Ryan Cassidy and Peter Crane IRP
Ryan Cassidy
against those not under pressure. We plan to do this by creating a
few jumbled up words for them to then unscramble. Each participant
will be timed, however to create a situation under pressure for one
group, the participants will be told they are being timed and the
researcher will announce specific time intervals. The other
participants will not be told that it is being timed or hear the
researcher call out times and instead will simply be asked to complete
the set of words. A time will be recorded for all of the participants
and the researchers will compare the data collected for those under
pressure and not under the pressure of time.
Preliminary Hypothesis: The researchers hypothesize that on average
the participants that are not under pressure will complete the
unscrambled words faster than those under pressure.
Relevant research:
1) Psychologist shows why we “choke” under pressure -- and how to
avoid it
a) This study examines why the brain can cause a star golfer to miss a
critical putt, a brilliant student to fail to ace the test, and an
expert salesperson to mess up a presentation. It discusses why each
of these people have experienced choking under pressure.
b) The study found that thinking too much about the situation because
of anxiety can result in losing the lead or worrying about failing,
can lead to “paralysis by analysis.” This meant that situations with
pressure can deplete the working memory that takes place in the
prefrontal cortex of the brain. As a result of excessive controlling
thoughts, the working memory receives too many tasks, the working
memory becomes overwhelmed, and the brain lacks temporary storage of
information. This disrupts the “mental sketchpad” and it becomes
difficult to answer questions quickly.
c) This study applies to our own study because it suggests that
pressure indeed affects an individuals performance and it describes
the reasons of why a person performs worse under pressure. The study
demonstrates why the brain is disrupted in pressure situations and
what occurs in these instances.
Harms, William. (2010, September 21). Psychologist shows why we
“choke” under pressure --
and how to avoid it.
http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2010/09/21/psychologist-shows-why-we-choke-under-pressure-and-how-avoid-it
2) The effect of time pressure and task completion on the occurrence
of cognitive
lockup
a) This study investigates the proposal that time pressure and task
completion play a role in the occurrence of cognitive lock up. It also
aims to extract information about an inescapable flaw that nearly
every human being exhibits often: human error. Thus, investigators
looked to focus on the reduction of simple human errors and how they
can be avoided, specifically magnifying cognitive lock up; the
tendency to deal with disturbances sequentially. As a result of this
cognitive lockup, people are inclined to focus on the current task and
are reluctant to switch to another task, even if that task has a
higher priority.
b) The study was able to observe certain situations that could
contribute to this phenomenon, and found that if participants were
near completion with a specific task, the probability for cognitive
lock up increases. Also, investigators were able to conclude that the
probability for cognitive lock up decreases when a participant is
asked to execute a task for the second time. The study also found that
there was little to no effect of time pressure or an interaction
effect found between the completion of a task and time pressure. Thus,
the results favor the perspective that cognitive lock up is the result
of a decision making bias and that said bias could be retrieved by the
assumption that a task is near completion.
c) This certain study applies to our own research idea in that we are
looking to compare the success of task completion in high school
student participants that receive constant communication of time
pressure constraints between those participants that do not receive
communication of time pressure constraints. Thus, it is hypothesized
that on average the participants that are not under pressure will
complete the task faster than those under pressure. It may be evident,
however, that participants with the constant time pressures may
contain a greater awareness of the necessity to obtain task
completion, and thus said participants could encounter cognitive
lockup and perhaps decrease their rate of task completion. Also, this
study illustrates the effects of time pressure and task completion on
the participant’s subconscious methods and strategies regarding the
most efficient way to complete the task in front of them, such as
unscrambling a certain number of words in a certain amount of time.
Schreuder, E. J. A. (2011, February 11). The effect of time pressure
and task completion on the
occurrence of cognitive (T. Mioch, Ed.). Retrieved from
University of Utrecht website:
http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-696/paper10.pdf
3) Perceived time pressure and the Iowa Gambling Task
a) This study illustrates the theory that it is not necessarily the
time pressure, but it is the perception that time pressure affects an
individual’s ability to complete a task. Michael DeDonno, a doctoral
student at Case Western Reserve University, divided 163 students to
perform the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). He tested to look at the
relationship between perceived time pressure and IGT performance. The
study was divided into an experimental group which was informed that
the allotted time to perform the task was insufficient and the control
group which was told they usually had sufficient time to complete the
task. During the IGT, participants chose from four decks of cards in
an effort to make as much money as possible. The purpose is to
discover which two of the four are the good decks in the quickest
amount of time to earn the most money.
b) The study found that participants who were told that the allotted
time was insufficient performed worse than the participants who were
told they had enough time, regardless of the actual time allotted.
Michael DeDonno perceived these results were from the effect of a time
pressured situation. The study suggests that if an individual is told
there is not enough time their performance will be worse than if the
individual was told he or she has enough time.
c) This study applies to our study because it also examines the
relationship between pressure and the effect it has on the amount of
time allotted. It suggests that participants in any task are affected
by the pressure of time and as a result the allotted time is greater
than participants that are told there is sufficient time. The IGT
study supports our hypothesis and serves as evidence the the
completion of a task takes longer with pressure.
DeDonno, Michael A. (2008, December). Perceived time pressure and the
Iowa Gambling Task.
Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 3, No. 8, 636–640.
http://journal.sjdm.org/8714/jdm8714.pdf
Luisa Lange
really interesting outcome if your hypothesis is confirmed. You may
want to specify the difficulty of the words. Will the words all be of
the same difficulty? Will each group receive the same words and the
same amount of time?
> and how to avoid it.http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2010/09/21/psychologist-shows-why-we...
Holly Wiberg
J Sito
subject but I assume you are testing on more than two people. Also,
"choking" may be difficult to identify simply because some people are
inherently more adept at word games such as crosswords, searches, and
word scrambles. On a practical note, you might specify the amount of
time you plan to put on the clock as this could vastly alter you
findings. For example, if I were given all the time in the world to
arrive at school I might show up after lunch. If I were given 10-15
mins I would perform optimally and arrive by 830, as per usual.
Finally, if I were given 3 minutes to get to school from my house, I
would speed, most likely "choke" and total my car. Just some thoughts.
All the best
reed westerman
hypothesis! One problem that may be come up with your experiment is
your control group. You should attempt to make all participants of
similar capabilities when it comes to puzzles. One or two very strong
or weak participants could skew the data so you should try your best
to get participant of all similar make up. You could also try a puzzle
set or different sets of mind teasers as well as some people are weak
at unscrambling words.
On Nov 23, 8:37 pm, Ryan Cassidy <ryancassid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> and how to avoid it.http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2010/09/21/psychologist-shows-why-we...
Jack Barry
pressure. Though it may be helpful to specify who the target
population is as well as who the sample will be. In addition, what
will the time limit be for those who are unscrambling the words? Also,
will both the experimental group and the control group be unscrambling
the same set of words?
On Nov 23, 8:37 pm, Ryan Cassidy <ryancassid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> and how to avoid it.http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2010/09/21/psychologist-shows-why-we...