Unit 4 Practice Test

A researcher wanted to know whether the timing of feedback affects how well students learn to type. She randomly assigned 48 seventh graders at one middle school to two groups. For two weeks, both groups used the same typing program for 20 minutes a day. The immediate group saw a check mark or an X right after each word they typed. The delayed group saw all of their feedback at the end of each 20-minute session. At the end of the two weeks, every student took a 3-minute typing test, and the researcher recorded their words typed correctly per minute.

The difference between the means was statistically significant (p < .01).

A researcher surveyed 150 adults about how many hours a week they watch cooking videos and how many new recipes they tried in the past month. She found a correlation of r = +0.41.

A rat learned to press a lever for food. Then the food was turned off. Each day, the researcher counted how many times the rat pressed the lever in a 10-minute session. After Day 5, the rat had two days off. On Day 8, it was tested again, still with no food.

A hypothetical study, written for practice and modeled on published research. It is not the study on Friday's test.

Introduction

Researchers tested the hypothesis that experiencing events you cannot control makes people give up more easily on later tasks, even tasks they could succeed at. This idea is called learned helplessness.

Participants

Fifty-four college students (ages 18–21; 30 women and 24 men) from one introductory psychology course at a university in Georgia took part for course credit. Each student signed an informed consent form and was told they could stop at any time without losing credit. The noise was kept below a volume limit approved by the university's review board.

Method

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups of 18. In the escapable noise group, participants heard a series of loud, unpleasant tones and could stop each one by pressing the right button combination. In the inescapable noise group, participants heard the same tones, but no button combination stopped them. The no noise group sat quietly for the same amount of time. Then every participant had 10 minutes to solve 20 anagrams (scrambled words, such as ELTAB for TABLE). The researchers recorded how many anagrams each participant solved. At the end, participants were told the purpose of the study, including that the inescapable tones were designed so that no one could stop them.

Results

The inescapable noise group solved significantly fewer anagrams than each of the other two groups (p < .01). The escapable and no-noise groups did not differ significantly (p = .62).

Discussion

The researchers concluded that a short experience of uncontrollable events reduced effort on a later, solvable task. They noted that the effect was measured only once, right after the noise.

Real studies, summarized and simplified for practice. These are not the sources on Friday's test.

Source A: Garcia & Koelling (1966)

Introduction: Researchers asked whether rats can link any cue with any consequence equally well.

Participants: Laboratory rats.

Method: Rats drank sweet-flavored water. Every time they licked the spout, a light flashed and a click sounded, so the water came with a taste, a sight, and a sound. Afterward, one group was made sick to their stomachs. A second group got a mild shock to the feet instead. Later, the researchers offered each rat either sweet water with no light or click, or plain water with the light and click.

Results: Rats that were made sick avoided the sweet taste but not the light and click. Rats that were shocked avoided the light and click but not the sweet taste.

Discussion: Rats are prepared to link taste with illness, and sights and sounds with outside pain, much more easily than the other way around.

Source B: Cook & Mineka (1989)

Introduction: Researchers asked whether monkeys can learn a fear of anything by watching another monkey's fear, or learn some fears more easily than others.

Participants: Rhesus monkeys raised in a lab, which had never seen snakes and showed no fear of them.

Method: Each monkey watched videos of another monkey reacting with fear. The videos were edited so that the monkey on screen seemed afraid either of toy snakes and toy crocodiles, or of flowers and a toy rabbit. Afterward, the researchers tested whether the watching monkeys would reach past each object to get a treat.

Results: Monkeys that watched fear of toy snakes or crocodiles became afraid of those objects and avoided reaching past them. Monkeys that watched the same fear reactions to flowers or a toy rabbit did not become afraid of them.

Discussion: Monkeys learn fear by watching, but only for some objects. They seem prepared to learn fear of animals that were dangerous to their ancestors.

Source C: Breland & Breland (1961)

Introduction: Two animal trainers, former students of B. F. Skinner, reported problems they ran into training animals for shows and ads with operant conditioning.

Participants: Pigs and other animals trained with food rewards.

Method: Pigs were trained, with food rewards, to pick up large wooden coins and drop them into a piggy bank across the room.

Results: The pigs learned quickly. Over several weeks, though, they began dropping the coins, pushing them along the ground with their snouts, and tossing them in the air. They took longer and longer to finish, which delayed their food, even though rooting earned them nothing.

Discussion: The pigs drifted back toward natural food-finding behavior (rooting) that got in the way of what they had been reinforced to do.