PSY 321:  Cognitive Processes
Concept Formation

Do the following steps to complete this assignment:

  1. Review pages 326 to 329 of the text.  Become familiar with the term prototype.

  2. Make sure that you have a current web browser.  The experiment has been tested with Internet Explorer 6.0, Firefox 1.0.7, and Opera 8.5 on Windows XP and Internet Explorer 5.2, Safari 1.3, and Firefox 1.0.7 on the Mac OS X.  Make sure that Java is enabled in your browser.

  3. Read the information about the details of the experiment on the Start page.

  4. Do the experiment.  Most students should take less than 60 minutes to complete the experiment.  Some may take substantially longer.

  5. Submit your results to the web server no later than midnight on March 20.  Your data will be displayed along with everyone else's data.

  6. Follow the instructions in the Suggested Data Analysis section of the page that is displayed when you submit your results.

  7. Write the APA style paper which is to be a four page report of the experiment.  The first page is to be the title page.  Pages two and three will consist of a brief (no more than one half page each) review of relevant literature and discussion of the hypotheses that are being tested in the study, followed by an abbreviated methods section, a short description of the results, and a discussion of those results.  The final page is to be an APA style reference section.

    8.   Sections of the manuscript after the reference section (e.g. tables, figures) are not counted in the four page limit.
  8. Turn the paper in no later than the start of class on Monday, April 7.
  9. Here is a suggested reference for this work:
    Posner, M. I., Goldsmith, R. & Welton Jr., K. E. (1967).  Perceived distance and the classification of distorted patterns.  Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73, 28-38.