[ Home ]                                 PSYC 220 (Research Methods in Psychology) Fall 2008     Steven J. Gilbert, SUNY-Oneonta  

Ideas for Research Projects  

1. GILBERT DOUBLE HELIX ILLUSION. I discovered (invented?) a computerized visual illusion (pictured left), whereby a two-dimensional array that appears to move upward on a computer screen comes to appear as a double helix, rotating in three dimensions.  This is called a bi-stable illusion because there are at least two ways to perceptually organize the stimuli, and are perception continuously "jumps" from one to the other.

     The Necker Cube is a classic static bi-stable illusion (a version is pictured right).  Our perception of it also jumps from one orientation to the other.

     Do all subjects see the the double-helix illusion? Do people who see (relatively) more rotations of the helix see more rotations of static bi-stable illusions, like Necker Cubes?  If so, what psychological traits distinguish those who see many from those who see few rotations?

 

2. MERE EXPOSURE AND AWARENESS.  The "mere exposure" effect is simple: All other things being equal, the more you see (or hear, or smell) something, the more you like it.  For example, suppose you show people 300 nonsense syllables (e.g., yobuka, lesoguna).  Most of them are shown just once, but some of the nonsense syllables are shown multiple times.  Later, you show a few of the 300 nonsense syllables again, this time asking people to rate how attractive or pleasant-sounding they find them to be. Experiments find that people like the syllables they saw multiple times BETTER than the syllables they had seen only once.  But suppose you made all of the syllables "subliminal," by flashing them too quickly for conscious recognition.  Will the mere exposure effect still work?  Will subjects prefer syllables presented multiple times to syllables presented only once, even if they have no recollection of having seen any of them at all?

 

Money
3. THINKING OF MONEY.  Here's the title of a recent article that piqued my interest: Merely Activitng the Concept of Money Changes Personal and Interpersonal Behavior. The authors reported several experiments in which they manipulated whether or not cues about money were present (e.g., a poster on the wall with pictures of money), and then measured behavior (e.g., how much subjects helped a person who dropped a box of pencils). Together, these studies show that "activiating the concept of money" makes people more selfish and less helpful! Would that work here? Is it equally true for men and women? The affluent and less affluent? American students and International students? Students who just did well and those who just did poorly on a test? Would it work better if people were aware of the money stimuli in their environment (e.g., told to guess the amount of money shown in the poster), or if the stimuli were subliminal?

 

4. EMOTION PERCEPTION.   (A) You see two women with a baby.  Can you tell which is the mother?  You see two guys after a 1-on-1 basketball game.  Can you tell who won?  Archer devised a test of how good people are in this kind of "macro" emotion perception situation, and I've got it on DVD.  (B) An impassive looking man leaks a quick expression which might be anger but could be disgust.  Can you tell which it is?  An impassive looking woman leaks a quick expression that could be annoyance or could be pity.  Can you tell which it is?  Ekman devised a test of how good people are in this kind of "macro" emotion perception situation, and I found it on the web.  Are people who are good at (A) also good at (B)?  Or are (A) and (B) different, unrelated abilities?  Are women better than men at these kinds of tasks?  Extroverts better than introverts?  RAs better than other students?  Psych majors better than biology majors?

 

5. EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDE CHANGE. When people are happy, they smile.  When they feel confident, they stand tall.  When they like someone, they stand closer to that person.  In each of these cases the expressive behavior reflects the emotion or attitude.  Can the opposite also be true?  What if people are induced to smile, or stand tall, or stand unusually close to a stranger? Will their expressive behavior CAUSE changes in the corresponding attitude?  A lot of research says "yes." But when is this true, and for what kind of people?

 

BushGoodGrammar
6. EFFECT OF GRAMMAR ON PERSON PERCEPTION. Suppose two people say the same thing, but use different grammar, e.g., "he doesn't have any pizza" vs. "he ain't got no pizza". Will this affect how they are viewed? How what they say is interpreted? How well they are liked or respected? The likelihood that they will be chosen as a partner on a task, or for a job for which they are interviewing?
 BushBadGrammar

 

7.  PRATFALL EFFECT REVISITED.  Many years ago, Elliot Aronson demonstrated that blunders perpetrated by unattractive people (in his study, spilling coffee on themselves) caused observers to like them less, whereas the same blunders perpetrated by attractive people caused observers to like them more (presumably because it humanized them).  But these scenarios were presented on audiotape, where subjects could not see the lingering effect of the blunder (i.e., the stain that would be seen on the person's shirt).  Would the results be different if the scenarios were presented on videotape?

 

 

8.  DIRECT vs. REVERSED IMAGES.  Research shows that people prefer direct images of their friends, but reversed  images of themselves -- the kind of images they see in mirrors.  The mere exposure effect (see #1) may explain this; we see ourselves in mirrors (where our image is reversed), hence, we prefer the reversed image of ourselves. But what about people who frequently see themselves in videos and photos (which don't reverse images); would they prefer  reversed images of  themselves?  And what effects may reversing images have, besides increased liking? Would people exposed to reverse images of themselves experience higher self-esteem or a greater sense of competency or control?

 

 

9.  PHI-PHENOMENON IN THE DARK.  If you flash a light on and off, and then a few milliseconds later, flash a second light on and off, the first light will look like it has MOVED to the second light's position (rather than two different lights flashing at different times).  This powerful illusion is called the Phi-Phenomenon (or Apparent Movement), and is the basis for motion pictures.  A few semesters ago, my students and I wondered what would happen if you showed the Phi-Phenomenon in the dark (it appears that no one has done this).  The results were startling and unexpected, and can stimulate many interesting experiments.

 

10. DYNAMIC AUTOKINETIC SUGGESTIBILITY.  When people look at a small lighted figure in the dark, the figure appears to move -- the autokinetic effect.  What if the figure is an arrow?  Will it appear to move more in the direction that the arrow is pointing?  Are some people more "influenced" by the dynamics of the arrow than others?  Are such people more "suggestible," and how would we tell? Inquiring minds want to know!