Setup node for detailed description and images of the lab. Participants will be tested individually. Each experimental session will last approximately 35 minutes. We will follow the procedure from the approved protocol. **Introduction** To begin the experimental session, the experimenter says: *“Hi, I’m (name) and I just want to start off by saying how much we appreciate you taking time to help us out with our research. We are examining memory and perception. To make sure there are no distractions I would like you to please turn off your cellphone now if you have it with you. Thank you.”* **Informed consent** To obtain informed consent, the experimenter provides the informed consent form (see attached file) and says: *“Before we begin we need you to read and sign the consent form provided for you. If you have any questions about this form, feel free to ask me at any time.”* **Experiment** To begin the experiment, the experimenter says: *“We will be starting the experiment on the computer. Please take a seat at the computer. When you are ready to begin, press the spacebar and follow the on-screen instructions.”* The following instructions appear on the instructions screen: "This experiment consists of several tasks. First, please pay close attention to the following video. Press 'space' to view video." After pressing the space bar, the instructions screen is erased and the video begins to play automatically. After the video ends, the screen is erased and the following instructions appear: Experimental Condition: “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.” Control Condition: “Please name as many countries and their capitals as you can. It is important that you continue this task for the full 5 minutes.” The experimenter provides a piece of lined paper and a pen. After 3 minutes, the experimenter says: Experimental Condition: *“Please continue describing every detail of the bank robber. It is important that you provide as full a description as possible.”* Control Condition: *“Please continue to list countries and their capitals. It is important that you continue this task for the full five minutes.”* After 5 minutes of writing, the experimenter collects the paper, provides a hard copy of the crossword puzzle, and says: *“Now, please spend 20 minutes working on this crossword puzzle.”* After 20 minutes, the experimenter collects the crossword puzzle and says: *“Please turn to the computer, press the space bar, and follow the on-screen instructions once again.”* On the computer screen, the lineup instructions appear: “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. To record your response, please press the number on the keyboard. If you do not believe the bank robber is present please indicate 'not present' by pressing '9'. Press 'space' to view the image.” After pressing the space bar, the instructions screen is erased and the lineup image appears automatically. After pressing a button to record the response, the lineup image disappears and the confidence instructions appear: “Please indicate your confidence in your selection from the lineup on a scale from 1 (guessing) to 7 (certain). To record your response, please press the number on the keyboard.” After pressing a button to record the response, the confidence instructions disappear and a blank white screen appears. Then, the experimenter says: *“Now please fill out this brief questionnaire regarding this experiment. When you have finished, please let me know.”* A participant will be provided with a sheet of paper on which she/he will be asked to provide her/his age, race, and gender. This sheet will also contain the following questions as well as the PARH (Perceived Awareness of the Research Hypothesis) questionnaire (Rubin, Paolini, & Crisp, 2010) to assess a participant’s awareness of the demand characteristics. Questions 1. Did you hear anything about this research from other participants/students? (yes or no) 2. In case of a “yes” response to question 1, please indicate what you heard about this research. 3. What do you think the research was trying to show and how do you think it was trying to do this? The PARH questionnaire will contain the following 4 statements. A participant is asked to respond to each of these statements on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree). Items 2 and 4 are reverse scored. 1. I knew what the researchers were investigating in this research. 2. I wasn’t sure what the researchers were trying to demonstrate in this research. 3. I had a good idea about what the hypotheses were in this research. 4. I was unclear about exactly what the researchers were aiming to prove in this research. **Debriefing** After completion of the questionnaire, the experimenter says: *“The experiment has now ended. Please read this debriefing form. If you have any questions, please let me know.”* The experimenter provides the following debriefing statement. The participants are not allowed to take it home. Debriefing Form In this study we were interested in exploring the verbal overshadowing effect on recognition memory. Previous research has shown that verbally rehearsing an event impairs visual memories of the event. We are attempting to replicate this effect. Experimental condition – After viewing the video, you spent 5 minutes describing the robber. On the other hand, participants in the control condition spent 5 minutes listing countries and capitals. We predicted that participants in the experimental condition would show worse recognition than participants in the control condition because verbally rehearsing events impairs memory for visual memories. Control condition – After viewing the video, you spent 5 minutes listing countries and capitals. On the other hand, participants in the experimental condition spent 5 minutes describing the robber. We predicted that participants in the experimental condition would show worse recognition than participants in the control condition because verbally rehearsing events impairs memory for visual memories. We ask that you do not discuss this experiment with other people on campus. It is important that other people do not know the purpose of the study before participating because their behavior may be influenced. Thank you for your help. We truly appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to participate in the study. If you have any questions, please contact Professor Christopher Poirier at 508-565-1546. We would be happy to discuss our findings with you at a later date. Thank you again for participating in the study. Finally, the experimenter ends the session by saying: *“We appreciate you taking the time to help us out with this research. If you have any questions in the future, feel free to email Professor Poirier. Have a nice day.”*