Sensation/Perception Experiment

Your task is to plan and then, following approval, perform and report on an experiment on sensation or perception. You will pick a topic about sensation or perception and follow the guidelines below:

1) Prepare an Experimental Plan covering the following points

a) What is the topic you would like to study? Pick a topic which is interesting to you.....but it is important that it is also one which can be easily observed and quantified, for you will have to measure in an objective way.

b) What has previous research said about your topic?

c) Who is the subject? Consider whether you will need to seek permission from some teacher.

d) How will you conduct the experiment? What is your experimental design?

f) How will you measure the results and determine whether or not they are significant?

2) AFTER your Proposal has been approved by me, conduct your experiment. (Follow the plan outlined in your Proposal and keep careful notes of everything you do and all the data you collect.)

3) Write an experimental report. Be as objective as possible, including (but commenting on) both successes and failures in your work.

Your Report should include the following:

i) a title,

ii) an introduction which explains what your project was about, give relevant background information on the psychological concepts investigated, what have other researchers found about your topic, why are you studying this, what ramifications might your study have on other students.,

iii) a description of the procedures you used, (basically this will be very similar to the proposal you turned in earlier, but will incorporate any changes or improvements you made, and

iv) a detailed account of the data you gathered (perhaps using charts or graphs to do so),

v) a discussion of any conclusions you can draw your results and the significance and/or practical applications

vi) an evaluation (or critique) experiment, mentioning any problem areas where you feel you could have improved your results. You could for example explain any flaws in your "method" which led to difficulties, add any further research that could expand upon or improve the information you gathered.