Brain Teasers
The Test: Nervous yet?
• Choosing the Brain Teaser Task:
– Somewhat cerebral, but still
fairly simple
– Short and sweet
– Lack of associated prior sense of
anxiety
• Two groups: one low-pressure (untimed) and
one high-pressure (time limit)
• HP group was told the mean time needed to
complete brain teaser task for participants
in LP scenario.
• Does this foster a sense of competition or
anxiety?
Selection of Participants:
– Two experimenters assigned to each
subject group
– 30 LP, 30 HP subjects
– Random selection of participants
across a number of campus locations
(collis, hop, baker, novack)
– Each participant tested individually
so as not to increase any group-
oriented competitiveness
– Results would be analyzed both for
time and response accuracy
The Test: Exposed
0
________________
  Ph.D.
B.Sc.
B.A.

123safety456
 Hypotheses: Will they freak out??
 Null Hypothesis:
There will be no difference
in the mean amount of time
it takes for each group to
complete the task.

 Alternate
Hypothesis: There will
actually be a difference in
the mean amount of time it
takes for each group to
complete the task.
 Our Beautiful Thoughts: Can they
handle the PRESSURE?
 We hypothesized two
possibilities for the effects of
pressure:
 Subjects may take more time
to complete the task due to
anxiety induced by time-
pressure

 Subjects may take less time

to complete the task because
they are already motivated to
perform well in high-
pressure, competitive
situations (by virtue of being
Dartmouth students).

 These effects could have

confounded each other,
confusing the difference
between our means and
increasing variance.
 Holy Platypus! What Brilliance!
But are there any significant
effects?
Results:
• The average time for the LP
group was 198 seconds (3 min.
18 sec.) with a standard
deviation of 89 seconds.

• Average time for HP group

(once told the average for LP)
was 221 seconds (3 min. 41
sec.) with a standard dev. of
144 seconds.

• But what about accuracy?!

 Mathematical Shizzy: Graphical
Comparison of Performance across Subject Groups

Times for the Low-Pressure Trial Times for High-Pressure Trial

900 900

800 800

700 700
Times (seconds)

Time (seconds)
600 600

500 500

400 400

300 300

200 200

100 100

0 0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27
Subjects Subjects
 Shooting in the Dark: Accuracy
across experimental situations

Correct Answers in Low-Pressure Trial Correct Answers in High-Pressure Trial

8 8

7 7
Number of Correct Answers

Number of Correct Answers

6 6

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

0 0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27
Subjects Subjects
 Accuracy Issues: Did some punks like to hit it
and quit it, or did they like to stay and play?
 Average number of correct
answers in the low-pressure Our friend
group was 5.13 (out of 7)
with a standard deviation of Sir Mix-a-Lot
1.5.
 Average number of correct
answers in the high pressure *******************************
group was 5 with a standard •Had to remove one subject from
deviation of 1.5. LP group: only answered two
teasers

 No real statistically significant •Removed three subjects from HP

difference between group group: two only answered a limited
number of teasers, and one was a
accuracy
huge outlier (4 standard deviations
away from mean)

•Subject pool became 29 for LP

and 27 for HP.
Significance: means and sd’s- F-test
and t-test
 To calculate the t-score for the difference
between two means, we used t = (x1 – x2)/ (s12/n 1 +
s2.52/ n2.5)
 Our critical region required that t ≤ +1.671 or t ≥ -1.671
 t = 0 = No significance
 To calculate the difference in variance between the two
samples, we used F = s12/ s22
 To be significant at a 5% level, F would have to be in
the range of 1.87-1.91
 F = 1.27 = No significance
Discussion: Robbed of rightful results with the rebus

 The problem with the “3 degrees below

zero” rebus.
0
________________
 
 How the rebus might have skewed the
data in two directions: Ph.D.
– students who spent too much time on one B.Sc.
rebus (more time)
– students who just gave up (less time)
B.A.

 Perhaps we need a cognitive measure

that would make time much more of a
salient factor than accuracy. Ridiculous Rebus
 Discussion Part Deux:
Faster, Hotter, and More All-Encompassing
 Sampling Problems
 Self-Selection:
 After seeing the task, people could choose not to participate
and it is likely that people who are not familiar with or do not
like brain teasers would opt not to participate

 Location:
 Public area, Presence of other students: increased sense of
anxiety or competition (respectively)
 Ideally, subjects would be isolated in a small room
 Conclusion: Overly verbose
suggestions for further, equally-awesome
projects
The results of the study indicate that applying pressure in the form of an
implied time constraint does not significantly affect cognitive
performance.

• Potential mplications for the SAT and other high-stakes testing,

suggesting that there is not much truth to the claim that cognitive
performance is negatively affected by time constraints. On the other
hand, no one was really invested in our little task, so who really knows
what would happen under real pressure.

• However, certain common characteristics of our participants should be

noted. As we might be able to assume at Dartmouth, the participants in
such an elite academic environment tend to have been trained to perform
well under timed conditions.

• Therefore, we would recommend that future projects be performed on a

large population of students from many different grade-levels and
institutions, that a more time-oriented cognitive task be chosen, and that
the subjects be truly isolated in the testing situation.