Psych 331 slides
- Just to remind you our hypotheses, we predicted that reaction time would be slowest for the incongruent condition, faster for the neutral condition, and fastest for the incongruent condition. We also predicted that accuracy would be smallest for the incongruent conditions, larger for the neutral condition, and larger for the congruent condition.
- We used the one-tailed, paired t-test for our statistical calculations. This test helps us to discern any differences between groups in a within-subjects design. We used a one-tailed test because we have a directional hypothesis (due to a priori notions of how human cognitive functioning works).
- Because all subjects successfully completed all trials, we didn’t discard any data. Before actually conducting any tests, it was evident that the general pattern of results supported both of our hypotheses.
- Here are the results for reaction time. Reaction time is shown in milliseconds. The congruent condition was the fastest, the neutral condition was slower, and the incongruent condition was the slowest. The error bars represent the standard error of the means, or the general interval where the mean could fall if we measured the entire population.
- Each t-test did show significant difference between conditions.
- Here are the t-values, all which surpassed the critical value of 1.717 for 22 degrees of freedom. The p value is the probability with which our results occurred by chance. A larger t value proposes a larger difference, and the largest t value was between incongruent and congruent conditions.
- Here are the results for accuracy, expressed in percentages. The mean accuracy was largest for the congruent condition, smaller for the neutral condition, and smallest for the incongruent condition.
- The t-tests, however, showed a significant difference only between the incongruent and congruent conditions as well as the incongruent and neutral conditions. While the mean accuracy percentage for the neutral condition was smaller than the congruent condition, the two are not statistically different based on the data from our experiment.
- This is shown here. Between congruent and neutral conditions, the t-value is only .85, which does not surpass 1.717.
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