Honors Senior Theses/Projects
Date of Award
6-30-2019
Type (DCMI Terms)
Text
Exit Requirement
Undergraduate Honors Thesis/Project
Department
Honors Program
Faculty Advisor
Debi Brannan
Honors Program Director
Gavin Keulks
Language
eng
Abstract
Surprise is a fundamental, yet by definition unpredictable element of life. In the current experiment, the aim is to explore if surprise will have some form of statistically significant effect on cognitive performance. Participants consisted of io students from a northwestern university, the average age of participants was 19.3 (S = .io56). Materials include a Hexbug Fire Ant remote controlled robot, two tests of cognitive ability, a demographics form, a debriefing form, and an informed consent form. Participants first read and signed the informed consent. The robot was kept out of sight of participants. Subjects completed two tests with the pen on the desk. In the experimental group, the robot would suddenly be wheeled out from its hidden location before taking the test. After, subjects completed the demographics form and were debriefed. Participants were scored on the number of questions answered correctly. Participants who did receive a surprise had a slightly higher score (M = 1io.25, SD = .5) than individuals who did not (M = 15.33, SD = 2.52). The mean difference was not significant, t(5) = .186, p > .05, d = 0.511. The results do not support the hypothesis. This suggests that the treatment had no effect on participants. However, this study had multiple limitations.
Rights Statement
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Recommended Citation
Martin, Jacob, "Shock and Awe: Surprising Revelations on Cognition" (2019). Honors Senior Theses/Projects. 193.
https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/honors_theses/193
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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).