My experience as a participant in a cognition study
In the past two years, I have been volunteering as participant in different studies and this has allowed me to experience first-hand some of the concepts that we have been discussing in class. In the following post, I will be discussing my experience in a cognition study, which was particularly interesting to me because it was composed of three different types of tests.
The topic of the study was the attention grabbing effect of social stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. More specifically, the researcher was trying to find whether the reaction time of the subjects was slower in detecting a neutral stimulus compared to a social stimulus. There were four different tasks in the study, the first was a computerized test directly testing the main hypothesis, the second and third were two self-report questionnaires assessing social inclinations and emotionality and the fourth was a categorization task of social activities.
When I got to the lab, I completed the consent form, which stated a cover hypothesis for the study to make sure that my performance would not be biased from knowing the purpose of the tests. Then, I started the first test which was an hour long and measured the subjects’ reaction time to a social (i.e. face) versus a neutral stimulus (i.e. house).This task was very repetitive, since the test presented the same stimuli, the image of the house or the face, for an hour. I felt really board and uninterested a few minutes after the test started. As we have seen in class, the boredom of participants can have an effect on the responses collected, so it is very important that the researchers take into consideration this fact when analysing their data. In my case, I noticed that toward the end of this test, I was not even paying attention to the stimuli in some of the trials and just pressing the key to get to the end of the test, this of course can create false data points and bias the end result of the study.
The second and third tests were two fifteen minute questionnaires assessing social inclinations and emotionality. The scale used for both questionnaires was a Likert scale, which I thought was appropriate for the kind of statements that they chose. However, they used a five point scale and I noticed that in a lot of the questions, I was inclined to use the middle option since I did not want to seem extreme about my answer. However, if most participants are neutral about a lot of the statements, then there is very little to learn from the questionnaire. This is why I believe that for this kind of questionnaires, it could be more appropriate to choose an even number of options for a scale (i.e. four or six options) to make sure that the participants choose within the two ranges. The third and final task was a categorization task; I had to create categories for different social situations. I do not recall exactly how many situations were on this test, but I also found it extremely repetitive since it was also about an hour long and I ultimately found myself just throwing actions together at the end because of the time constraint and my lack of interest in the test.
In conclusion, I think that having the opportunity of participating in a study is a great way of experiencing some of the concepts that we study in the classroom. Especially, this cognition study help me recognize the important effect that participant boredom has on the results of a study. When I felt uninterested, I was not paying attention to the tests and this might have biased my responses in the end.
