PSY101L

Introduction to Psychology Lab

Most. Aeysha Sultana (MAS1)

Associate Professor

North South University

STRUCTURAL SAMPLE OF EXPERIMENTAL REPORT

 Reaction Time to Neutral and Emotional Worlds

Report on Lab Work-1 submitted by Course Teacher

Name: Samrin Hassan Dr. Most. Aeysha Sultana (MAS1)

ID: 1712984630 Associate Professor
Section: 24 Department of History and Philosophy
Semester: Summer 2020 North South University
Course code: PSY101L
Course Title: Introduction to Psychology Lab
Department of History and Philosophy
North South University

Date of conduction: 23rd July, 2020

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT 3
INTRODUCTION 4
EMOTION: 4
EMOTIONAL WORDS: 4
NEUTRAL WORDS 5
METHODS OF MEASURING RT: 5
THE FACTORS THAT AFFECT REACTION TIME: 6
PREVIOUS RESEARCH EVIDENCE IN THIS AREA: 7.
OBJECTIVE OF THE EXPERIMENT 7
METHOD 8
PROCEDURE 8
RESULTS 9
DISCUSSION 10
CONCLUSION 11
REFERENCES 11
APPENDICES 12
Abstract
The report was namely “Effects on Emotional and Neutral Words on Reaction Time.” It tried to
state how emotional or neutral words have an impact on a participant’s response words and time.
This report explained the meaning of the terms emotion, neutral words and response time. This
report also talks about the previous research about emotional and neutral stimuli and human
reaction to that. The main aim of the report is to figure out what sorts of words affect our
response time the most. The test was “Emotional words would affect our response time more
than the neutral words.” The report states the one theory of emotion which was chosen by the
participant’s reaction. A participant was selected to prove the hypothesis. I have taken the help of
a participant, 15 emotional and 15 neutral words as stimulus, stopwatch and a data sheet for
analyzing the experiment. The participant used in this experiment was 30 years’ old who was not
affected by any injury or diseases. Firstly, the consent of the participant was taken. The response
time was then noted which will be the data presented in the report. Due to the current situation,
the limitation of this report was that we were not able to conduct the experiment in the lab itself
and also only one participant was used therefore it is not 100% correct since we don’t know how
others will react. To come to a conclusion, the experiment showed that the participant took much
time to respond to emotional words rather than neutral words. After seeing the results I can
deduce that my participant was a very emotional family oriented person who is vulnerable when
it comes to her loved ones.
Reaction Time to Neutral and Emotional Worlds

Introduction
To start off with, emotion is something that plays a vital part in everyone’s lives. Our emotional
expression creates an image on people’s minds about ourselves. Emotion can be both positive or
negative. It gives us the drive to do something while being emotionally strong, humble and kind.
Sadly, it can also affect us negatively. It is very important to have control over our emotions so
that other people don’t exploit us. Hence, the experiment was conducted to figure out whether
people are more emotional or neutral. We have used 3 variables in this experiment.

Emotion: An emotion is a feeling such as happiness, love, fear, anger, or hatred, which can
be caused by the situation that you are in or the people you are with.  Emotion is the part
of a person's character that consists of their feelings, as opposed to their thoughts.
(emotion meaning - Google Search, 2020).

Emotional words: Words that help us to feel emotional which may be of two types. One,
positive like hugs, love etc. Another negative like rage. Emotional Words are a way of
advertising and a technique used in propaganda. By using emotional words, advertisers and
propagandists can bring across positive feelings about their product to consumers. Words such
as these bring out the positive emotions and feelings in people without needing to include the
facts. (emotional words meaning - Google Search, 2020).

Neutral words: Words that don’t consist emotions and are unbiased towards something. They
are the words that are used on a daily basis. Example, bag, watch, book etc. If someone
uses neutral language, they choose words which do not indicate that they approve or disapprove
of something. Both sides had agreed to use neutral terms in their references to each other.
(neutral words meaning - Google Search, 2020).

Difference between emotional and neutral word: Neutral words are used on a daily basis and
emotional words are more complicated. People tend to remember emotional words more than
neutral words.

Reaction Time (RT)/Response Time: The time length needed for a participant to respond to
words upon hearing them. This is the time needed in order to give a reaction to the stimulus.

