Gender and Simon Effect Samples for Students †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Gender and Simon Effect. Answer: Introduction There has been a lot of psychological studies which explained the fact that there are differences in cognitive abilities based on gender. Spatial as well as verbal abilities show differences based on gender. Simon effect is referred to as dependence to the time of reaction on any spatial correspondence of a response or stimulus which is irrelevant to the task. For example, if the subject is instructed to press the key P if the subject sees a right on the screen and the key Q if the subject sees a left appearing on the screen. The time of reaction for the subjects is referred to as the Simon Effect. It is assumed that the natural selection of cross generational process results in the mechanisms of psychology. This assumption is considered as an important assumption in the evolutionary psychology (Dolk et al., 2014). A lot of psychology test paradigms were introduced in the past years. One of them is the Simon effect. The aim of the Simon task was to process the stimulus of one dimension while ignoring the other. It was demonstrated by Groome Eysenck (2016) that Simon effect was dependent on the spatial relationship between the responses and the stimuli and less on the attention and concentration. It was observed from a study by Colzato et al. (2015) that the responses of the male in the Simon paradigm is faster than the responses by the females. Women showed a comparatively higher interaction effect between the relevant and irrelevant features than that of men. Differences in the reaction time has not been noted in the study conducted by Salzer, Hollander Forstmann (2017). This study is mainly addressed to test whether the Simon Effect is higher in women than in men. This indicates that this task will test whether women are more distracted with task irrelevant information if the information is present in an object which is not the object of target. According to a study by Stoet (2018) the performance of women was better than men in these situations. Research Question: Are females more prone to Simon effect than men? On the basis of the discussions done above, the following hypothesis has been framed to proceed with the study. These hypotheses have been framed in such a way that these will be useful in assessing the research question. The experimental hypothesis 1 (H1) indicates that there are significant differences in the reaction times between male and female member for relevant and irrelevant tasks. The null hypothesis is this case states that there are no significant differences in the reaction times while performing the Simon paradigm. The experimental hypothesis 2 (H2) indicates that there are significant differences in the congruent and the incongruent mean scores of different individuals. The null hypothesis in this case states that there are no significant differences in the congruent and the incongruent mean scores of different individuals. The experimental hypothesis (H3) indicates that the interaction between the average effects of gender and the average effects of congruence in an individual has significant impact towards the reaction time over stimuli for any individual. Thus, the null hypothesis in this case states that the interaction between the average effects of gender and the average effects of congruence in an individual has no significant impact towards the reaction time over stimuli for any individual. Methods: Design A 2 x 2 mixed design has been developed for this study. The variable for which the between variable effect was tested was gender and the variable for which the within participant effect was tested was the congruence level in the participants (Congruent or incongruent). The variable which was considered as the dependent variable in this study is the congruence or incongruence level in the participants. Participants For the purpose of the study, 150 participants were considered in the experiment. All the participants were aged above 21 years. This study needed an equal number of male and female participants. Thus, out of these 150 participants, 75 were male and the remaining 75 were female. To consider a participation with equally numbered male and female participants, the students undertaking the course in cognitive psychology of the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) who were asked to participate in the experiment. There were 75 participants from the university and each of the participant were asked to recruit one participant of the opposite gender and not enrolled in the same course. This way, equal participation of male and female members for the study was achieved. Materials With the help of a computer, the CogLab experiment on Simon Effect was conducted and the results of the experiment were recorded. Procedure At the time of the online experiment, it is required that the participants fix their eyes to a fixation point. The fixation point is at first shown and then it disappears. After some time, red squares or green squares will appear on the screen which will appear to the right or left of the fixation dot. The task of the participant will be to identify the colour of the box as quickly as possible. If the participant makes a mistake in identifying the colour, the whole trial will be repeated. A minimum of 100 trials is conducted for the test. Results It has been observed from the results of the experiment that the mean score for both the congruent and the incongruent reactions in males is less than that of females. Moreover, it can be seen that the mean scores of overall congruence are higher in females than in males. The average of these results of the experimental output is presented in table 1. Table 1: Average score for congruent and incongruent reactions Gender Mean Male Female Congruence Congruent 644 689 667 Incongruent 694 753 724 Mean 669 721 To test whether there are any main effects of gender on the congruence scores for each of the participants, a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test has been conducted. The results of the ANOVA test are attached in the appendix section. It can be seen from the tables that the significance value for the between subject effect of gender is 0.310, which is higher than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the first experimental hypothesis is rejected and there is no main effect of gender. Main effect of congruence has been observed where the p value is 0.000 which is less than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the second experimental hypothesis has been accepted. No interaction effect between gender and congruence have been observed as the sig value (0.467) is higher than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the third experimental hypothesis has been rejected. Discussion The aim of this study was to test whether Simon effect is more in females than in males. Three experimental hypothesis was framed to test this claim. The first hypothesis stated that there is main effect of gender on the Simon effect. It has been observed from the results of the analysis that there is no main effect of gender on Simon effect. Thus the first experimental hypothesis stated above has been rejected. This has been contradicting the results to the study conducted by Stoet (2018). The outcome has been in accordance to the study conducted by Salzer, Hollander Forstmann (2017). The second experimental hypothesis has been accepted here. The second experimental hypothesis stated that there is a main effect of the congruence scores for Simon effect. Results showed that the mean scores for the two types of congruence, that is congruent and incongruent differ significantly with 95 percent confidence. The scores for incongruence is slightly higher than congruence. Thus, the results suggested that the participants with higher incongruence scores has more Simon effect. This has been accordance to the study by Duprez et al. (2017). The third experimental hypothesis stated that there were significant interaction effects between congruence and gender for Simon effect. From the results of the analysis obtained, it has been observed that the interaction effect does not exist. This indicates that both males and females has a higher incongruent score than the congruent score. Thus, this study has shown that females do not show higher Simon effect than men. This contradicted the results of the study by Barsalou (2014). No research paper can be conducted without any limitations. Though it has been seen that a lot of past studies have shown significant differences in the Simon effect by gender, this is not the conclusion that has been achieved in this research. In fact, no significant differences have been seen between gender for Simon effect. This contradiction in the results could have been obtained as the sample size selected for the research has been significantly small to conclude about the whole population. Moreover, the study was conducted within the students of the university and participants selected by them. Thus, the selection of the sample has also been biased. If these limitations can be taken care of, the results can be altered. References Barsalou, L. W. (2014).Cognitive psychology: An overview for cognitive scientists. Psychology Press. Colzato, L. S., Sellaro, R., Samara, I., Hommel, B. (2015). Meditation-induced cognitive-control states regulate response-conflict adaptation: evidence from trial-to-trial adjustments in the Simon task.Consciousness and cognition,35, 110-114. Dolk, T., Hommel, B., Colzato, L. S., Schtz-Bosbach, S., Prinz, W., Liepelt, R. (2014). The joint Simon effect: a review and theoretical integration.Frontiers in Psychology,5, 974. Duprez, J., Houvenaghel, J. F., Argaud, S., Naudet, F., Robert, G., Drapier, D., ... Sauleau, P. (2017). Impulsive oculomotor action selection in Parkinsons disease.Neuropsychologia,95, 250-258. Groome, D., Eysenck, M. (2016).An introduction to applied cognitive psychology. Psychology Press. Salzer, Y., de Hollander, G., Forstmann, B. U. (2017). Sensory neural pathways revisited to unravel the temporal dynamics of the Simon effect: A model-based cognitive neuroscience approach.Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews,77, 48-57. Stoet, G. (2018).Sex differences in the Simon task help to interpret sex differences in selective attention.