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How do experiments work? Let’s do an experiment on the time spent studying and how that changes our ability to remember.

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First, we need at least two different settings, called conditions.

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We need a condition where people spend only a little time studying, say 30 seconds, and a condition where people spend more time studying, say 5 minutes.

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As the experimenters, we are manipulating the time the participants study the lists of words.

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The amount of study time is our independent variable. This is the factor that we are interested in, because it might cause a change in our other factor.

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Now we need to measure memory.

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We do this by asking participants to write down as many words as they remember

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and then counting how many words they recall correctly.

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We call this memory performance score the dependent variable.

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If we find that people recall more words when they have 5 minutes to study than 30 seconds,

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then we can say that taking more time to study CAUSED the participants in the 5 minute study condition to recall more words.