Divided Attention Can Enhance Memory Encoding The Attentional.docx
Thesis Proposal
1.
2. Ten testers will go through the entire experiment to ensure that the experimental conditions measure the variables they are supposed to measure.
3. These testers will determine whether the written test produces the hypothesized results.
4. The experiment will involve a 3 minute presentation of 40 words and a 15-20 minute written test after the computerized trials.
5. If interested in pilot testing, please contact Felicia Oropeza at 916-616-9672Or email her at feoropeza@gmail.comI will compensate the participants for their time with a $5.00 giftcard from Starbucks. Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672Pilot Testing (916) 616-9672<br />Figure 6. Graph of Hypothesized Interaction of Thematic Relation with Presentation Condition<br />BlueSubliminal PresentationRedSupraliminal Presentation<br />Performance<br />High<br />Low<br />ThematicNon-thematic<br />Thematic Relatedness Condition<br />Figure 7.Drafted Preliminary Letters for Recruitment<br />Email to Nancy Anzelmo M Sc.G.- December 19th 2009<br />Hello,<br />I was a recent student in your care management gero 103 class at CSUS. I am doing a research study (my graduate thesis) on aging memory in the psychology department. I would like to set up an appointment with you to discuss different options as to where I can recruit participants for my experiment, how I would best approach different agencies to put up flyers, and whether you may know of any contacts in the local area that I can be referred to for assistance with recruiting a subject pool. I need to recruit 84 older adults ages 65+. I have approximately 20 from family and friends. Would you be able to meet with me after the holidays and if so, when would be a good time to meet? I will be unavailable from December 30th to January 7th but I can meet anytime after that. <br />Email to Linda- December 25th 2009<br />Hello,<br />I am a computer tutor at Ethel Hart Senior Center working with Anne bimonthly. I am doing a research study (my graduate thesis) on aging memory in the psychology department. I would like to set up an appointment with you to discuss different options as to where I can recruit participants for my experiment, how I would best approach different agencies to put up flyers, and whether you may know of any contacts in the local area that I can be referred to for assistance with recruiting a subject pool. I need to recruit 84 older adults ages 65+. I have approximately 20 from family and friends. Would you be able to meet with me after the holidays and if so, when would be a good time to meet? I will be out of town from December 30th to January 7th but I can meet anytime after that. <br />Email to Bob Pierre-December 25th 2009<br />Hello,<br />I am a close friend of Louisa Vessell. I attend Medical History Museum seminars pretty regularly. I am doing a Masters thesis on aging memory in the psychology department at CSUS. I would like to set up an appointment with you to discuss recruitment of subjects and see whether you may know of any people who may be interested in participating in such a study. I will be attending the next Medical History Museum meeting in January but I would like to meet with you earlier in January if possible. I am going to be out of town until the 7th of January so please email me times you are available. <br />Email to Darryl Morrison – December 25th 2009<br />Hello, <br />I am conducting a graduate thesis study on aging memory for graduation fall 2010. I would like to discuss with you recruitment options such as the best approach for distributing flyers within the club or within the California book club network and whether you know of any contacts in the local area that I can be referred to for assistance with recruiting a large aging subject pool. I need to recruit 84 older adults ages 65+. I have approximately 20 subjects so far from family and friends. Would you be able to meet with me early during the January meeting to discuss recruitment possibilities? I would be able to meet at 6pm. Thank you very much. <br />Figure 8. Brief Description of Project to Senior Service Organizations<br />I am a graduate student in Psychology at California State University, Sacramento. For my Master’s thesis, I am conducting research on memory in older adults. During the summer of 2010, I want to recruit fifty participants who are age 55 or older without any unusual memory impairment to participate in my research.<br /> <br /> The participants will first be given a ten minute telephone interview assessing their cognitive status. The interview questions are not personal and present few risks. The participants will later be asked to sit in front of a monitor and will be presented with a series of forty words flashed for either .2 seconds or 2 seconds on the computer screen. The time lapse between each word will be 1 second. At the end of the experiment, participants will be given a 40 question memory test where they will check “Yes” or “No” to indicate whether they remember a word as being from the series of flashed words. I would be glad to demonstrate the computer task to you if you wish to see it.