BCS 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Naturalistic Observation, Experiment, Random Assignment

• School: University of Rochester
• Department: Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Course: BCS 111
• Professor: Yang

Document Summary

A true experiment is one in which the experimenter manipulates one or more independent variables (the experimental conditions) and observes how the recorded measures (dependent variables) change as a result. Having experimental control means the experimenter can assign participants to different experimental conditions so as to minimize preexisting differences between them. Between-subjects design: different experimental participants are assigned to different experimental conditions and the researcher looks for differences in performance between the groups. Within-subjects design: exposes the same experimental participants to more than one condition. Quasi-experiment: studies that appear to be experiments but the treatment and control groups may not be comparable at baseline (not actually random assignment) Naturalistic observation: consists of an observer watching people in familiar everyday contexts going about their cognitive business. Observational studies have the advantage that the things studied occur in the real world and not just in an experimental lab . this is called ecological validity.