How the Information is Processed in the Mind - Report Example

Research Report on the Flanker Task By: This experiment was to establishing whether there is an effect on the arrangement of random arrows on the latency in identifying a target arrow. Five arrows were used with a target arrow being at the middle. Congruent and incongruent arrangements were used. Results showed that there was latency for incongruent arrangement while there was no latency for congruent arrangement of arrows. The experiment concluded that, the arrangement of arrows’ direction with that of noise arrows has an effect on the latency time taken to identify the right arrow. The conclusion from this experiment is in agreement with the previous conclusions drawn by Eriksen on the same. Introduction In studying how the information is processed in the mind, neuropsychological studies have been employed to show this. The approach on movement when visual information is displayed has been applied to make this study more practical and clear. Another way is using figures and images embedded in noise elements. Response is observed and the by this, conclusions will be drawn on what and how the response is affected. Eriksen and Eriksen (1974) in their study established that the response of neutral flankers that were physically similar to incongruent flankers caused a slower response than neutral flankers, which were physically similar to congruent flankers (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). Moreover, flankers which were congruent and identical to the target yield faster reaction times than flankers which were congruent but not identical (Eriksen & Schultz, 1979). These studies by Eriksen and Schultz show clearly that congruency do affect the reaction rate in response time. It also showed that similarity with the target increase the reaction rate while those not similar to the target increases the latency. These experiments performed before have clearly shown that irrelevant stimuli are processed throughout the sensorimotor system which explains these responses (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). The experiment is based on Eriksen’s Effects of Noise Letters experiment where he used a target letter at the middle and four noise letters (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). But for this experiment instead of using letters as it was for Eriksen, it uses five arrows with the target arrow in the middle. The participants will be asked to identify and respond to the direction they see the target arrow faces. The time taken for the participants to respond to this will also be measure in order to establish the speed of reaction. Eriksen further says that latency in response time can be obtained if the physical sizes of the random and target letters are different, even if they are similar (Eriksen & Schultz, 1979). The experiment aims to identify whether there is an effect on the arrow direction on the speed of identifying a target arrow placed in the middle of noise arrows. In doing this, a fixation stimulus was presented for 500ms at the start of each trial then Flanker stimuli presented for duration of trial until participant response. Stimuli presentation is white on a black background. Instructions were on 24 point font size while the fixation stimuli were on 48 point size. Method Participants There were 120 participants in this experiment with a mean age of 20.7 years. The setting of the experiment place being a college, it was expected that most of the participants should be the young people. The gender of the participants was also balanced. Of the total participants 115 completed the task successfully. Design Table 1 below show an example of variables that were available for the respondent. 1 show the direction of all arrows including the target facing left (Congruent left), 2 show all the arrows including target facing right (Congruent right), 3 show the noise arrows facing left while the target arrow is facing right (Incongruent right), while 4 shows noise arrows facing right and the target arrow facing left (Incongruent left). These were not the only arrangements though since the target would face any direction (right or left); likewise the nose arrows could face any direction. The experiment will base itself in these four conditions. The response to these conditions will be used to determine the latency in response and at the end be able to give a basis on the cause of the latency. Table 1 Experiment Conditions of the Stimuli Stimuli Condition 1. > Congruent right 3. > Incongruent left Procedure In order to get the best results, a practice block of 20 trials and one experimental block of 120 trials were performed, although the results were drawn from the experimental block only. During the practice block the participant was provided with error feedback on performance. There was no feedback provided during the experimental blocks. The experimental block consisted of 60 Congruent and Incongruent trials (presentation = random, no replacement). The participants response was (e) for left and (i) for right direction of the target stimuli arrow. The instruction to participants was to see the arrows in the centre of the screen. The focus was on the centre arrow whereby the participant was to identify which direction the center arrow is facing. The arrows appeared in many ways, either facing one direction or different directions. Results From the experiments, the results were obtained from 115 participants who completed the experiment successfully. To ensure quality and reliability of results fixation stimuli was presented for 500ms at the start of each trial then Flanker stimuli presented for duration of trial until participant response. Stimuli presentation is white on a black background. Instructions were on 24 point font size while the fixation stimuli were on 48 point size. The results were recorded for each participant and analyzed using SPSS. In each data, the latency mean time for congruent and incongruent response was recorded. The congruent latency mean was zero. This showed that for a congruent arrangement of arrows, there was no or the latency was negligible. On the other hand, a time of 1ms was recorded as incongruent latency mean. The latency median also had same result as for latency mean. The congruent latency median was zero, while the incongruent latency median was 1ms. These results clearly showed that, there is an effect of latency when congruent and incongruent noise arrows are added to a target arrow. This experiment enabled us to prove a previous experiment by Eriksen on the same issue. Discussion In this experiment we were basically trying to establish the effect of random arrows and their direction on latency. The experiment established the fact that latency is largely depended on the direction of noise arrows. This experiment clearly showed that congruency do matter a lot in making quick decisions by the brain. In relation to the previous researches and the hypothesis of this research, it was clear that there was no much difference between them. The experiment gave the expected results from the previous prediction from similar experiments done in the past. Despite the fact that the experiment yielded the expected results, there were still some problems that need to be addressed. From this and the previous experiments, the focus is only on latency in finding a target. According to my recommendation, there should be more study on what else could be causing the latency in making a decision apart from the arrangement of the target and noise elements. This should be able to establish a general and whole cause of latency and reaction times in making decisions, actions and movements. The threshold maximum latent time in which a choice of decision is affected by the above mentioned elements. References Eriksen BA, Eriksen CW (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Percept Psychophysics 16: 143–149, 1974. Eriksen CW, Schultz DW (1979). Information processing in visual search: a continuous flow conception and experimental results. Percept Psychophysics 25 (4): 249–263, 1979. Retrieved 10 December, 2012 from http://jn.physiology.org/content/104/1/119.full#ref-17 Appendix A: Cases to Variables Appendix B: Descriptive Statistics Read More