Paper Assignment for Psychology 120B Zahra Ismail Discussion 1B
1. The dependent variable in this experiment is the reaction time to the millisecond. The first independent variable in this experiment is the luminance patches which consists of three levels, light condition, dark condition and equiluminance condition, and the second independent variable is the location of the target which consists of two levels, same side (valid) or opposite side (invalid).
2. The first limitation in the experiment is that the sample size is too small and there needs to be more participants in the experiment to have an accurate representation of the general population. Another limitation in the experimental design is that the participants are not randomly …show more content…
In order to control for possible confounding variables, the experimenter randomized the order in which the participants underwent each of the six conditions. The experimenter also controlled for differences in the participants by allowing the participants to set their own criterion level for the equiluminance point and also controlled for outliers by eliminating response times that were considered misses or anticipatory response times. The experimenter controlled for any visible luminance differences by embedding the stimuli in random luminance noise and setting an equiluminance point in which the brightness of the cue is that of the …show more content…
The Magnocellular pathway receives information from the M ganglion cells about motion, spatial relationships and contrast cues and sends its input via the dorsal pathway to the parietal lobe. The Parvocelleular pathway is responsible for detecting fine, attuned details such as colors or form in our vision and sends its input from P Ganglion cells via the ventral pathway to the Temporal lobe. However, since the Parvocelleular pathway is responsible for detecting details, there has been doubt as to whether this pathway can grab attention in our peripheral in addition to focusing our attention to specific stimuli in our visual field. This study expands upon the previous views because it explores the central purpose of color vision and whether it can be aided my motion cues. The experiment attempts to see if the Magnocellular pathway and Parvocellular pathway interact by using color stimuli to grab attention and govern visual behaviors, such as moving the eyes to focus on a