Description

In this project you will design a response time experiment, implement a Java program that will collect data, and then conduct a pilot experiment to test your experimental setup. You will prompt the user for their name. Then tell them, you will display a question they are to type in the answer as quick as they can. You will capture the time immediately prior to asking the question and then immediately after they type in the answer. If they answer the question incorrectly ask them again and capture the time again

Example

long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

System.out.println( Type question)

Answer = keyboard.next??<----------- read in correct format for answer

long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

long reactionTime = endTime - startTime;

Response times

The measurement of response times can be used to investigate a wide range of learning, psychological, or social phenomena. A program like this can be used to test response times of children learning addition, possibly as part of a game. Analysis of response times can sometimes provide support to theories of cognition or shed light on questions about associations or bias that are difficult to address in any other way -- see, for example, scientific studies in decision problems or letter recognition.

Part 1: Design an experiment and implement a java program to conduct the experiment Is there a research question you would like answered that can be addressed using response times? It can be a question related to one of your other courses. It can be anything about which you are curious but should not be too complicated to implement in a java program. The task should involve answering a question for which there is a right/wrong answer. ( examples :Who is the Senate majority leader, How much is 123+345, The capital of Maine is )

Each run of the program should conduct the experiment with a single subject. The program can be run repeatedly to obtain data from different subjects. Whatever task you choose, be sure that your program: * Asks the subject's name (or some kind of id # if you are doing a double-blind study) * Issues clear instructions for the task * Collects at least 4 response times(ask 4 different questions) for the subject, using variations of the task or questions

• If they answer the question incorrectly - tell them that and re-ask the question. Get a new time for the second try. You can use this time to replace the reaction time from the time they gave an incorrect answers if they answer it incorrectly again, disregard the reaction time in the average.

• You need to count how many questions they got correct- if they get one wrong, and then get it right on the re-ask you can count that is correct. If they get it wrong the second time, count it as incorrect

* Computes the average response time (and the number of correct answers, if applicable)

Part 2: Conduct a pilot study and write up the results Gather some friends (at least 5) to serve as experimental subjects in order to conduct a pilot experiment. * Ask each person to run the program and record their data in a spreadsheet. * Ask each person to comment on your program and record their observations for your report. * Analyze the results of the pilot experiment and include in your project report - for example have an average response time for each person as well as a group average(you would compute the group average on paper using the data form the individual runs)

Style and Documentation

In addition to working well, your program should adhere to the general style and documentation guidelines used in the textbook. This includes:

• Appropriate indentation and use of white space for readability. Make sure that matching braces are lined up on the same column and that statements that are executed conditionally (part of the if/else) are indented further.

• Use descriptive names for your variables.

• Comments should be used to document tricky parts and to explain the use of variables, where that is not obvious from their name.

• Comments should describe the overall goals of the program and give some details of its history, including when and by whom it was written, filename, when it was modified, its purpose, etc.

• Avoid long lines in the program: generally, no line of the program should be more than 80 characters long. This ensures that when you paste your program into Word, the lines will not be broken and it will still look the same as it looked on your screen.

Project report checklist

• Overview: research question, experiment, and task used to obtain experimental data

• Source code - submit on Canvas directly - not in the document

• Sample runs from pilot study

• Analysis of results

• Comments from subjects

• Brief personal statement about the project:

  • How long did it take?

  • Was it easier/harder than you expected?

  • Difficulties/problems you encountered and how you solved them

  • What you enjoyed and/or learned from this project

  • Help you received (please specify: from TAs, peer tutor, professor, classmates, friends, relatives)

  • Anything else you would like to mention