METHODOLOGY

Hypotheses-
1. Reaction time will be greater when target and background stimuli are congruent as
compare to incongruent.

Variables:
Independent Variable
IV (1) - Background Stimuli

Dependent Variable
Reaction Time

Operational Definitions Of Variables:

Independent Variable
IV (1) i.e., Background Stimuli was manipulated at 2 levels
1. Congruent - target and background is same
2. Incongruent - target and background is different
Dependent Variable
DV, i.e., Reaction time, was defined as the time taken to locate the target.

Controls-
1. 4 demo cards based on each condition were made. for the actual conduction, 60 cards
were made. There were 15 cards in each condition. The 4 conditions were – Letters with Letters,
Letters with Numbers, Numbers with Numbers and Numbers with Letters.
2. The rows and columns had the dimension of 7 X 7
3. A Ready signal was given before asking each question.
4. The ready signal was given after which the question was asked and the card was shown
after the question was completed. The stopwatch was started when card was shown and stopped
as soon as the participant pointed out to the target.
Design Of The Experiment-
A repeated measures design was used. The two independent variables were manipulated at two
levels each.

Materials-
1. 4 demo cards
2. 60 test cards
3. Stopwatch
4. Record sheet
5. Stationery

Procedure-
The participant was brought into the laboratory made to sit comfortably. Rapport was established
with the participant. The participant was then given instructions for the experiment followed by a
demonstration task and when understood, the experimenter began with the experiment. After
this, the scored were recorded and the PTQs were asked. The participant was then debriefed
about the experiment and after answering all their questions, the participant was thanked and
escorted out of the laboratory.

Instructions

This is a simple experiment about locating letters and numbers. I will show you some cards, one
card at a time. Each card will have letters and numbers on it. Before showing you a card, I will
give you a ready signal and then only I will show the card. After showing you the cards, I will
ask you to locate a specific letter or number on it. Your task is to point out where the target letter
or number is. Please respond to it as quickly and accurately as you can. We will now do a few
demo trials. Do you have any questions? Are you ready?

Debriefing

This experiment was on perception. It is studied through visual search task. This experiment was
originally conducted by Ulric Neisser in 1963. The aim of this experiment was to study if you
will take more time to search the target from a congruent background i.e. when you’re asked to
search any letter from different letters that are shown to you or you are asked to search a number
from various series of numbers, as compared to when you’re asked to search target from
incongruent background i.e. asking you to search a letter from a series of numbers or vice versa.
In your case, we found that you took ___ secs for the Letters from Letters task, ___ secs for
Numbers from Numbers task, __ secs for Letters from Numbers task and ___ secs for Numbers
from Letters task. It can be seen that you took more time in ___ task and less time in ___ task
(There is a possibility that P took more times on both tasks then mention both the tasks.) Further,
you made __ no. of errors in Letters from Letters task, ___ errors for Numbers from Numbers
task, __ errors for Letters from Numbers task and ___ errors for Numbers from Letters task. It
can be seen that you made more errors in ___ task and less errors in ___ task.

Talking about practical application in everyday life, this would help explain why we pay
attention to certain acoustic features of speech that make a meaningful difference in our language
but ignore others. For instance, we understand the speech of a stranger who speaks our language
quickly and effortlessly while ignoring differences in their pitch or accent i.e. features of speech
which are unimportant. Feature analysis also helps explain how speed-reading works—it’s
because while reading fast, we tend to notice only the features of the letters and form the word
instead of carefully reading each and every letter to construct the word.

Do you have any questions? Thank you for participating