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Format MLA

Volume of 1 page (275 words)
Assignment type : Lab Report

Processing Information and Making Decisions

Purpose
This lab demonstrates the impact of information processing on performances involving decision making.

Background
The information-processing model presented in chapter 2 of your textbook includes three types of processes that are thought to occur during the interval of time known as reaction time. These three processes are stimulus identification, response selection, and movement programming. Factors that slow down or speed up any of these processes will influence reaction time (i.e., it will take more or less time to react).
Remember that reaction time indexes the amount of time to initiate a response to an unanticipated stimulus. The three stages of information processing involved in reaction time occur in sequence, starting with identifying relevant information in the environment (stimulus identification—e.g., hearing a smoke alarm in the middle of the night when you are in a deep sleep probably involves a certain amount of time just to realize what the noise actually is), deciding on a course of action (response selection—e.g., deciding to get out of bed), and preparing your body to carry out the action (movement programming—e.g., preparing to throw back your covers, swing your feet to the floor, and stand up in one rapid, fluid action).
Once you begin your action, the reaction time for that particular event is over, but you are still more or less continuously monitoring information from the environment in order to act on it, so that you are typically engaging in a continuous series of closely spaced information-processing events. For example, the smoke alarm probably does not prompt you to plan the entire sequence of actions that includes getting out of bed, grabbing your pants, walking down the hall, and looking to see if the alarm is false. Those can all occur very rapidly, but it is more reasonable to believe that the information processing for the action of grabbing your pants, for example, occurred during the action of getting out of bed. If an action does not require much thought to control the movement, we often take advantage of this to plan the next action so that the sequence of movements appears seamless to an observer.
To understand decision making in terms of information processing, we need to understand the different roles of stimulus identification, response selection, and movement programming. If it takes you a long time to react to the smoke alarm, it might be because you were sound asleep and it therefore took a long time to recognize the noise (stimulus identification), or it might be because you did not know whether to get out of bed or yell at your roommate (response selection), or it might be because you did decide to get out of bed and this more complex action requires more preparation than simply yelling at your roommate (movement programming).

To isolate the effects of any single stage of information processing, we need to control for the effects of the other two stages. Each stage can be controlled in the following manner:
1. Stimulus identification—Do not change the stimulus and the conditions under which it is presented.
2. Response selection—Inform the performer that there is only one appropriate action in response to the stimulus.
3. Response programming—Do not change the complexity, duration, or familiarity of the action that is required by the stimulus.
We know from chapter 2 of your textbook that decision making as indexed by reaction time is affected by these things:
1. The number of possible stimuli that require a unique response (S-R alternatives)
2. The compatibility of the response to the stimulus (S-R compatibility)
1. How well practiced the performer is in responding to the stimulus and carrying out the action (practice)

Equipment
1 stopwatch
10 coins (or washers)

Instructions
Students will take turns in the roles of experimenter and participant. There are two tasks that require you to slide a series of coins from one location to another as quickly as possible while still being accurate. Each student will complete 12 trials of each task. Collect all the data for one participant before switching roles.
A trial will always begin with the participant’s hands flat on the table on either side of the template (found on p. 6 of this lab). Orient the template so that the columns are centered on the midsagittal plane of the participant. The participant should not look down at the coins or template until the experimenter signals that a trial is to begin. At the signal to start a trial, the participant can use his or her nondominant hand to anchor the template so that it does not slide on the table.

Task 1
On a table in front of the seated participant, the experimenter places 10 coins in the two outside columns so that there are 5 coins in the far-left column and 5 in the far-right column.
The goal of the task is to slide each coin sideways with the index finger of your dominant hand to the circle in the column marked with an H. As you move down the page, alternate between the left and right columns.
The experimenter will provide the stimulus by saying, “Ready, set, go!” and will time the performance with a stopwatch. Once a trial is complete, the experimenter will calculate the average time per coin and record it on the data sheet before starting the next trial.
Task 2
For this task, the experimenter places five of the coins so that they are heads up and five so that they are tails up, taking care not to place more than three consecutive coins in one position. The participant is not allowed to look at the coins until the trial starts. The experimenter can hold a piece of paper in front of the coins and remove it when he or she gives the “go” command. The goal of this task is the same as in task 1, but with the additional requirement that each coin is moved to the column corresponding to the side it is showing (i.e., H column for heads up and T column for tails up).
Note: In these tasks, you are not strictly measuring reaction time because the action is also included. However, because the action is very simple and brief, and because it is essentially the same for every trial, any changes from task 1 to task 2 should primarily reflect changes in reaction time.
Discussion
Compare your results from task 1 and task 2 by looking at the trends across the 12 trials for each task and by comparing the overall averages. Discuss how your findings illustrated the influence of S-R alternatives on reaction time that you read about in chapter 2. Did your results match what you would expect based on the information presented in your textbook? Discuss two factors other than the number of S-R alternatives that might have influenced your results. Did you find yourself using a strategy to help your performance during either task? If so, what was it and how do you think it might have influenced your information processing?