CrossMod Improvement and Mistake

2:00 - 4:00 PM

Today, I made a modified, "improved" version of the CrossMod test. Between words, the background changes to a light blue, and the word "Wait" is displayed. The motivation behind this is that in the old experiment subjects may have been confused as to when words ended and began. This was because the pause time didn't seem to be long enough. The new pause is 2000 milliseconds.

Interestingly enough though, it turns out the pause time between words in the old experiment was incorrect! Due to a bug, the wait time between words was 500 milliseconds, not 1700 milliseconds as originally planned. This definitely could have led to some confusion for subjects. However, Jason J said the results from 80 subjects had them score around %60, statistically well above average, and just below the scores in the Conway/Christiansen paper. Even with the difficulty of the short pause, the experiment was a success. If tried again with the appropriate pause, or with the "Wait" screen, results very well may be better.

I did fix the older version, so now the pauses between words are 1700 milliseconds.

Both of the files "CrossMod" and "CrossModImp" are located in my folder "JM" in Jason's folder on the server.

~Jason