PSYC 220 (Research Methods in Psychology)    Steven J. Gilbert, SUNY-Oneonta (updated 1.28.04)

1. F-WORD STUDY. Do people form different impressions of other people based upon the number of F-Words they use in their ordinary conversations? How is the effect modified (or amplified) by context (job interview vs. at a bar with friends), sex of speaker, sex of subject, and other variables?

2. EFFECT OF HANDWRITING ON EVALUATION OF ESSAY QUALITY. Suppose two groups of subjects read identical essays that differ only in surface appearance (e.g., neat handwriting vs. messy handwriting vs. typewritten). Will the appearance affect the evaluation of the quality of the essay? What other variables might modify this effect (e.g., does the essay take a popular or unpopular position, is the writer listed as a male vs. female, an A vs. D student, etc.)? Clearly there are some practical implications here (do you have bad handwriting?).

3. THE HONI PHENOMENON IN THE PONZO ILLUSION. It is almost impossible NOT to see a person walking along the back wall of an Ames room appear to get bigger and smaller. But some researchers have found that this isn't true when a subject is looking at his/her lover--the Honi phenomenon! It is also almost impossible not to fall for the Ponzo (linear perspective) illusion (i.e., if you place identical size pictures at different positions on a picture of a long, narrow hallway, the "nearer" picture will look much larger. Suppose that pictures of strangers vs. friends vs. lovers were placed in a Ponzo (linear perspective) Illusion. Would it affect the perception of the illusion?

4. EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDE CHANGE. When people strongly believe something, they (presumably) write it heavier and say it louder--the expressive behavior varies with the strength of the attitude it expresses. What if people are induced to write something with unusually heavy handwriting, or say something unusually loudly. Will they believe it more--can expressive behavior CAUSE changes in the corresponding attitude?

5. EFFECT OF GRAMMAR ON PERSON PERCEPTION. Suppose two people say the same thing, but use different grammar (e.g., "he didn't have any pizza" vs. "he didn't have no pizza"). Will this affect how they are viewed? How what they say is interpreted? How well they are liked or respected?

6. GILBERT DOUBLE HELIX ILLUSION. I discovered (invented?) a computerized visual illusion, 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. Do all subjects see the illusion? How is the illusion affected by eye-position and movement? Are two eyes necessary? Do two helixes appear to rotate in the same direction? Many questions can be asked and investigated.

7. AUTOKINETIC SUGGESTIBILITY. When a pinpoint of light shines in a dark room, it appears to move. This is known as the AUTOKINETIC EFFECT. I once told people that they would see a light for 6, 30-second trials, and that on trials 1, 3, and 5 the light would be stationary, but on trials 2, 4, and 6 it would move (and they would hear a motor moving it). Some subjects reported seeing much more movement on trials 1, 3, and 5 than on trials 2, 4, 6 (despite the fact that the light NEVER moved). The "suggestion" of movement caused them to perceive more movement. But some subjects did not see more movement on the three "movement" trials. Is there a stable INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE in some perceptual or personality variable that would account for this? Inquiring minds want to know!

8.  PRATFALL EFFECT REVISITED.  Many years ago, Elliot Aronson demonstrated that blunders perpetrated by unattractive people--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., a stain).  Would the results be different if the scenarios were presented on videotape?

9.  BACKWARD MASKING AND PERCEPTION.  If I flash a word on a computer screen for .03 seconds, you will see it.  If I flash the same word for .03 seconds, and then immediately put another word in its place, you will NOT see the flashed word -- it is backward masked.  The question is, will the masked word affect perception of the word that is masking it?  For example, if I flash negative words before the name BILL, and positive words before the name BOB, will people come to like BILL better than BOB?

10.  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 yearbook pictures.  Most of them they see just once, but some of them are shown multiple times.  Later, you show a few of the 300 pictures again, this time asking people to rate how attractive they find the people in the pictures.  Experiments find that people like the pictures they saw multiple times BETTER than the pictures they had seen only once.  But suppose you make the pictures "subliminal," so that subjects are unaware of having seen any of them.  Will the mere exposure effect still work?

11.  BISECTING A DYNAMIC SPACE.  Suppose you instruct people to stand halfway between a beautiful and a disgusting picture, in a room devoid of any cues to distance?  Where would they stand?  Some theorists make the counterintuitive prediction that they should stand closer to the ugly picture!  Why?  Our laboratory is equipped to answer these questions (and others that flow from them). new 1/28/04

12.  REDUCING OVERCONFIDENCE WITH VISUAL ILLUSIONS.  There are many visual illusions that powerfully show that how things look often differs dramatically from how they really are.  In class you observed a number of them.  Social Psychologists have demonstrated what they call the "overconfidence bias" -- that people's confidence in the accuracy of their judgments typically exceeds the actual accuracy.  This bias often leads people to make ill-advised decisions.  Would it be possible to reduce the overconfidence bias by showing people powerful visual illusions before they make their decisions?  new 1/28/04

13.  PHI-PHENOMENON IN THE DARK.  If you flash a light on and off, and then a second light on and off (with proper timing), 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. new 1/28/04