We’ve created a few online cognitive psychology experiments that you and your students can use. Contact me if you’d like to use any of them.
How the Experiments Work
Each experiment provides a browser-based interface that participants can access to do the experiment. There is also a separate page that can be used by the experimenter(s) to access the Results. The data can be downloaded as a comma delimited file (.csv) which can be opened with a spreadsheet application such as MS Excel or Google Sheets.
The Experiments
- Levels of Processing. This is a memory experiment that demonstrates how we remember better when we learn information that focuses on the meaning of words rather than more ‘superficial’ features such as the which letters appear in the word. (This experiment doesn’t have a nice data output page but you can download the data for analysis). There is also a pen and paper version of this task available on Pen and Paper Experiments page.
- Framing Effects in Decision Making. This experiment demonstrates how the way we frame information can make a big difference to the decisions people make. For instance, people tend to behave differently when faced with a penalty for being late compared to receiving a discount for being on time even when the total cost is the same in the two situations.
- Everyday Reasoning and Logic. This experiment shows how people’s knowledge of social situations helps us to reason better (compared to abstract logic problems that are structurally identical).