the pictures that may or may not have been showed. What was interesting was that most of the control group saw human faces. The human group almost all saw a man in the image whereas almost the entire animal group saw a rat.
Word Count: 191
Contents:
Abstract
Introduction
Method
Design
Type and Justification of Design:
Variables
Ethical Procedure
Materials
Procedure
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Experiment Consent Form
Informed Consent Statement
Appendix 2: Rat-Man Image
Appendix 3: Human Group Response Page
Appendix 4: Animal Group Response Page
Appendix 5: Control Group Response Page
Introduction: The Bugelski and Alampay experiment was carried out using a rat man image (see Appendix B). All participants were to see this image. The aim of this study was to find what the impact of previous experiences have on one’s perspective. Another important aim was to find how the top-down processing may influence one’s perspective. Top-down processing is starting with a big concept or idea and then eventually narrowing it down to something specific. Bugelski and Alampay experiment’s hypothesis was that if the participants were given pictures of human faces, they would see an ambiguous picture that would most likely be perceived as a human face. If the participants are given animal pictures, they will most likely see an animal. In this experiment, participants were either shown images of people or animals. Depending on what the participant was exposed to, most of the responses correlated with the images they saw. The conclusion of this experiment is that top-down processing has a major influence on the perception of humans since it allows people to make inferences on what they see based on past knowledge. In this case, the past knowledge is whether a participant looked at animal images or human images.
Method
Design-
Type and Justification of Design: The experiment created was an independent experiment since the same participants weren’t asked to do multiple trials for the experiment.
Variables:
The independent variable of this experiment was the type of groups the participants were in. The participants who were in the animal group and human group got corresponding images on their response sheets (see Appendix 3 and 4). The dependent variable in this experiment was the response that participants put in regards to what they saw in the Rat-Man image. Whether that was a man or a rat. The controlled variable of this experiment was the inclusion of a group that had no images on the participant's response sheets (see Appendix 5). Ethical Procedure:
Before the experiment started, the participants were clearly told that they were allowed to leave the experiment at any time. Everything in our procedure was analyzed to ensure that no harm is done to any participant. Whether that is physical or psychological harm, no participant should experience neither.
Participants:
The participants who took part in this experiment included students from both 11th and 12th grade of Sequoia High School. The experiment took place in Redwood City, California. These participants were mostly a part of the IB program. However, students of other programs and classes were also included. Many of these participants were also close peers. Choosing the participants wasn’t a random process. The tested group was a highly selected group of people for the experiment. However,the group was quite diverse since the ethnicities of the participants included Asian, Latin American, mixed race, Filipino and Caucasian. The sex of the participants were also almost equal because there were a few more females than males.
Materials:
5 response forms for animal group (see Appendix 4)
5 response forms for human group (see Appendix 3)
5 response forms for control group (see Appendix 5)
A platform for the participants to view the Rat Man image (ie. powerpoint, poster) consent forms (see Appendix A)
Procedure:
15 participant are collected for the experiment. They are asked to sign a consent form if they haven’t done so already (Index A). Anyone younger than 16 year old must have the signature of a parent or guardian.
Separate the groups of people into three separate groups: the control group, the animal group, and the human group. Before starting the experiment, the participants were told that they were able to leave any time during the experiment and they were promised to not be harmed.
Hand out the sheets of paper to the different groups of people. There was a controlled group that received a blank page with only instructions (Index 3). There was an animal group that received pictures of animals on their papers (Index 4). The human group got pictures of humans on their papers (Index 5).
To start the experiment, a powerpoint was set up with the image that we were gonna use for the experiment. However, people were not shown the image until reviewing the page they were given.
One of the experimenters told the students how they were allowed to leave the room for any reason.
The participants were asked whether they had any questions on the experimentation before the experiment began. The questions should be only answered if they are regarding the ethics of the experimentation and harm that may possibly result in the experiment.
The picture was then revealed on the powerpoint and the participants wrote down their first response to the image.
The papers were then collected by one person and put into one stack so that they could later be used for data analysis.
Results:
The results showed that numerous people in their specified group correlated with the images they saw. Many of the participants in the controlled group saw a person in the image. The participants in the human group saw an image of a human instead of an animal. In the control group, participants mostly responded with human. Out of 15 participants, only 6 people saw an animal in the image displayed. However, 9 people saw a person in the image displayed. To go back to the aim of this study, to find whether past events influence perspective, the results highly support the aim that perspective is influenced by past events since correlation between the pictures shown and the responses given was high. Overall, the experiment helps support the idea that top-down processing does influence an individual’s perspective.
Graph 1: Shows the number of people who saw either an animal or human on their first impression.
Discussion:
The results of this experiment showed that participants are impacted by past events since the 80% of both the animal group and the human group had responses that corresponded to the images. 80% of the controlled group responded with seeing a human. This goes back to support the idea of top-down processing since our familiarity with other people makes it easy to relate images to humans. Assumably, the participants of the controlled group used their prior knowledge of humans to make the claim that the image showed a human. The results link to the original experiment, Bugelski & Alampay (1961), since___. This experiment did have it’s limitations when implemented. Since the experiment took place in a school, it is very likely that the participants were already exposed to this experiment and may have already known what it was about. Another limitation of this experiment is that the overall structure of the experimentation could have been more organized. One way to implement this organization is by giving at set time period for each part of the experiment. The experiment was also limited in that there were other students in the room and that may have further biased the experiment.
Conclusion:
The aim of this experiment was to find whether the top-down process was actually causing the participant’s perception to be impacted. In other words, whether past events can actually impact what you perceive in everyday lives. Based on the data collected from this experiment, participants from the animal and person group saw similar images.