Methods of measuring RT:

 Duration of response: Duration of response is the time from response (R) to
progression/death (P/D). The existing statistical procedures for DOR are valid when
certain model assumptions are correctly specified. 3. Therefore, in a typical report of a
clinical study, DOR is summarized descriptively. (duration of response - Google Search,
2020).
 Reaction time or latency of response: The period of time from the stimulus to the
response is called response latency. It is the time span that is used often used in
psychology.

 Reaction time with a word cue: This method will once again calculate reaction time
by calculating the time it takes to catch a dropped ruler, but in this method a final word
 cue is given, as well, after other words are spoken that should be ignored. (reaction times
with a word cue - Google Search, 2020).

 Reaction time with word association: Association reaction time, in other words mean
association test with the time elapsed between stimulus and response.

 Speed of response: The time needed to react to a signal. The time required for a system
to react to some signal; for example, the delay time for a photon detector to react to a
radiation pulse, or the time needed for a current or voltage in a circuit to reach a definite
fraction of its final value as a result of an abrupt change in the electromotive force. (speed
of response - Google Search, 2020).

The factors that affect reaction time:

 Age: Age is a vital factor since it affects the reaction excessively. Older people take more
time to react due to their motor skills which are in the decline stage. Also, they tend to
observe more than the youngsters although younger people respond quicker. They have
high stimulus reaction abilities.
 Vision: What the respondent is seeing also plays an important role. It also affects the
time of reacting. A respondent with any disabilities like defect in color may tend to act
slower.
 Arousal: The fact that the muscular tension can also affect the reaction time is also
relevant. When a respondent is eased or tensed, the process gets a little slower, although
excited respondents may respond faster.
 Practice and Error: Often participation in a task time required for stimulus
identification and response can be lowered. The result will be faster if the respondent is
used to the job already.
 Gender: Males tend to react faster than females.
  Relevance: For instance, a respondent is at risk of a life threatening situation that means
the person is about to die, how he or she will respond will be a little faster than anyone in
their usual lives.
 Injury: A study shows that long choice reaction time and poor performance on mental
ability tests are associated with accidental musculoskeletal injuries.

Previous research evidence in this area:

Winskel (2013). The emotional Stroop task and emotionality rating of negative and neutral words
in late Thai-English bilinguals. The test showed that the neutral words were faster responded to
and the emotional words were a little slower. It showed that time adds additional pressure and is
vital.

Another study which was conducted by Ferre, P. which was aimed to test the effect of retention
interval on memory for emotional stimuli. The results were that the emotional information is
better remembered than the neutral words.

Objective of the Experiment

Objective of the experiment was to investigate whether response time differs between neutral and
emotional words.

Variables

Independent Variables (IV): Words (two levels: neutral and emotional)

Dependent Variables (DV): Reaction Time (RT)

Hypothesis

Reaction time will be longer for emotional words than that of neutral.
Method

Design

A single independent subject design was used.

Participant

An adult female participant of 30 years old was selected to conduct the experiment. She is an

entrepreneur and has good medical conditions.

Materials

 Informed Consent

 Instruction sheet

 Data sheet [List of 15 Emotional (E) and 15 Neutral (N) words]

 Stop watch (a mobile phone was used)

 Paper, pencil and eraser

Procedure
On 23rd of July, 2020 the experiment was conducted. The participant was offered a seat right in
front of the experimenter at home. Firstly, the experimenter greeted the participant and then the
informed consent form was given to her and was asked to read carefully, later sign it. The
experimenter also had to sign it after the participant. After the consent was provided, the
experimenter had to read out all the instructions from another sheet so that the participant had
full knowledge of the experiment. The purpose was to make sure that the participant was doing
this voluntarily. Then the experiment began. Later, the experimenter started to read out one by
one all the 30 words from another sheet and table. The respondent meanwhile had to respond as
soon as one word was provided. Once the word was said by the experimenter, she had to turn the
stopwatch on and record the time. The moment the respondent gave a response, the stopwatch
had to be stopped by the experimenter. Then the experimenter had to note down the response
word and the time it took for the respondent to react. All the responses were recorded. The word
list consisted of 15 emotional words and 15 neutral words. After the responses were done, the
participant had to provide a feedback where she expressed her feelings towards the test. She was
given the liberty to write anything she wanted. The test was invigilated by our faculty via video
call. To end the experiment, the participant was thanked for the contribution in the experiment.

