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Lexical Decision Lab

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Lexical Decision Lab
Taylor Burkholder, Tiffany Burton, Nabeela Rahman
University of Kentucky

Abstract
Numerous research studies have been conducted in the past investigating the idea of how different stimuli are associated with each other in the brain. In specific, research has been conducted showing a relationship between priming techniques and their association on response times. Today, one question being asked is how is the idea of the mental lexicon involved with recognition of stimuli. The mental lexicon is used as a way of storing information that is associated with each other. The study we conducted aimed to further investigate the idea of a mental lexicon or the organization of words based on how they relate …show more content…

The distribution of the participants by gender included 26 females and 6 males. The age of the participants ranged from 19 to 41 years old (M= 20.725, SD=5.15). All subjects are students who attend the University of Kentucky and are enrolled in PSY 427 Cognitive Psychology class instructed by Dr. Gottlob.
Apparatus and Materials Subjects participated in this experiment via an online Cognition Lab website, CogLab powered by Cengage Learning. Each student created a CogLab account at the start of the semester and participated in the lexical decision task on the Coglab website. Independently, the participants accessed and completed the experiment using a laptop, tablet or desktop computer. Each participant was given instructions on how to complete the experiment as well as a debriefing form following the completion of the study.
Procedure
Participants were given background information on lexical decision tasks and the mental lexicon then given instructions on how to complete the tasks. The study involved 96 trials. Each participant was given the same instructions. The participant was first shown a black rectangle, which served as the visual field for decision making. Then each participant was shown a white cross in the middle of the black rectangle, which served as a fixation point for one second then disappeared. Following the fixation point, either a valid English word or a non-word would …show more content…

A one way between subjects ANOVA statistic test in SPSS was done to determine if there was a between subject effects. The main effect of the type of association between words was significant (F(2,56) = 24.37, p= < .0001). Then, a Tukey HSD test was used to determine which groups in the sample differ and where the significance exists. The post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD Test indicated that the mean score for associated words (M=730.078, SD= 184.6699) was significantly different than non words (M= 878.267, SD= 233.7971) with p=<.01. The mean scores for associated words (M= 730.078, SD= 184.6699) were not significantly different than unassociated words (M=702.4224, SD= 176.0441). However, the mean scores for non-words (M= 878.267, SD= 233.7971) were significantly different than unassociated words (M=702.4224, SD= 176.0441). This study failed to reject the null hypothesis of association having no effect on response

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