Chapter 2. Research Methods

2.1 Introduction

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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
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2.2 Slide 2

Welcome to your Try This! research experience for Chapter 2. As you learned when reading the chapter, you will be introduced to a research procedure that psychologists use to obtain scientific evidence.

In a moment, you will be presented with a series of color words (red, yellow, blue, or green). Sometimes the word and its color will be consistent. For example:

red

Sometimes, though, the word and its color will conflict. For example:

green

Your job is to name the color of the word, as quickly and accurately as possible. The first two trials are practice trials.

2.3 Slide 3

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Click on the box that corresponds to the color of the word, ignoring the word itself.

2.4 Slide 4

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This, of course, was the correct choice. Try another one.

2.5 Slide 5

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yellow
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Click on the box that corresponds to the color of the word, ignoring the word itself.

2.6 Slide 6

Start
yellow
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This was the correct choice again, because even though the word says “yellow,” your job is to focus only on the color of the word.
Click here to begin the rest of the task. Remember to work as quickly and accurately as possible.

2.7 Slide 7

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2.8 Slide 8

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You have just completed an activity called the Stroop Task, named for the psychologist who first created the task. Here are your results.

Average reaction time, in milliseconds

If you’re like most people, you were much faster to respond when the word and its color corresponded to each other than when they conflicted. This is a classic finding, and one that helps psychologists understand how the mind works.

Before you return to the text for more information, take a moment to think about what this task indicates about how the mind works.