Results
For comparing reaction time, total and average reaction times to two conditions (emotional and
neutral words) were calculated (shown in Table 1).

Table 1
Total and Mean Reaction Time to Neutral and Emotional Words

Type of words Total reaction time (Sec) Mean reaction time (Sec)
Neutral words 29.8 1.987
Emotional words 36.22 2.415

From Table 1 it can be deduced that average reaction time (2.415) to emotional words
was higher than that (1.987) of neutral words.
 2.5

2.4 2.42

2.3

2.2
Mean reaction time (sec)

2.1

2
1.99
1.9

1.8

1.7

1.6

1.5
Emotional words Neutral words

Figure 1. Mean reaction time to emotional and neutral words

Discussion

People tend to take longer time for emotional words than neutral words. My data
representation and analysis proves the hypothesis right. The findings can be used as an
example for further studies or literature. Yes, of the findings were not expected. My
participant took much time to respond to some neutral words like bag. She stumbled upon
the word hug for a very long time. Since the hypothesis was true, it proved that people
spend more time thinking about emotional words than neutral words. This is because we
use neutral words very often. When it comes to emotional words, people tend to think
more and observe more.
Therefore, I have observed that people are more emotional nowadays and it sometimes
needs to be controlled.
Conclusion
All in all, the experiment was a success and the hypothesis was proven right. From the
results we clearly see that it takes more time to respond to emotional words than neutral
words. The difference between the emotional words and neutral words is 0.428 seconds.
Even though the time span is very less, it still indicates that emotional words take more
time. It is found that people are more emotional.

References
 Google.com. 2020. Duration Of Response - Google Search. [online] Available at:
<https://www.google.com/search?
q=duration+of+response&oq=duration+of+res&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l6.3394j1j8&sourc
eid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 29 July 2020].
 Google.com. 2020. Emotion Meaning - Google Search. [online] Available at:
<https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01_8kAt8oBrJOOgO8lAb8-CHTMX8w
%3A1596038567596&source=hp&ei=p50hX-2CIovyrAHKrK-
oAg&q=emotion+meaning&oq=emotion+meaning&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIHCAAQRh
D_ATICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADoHCC4QJxCTAjoE
CCMQJzoICAAQsQMQkQI6BQgAEJECOgsILhCxAxDHARCvAToCCC46CAgAELEDEI
MBOgUIABCxAzoOCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQowI6BQguELEDOgQIABADOgsIABCxAxC
DARCRAjoECAAQClD7A1jWE2CLGWgAcAB4AIABdogBiguSAQQxMS40mAEAoAEBqg
EHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwit8vf-
6vLqAhULOSsKHUrWCyUQ4dUDCAc&uact=5> [Accessed 29 July 2020].
 Google.com. 2020. Emotional Words Meaning - Google Search. [online] Available at:
<https://www.google.com/search?
q=emotional+words+meaning&oq=emotional+words+meaning&aqs=chrome.69i57j0l7.80
33j1j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 29 July 2020].
 Google.com. 2020. Neutral Words Meaning - Google Search. [online] Available at:
<https://www.google.com/search?
q=neutral+words+meaning&oq=neutral+words+mean&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l3.6012j0j
8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 29 July 2020].
  Google.com. 2020. Reaction Times with A Word Cue - Google Search. [online] Available
at: <https://www.google.com/search?
q=reaction+times+with+a+word+cue&oq=reaction+times+with+a+word+cue&aqs=chrom
e.69i57.9235j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 29 July 2020].
 Google.com. 2020. Speed of Response - Google Search. [online] Available at:
<https://www.google.com/search?
q=speed+of+response&oq=speed+of+res&aqs=chrome.0.0l2j69i57j0l5.4975j1j8&sourcei
d=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 29 July 2020].
 2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mean-reaction-times-
ms-for-negative-and-neutral-words-in-the-emotional-Stroop-task-in_fig1_236947320>
[Accessed 29 July 2020].

Appendices

 Signed Informed Consent

 Instruction sheet
 Data sheet
 Participant’s comments