Design of Experiment in Flash of Java

PROJECT TITLE: LEXICAL DECISION Participants enter the program and begin the process. Again what ever is the easiest approach for this – initially this will be used with on-campus students and for research purposes so we do need to collect the data and store it – but once we use it (next year) for the all students we will not need to collect that data I would like a 'friendly' front page which gives general instructions about the experiment (we will provide all the text) and tells the student: • they are about to be presented with a series of letters, some will make up real words others won’t – their task is to identify, as quickly as possible, whether the word presented is a real word or not by pressing on two designated keys • throughout the experiment the participant will need to change hands so when using the LEFT hand, keys will be (F for WORD, SPACE for non-word); RIGHT hand, keys will be (J for WORD, SPACE for non-word). • words will be presented one after the other until the required number of words have been presented (may need a 'STOP and RELAUNCH' option – if possible) • each word will appear on screen for 3 seconds – if at this point no response has been made the word will ‘time out’ and the next word will appear. This process continues until all words have been presented Behind the scenes: • database of 48 non-words, 24 neutral words, 12 positive and 12 negative words • words divided into four blocks of 12 non-words, 6 neutral, 3 positive and 3 negative and ‘labeled’ A B C and D (this could either be done randomly before each individual or set up permanently whichever is easiest) • Each block to be presented in the following order A, B, C, D, B, A, D, C (participants will be required to change hand after every block to ensure every block is completed with each hand) • Data we need to record: o Reaction time (i.e., between word presentation and key stroke) o Accuracy At the completion of the A, B, C, D, B, A, D, C we need to have accuracy and reaction time for each of the word types in a table along the lines of … WORD TYPE ACCURACY REACTION TIME NEUTRAL POSITIVE NEGATIVE NON-WORD Ideally I would also like to access the event by event data as well (so that I can analyse separately each block just to check for order effects etc) but as this will be NOT for student use access to this level of data does not need to be so pretty ©