<br /> This individual testing should take about 15 minutes to complete. To protect the privacy of participants, I will use codes rather than names to identify each participant, and only group results will be reported. The research might lead to a better understanding of memory in older adults. Research sessions will be scheduled at a place and time that is convenient for participants. I will compensate each participant for their time with a $5.00 gift card to Walmart.<br />I would like to hand out or post flyers to recruit participants from your organization, consistent with any policies you have. This would begin after I receive approval from the human subjects committee in the Psychology department. An approximate starting date is mid-June of 2010. Please call me if you have any questions or need more information. If I have your permission to recruit participants from your organization, please print this letter on your company’s letterhead, add the name of your organization and your signature in the space below, and return the letter to me, preferably by May 10th 2010.<br />Thank you for your time and consideration,<br />Felicia Oropeza<br />(916)616-9672<br />feoropeza@gmail.com<br />I give my permission for Felicia Oropeza to recruit participants for her research from (insert name of organization) ______________________________.<br />Signed: ______________________________<br />Date: ________________<br />Comment Page<br />To make my experiment more manageable, I have limited the number of independent variables in my experiment. Notably, I will not include the independent variable, visualization ability, in my research study because it shows to be a potentially confusing variable for the analysis of memory processes. Additionally, I will expand the age group from individuals 65 years and older to individuals 55 years and older. Also, I changed the methodology used to analyze deep vs. shallow levels of processing where instead of using antonyms/synonyms, vs. rhyming/non-rhyming words, I am using thematic and non-thematically related words. By doing this, I removed many confounding variables of prior exposure to the presented word lists which could have had undesirable influences on the explicit memory test results. I changed the recognition test to a paper and pencil test to accommodate the needs of the aging population. I also shortened the word lists used during the testing conditions to not overload the older participants’ memory capacity. Finally, I have reduced the number of participants from 84 to 50 because there are less variables and no between-subject variables.<br />Further, I will ask the participants to rate the thematically relatedness of the words presented in the deep levels of processing condition on a 1 to 5 scale. I will also ask the participants to rate the non-relatedness of the words presented in the shallow levels of processing condition on a 1 to 5 scale. The score of 1 will indicate an unsuccessful pairing and 5 will indicate a successful pairing. I will give them more words than I intend to use assuming that they will give some words low scores. Additionally, once the programming for the computerized trials is completed, I will pretest my entire project using 10-20 individuals outside of the target age group. Their performance will help me assess whether the programmed experimental trials are successful, and whether the timing for subliminal/supraliminal presentation does indeed produce a reliable difference in test scores. <br />The literature on subliminal advertising and aging memory showed no clearly defined subliminal/supraliminal threshold for word stimuli presentation. However, research agrees upon a common measuring rubric of 1 millisecond for subliminal perception. Due to software constraints, I was unable to replicate 1 millisecond with my tachistoscope. I made a judgment call after examining how the computer handles subliminally presented stimuli and finally decided .5 seconds for subliminal presentation and 5 seconds for supraliminal presentation. Additionally, literature on working memory capacity and aging reveals that older adults can process 15 visually presented words without pause in one sitting. Aware of the aging working memory storage capacity limitations and the need to make my experiment somewhat challenging for the participants, I decided to create twenty item word lists for both thematic and non thematic relatedness conditions. I also decided to create a 1 second time lapse between each word presentation. <br />I added the inter-rater questionnaire for the thematic relatedness word conditions to the proposal. I also included the 40 word recognition test in the proposal and a graph of the proposed interaction. I added the word lists for the non-thematic and thematic relatedness conditions. I amended the flyers for both the pilot study and the recruitment of participants. Finally, I included the description letter that I will be faxing/emailing and sending via mail to the various organizations that have given their tentative approval. <br />I had a little trouble making the DVD. I managed to download two viruses while searching for freeware tachitoscopes and screen captures. However, I successfully prevailed by finding the Windows Live Movie Maker add-on for Windows 7 Home Premium. That program allowed me to create a tachitoscope and create a video which I burned to the DVD using Windows DVD Maker. <br />