Welcome to this experiment on cognitive abilities.

This page contains important information on the experiment.

This experiment will consist of a survey followed by 4 tasks presented in a random order, 2 of which have 2 variants, taking 80-90 minutes total. Each of these tasks will ask you to determine whether a target stimuli is present, or where it is located. After each descision you make, you will be asked to rate your confidence in your previous response. The confidence scale represents relative confidence, as, given the difficult nature of the task, you may rarely be completely certain your judgements have been correct. Try to use the whole of the confidence scale throughout the tasks.

These tasks are supposed to be difficult, and some of the stimuli will be ambiguous as the task adapts to your performance level. Remember to take breaks during the experiment, and your data is saved each time you are forwarded to a new page (after the first survey and each of the 4 main tasks), if you wish to take a break then. You can resume progress by returning to the last URL you were forwarded to.

As this experiment relies on visual tasks, please try to sit inside in a location where you can easily see your screen, and avoid adjusting screen brightness or changing your distance from the screen. As timing is important to this experiment, the less your computer is busy doing the better - if you can close all tabs and appplications down before proceeding, this would be appreciated. This experiment is designed to work with a computer keyboard and mouse and tablet touchscreens, but not on mobile.

Feel free to contact me at m.lovell@sussex.ac.uk with any questions. Press the button below to continue.

Participant Information Sheet

Invitation to take part

You are being invited to take part in a research study to further our understanding of cognitive abilities. Thank you for carefully reading this information sheet, a copy of which you can keep for your records. This study is being conducted by student researcher Max Lovell and project supervisor Professor Zoltan Dienes from the School of Psychology, University of Sussex, who are happy to be contacted (m.lovell@sussex.ac.uk or z.dienes@sussex.ac.uk) if you have any questions.
To take part in this study you must be 18 or older.

We are testing 220-300 adults in this study. The study will consist of an initial questionnaire with 21 questions, after which there are 4 tasks (2 visual, one memory, and one attentional) to complete. One visual task asks you to choose which of two boxes contains more dots, and will consist of 100 trials. The other visual task displays an image of 6 striped patches arranged in a circle, where one of these patches will or will not be of varying contrast to the rest. This task is split into two types (50 trials each) - initially you will be asked if the image contained a patch of different contrast or not, and in the second version you must decide which of two images shown sequentially contained the higher contrast patch. The working memory task also has two variants (50 trials each), and shows a sequence of numbers one-by-one followed by a string or strings of numbers, and you must decide if the string, or which of two strings, matches the sequence shown previously. After each trial you are asked to rate your confidence in your response. Each task and task variant also has 20 extra practice trials. Finally, an attentional task will ask you to count your breathing for 15 minutes (+2 minutes practice), wherein you will press one button for the first 8 breaths, and a different button for the 9th breath, indicating your confidence you were on count after every breath. You can use your keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen to interact with this experiment, although it is not available on mobile due to screen size restrictions. We estimate the study will take 80 minutes to complete.

We don't predict any risks to taking part in this study. Note that you can withdraw from the study at any time without any explanation. Please note that we cannot disclose our specific hypotheses at this time, but they will be described in the debriefing information at the end of the study. If you signed up to this study through SONA, you will be awarded 6 study credits for your participation upon study completion. If you signed up to this study through Prolific, you will be paid £12 for your participation upon study completion. Compensation is awarded up clicking the button at the end of the study.

What will happen to the results and my personal information?

This study has been designed to tell us more about how well people can assess their task performance. The results of this research may be written into a scientific report for a PhD thesis publication. The data we collect might be presented at conferences or written up for publication in academic journals. We will not ask you for any identifying information, and as a result of this we may not be able to delete your data after you have finished the study. Before the end of the study, you will asked if you would like for us to remove your data from the dataset. During the experiment, after you have submitted the first survey and screen size measurements, you will be assigned random ID code, which will feature in the study URL of the first task. You can send the entire URL for any of the tasks you are forwarded to during the experiment to the researcher to have your data located and deleted. Alternatively, if you arrived to this experiment from SONA or Prolific, you can simply quote your ID code from these platforms instead. You will never be able to be identified from these outputs, the data from everyone in the experiment will be pooled and trends reported. We anticipate being able to provide a summary of our findings on request from estimated 31/03/2023. Your anonymity will be ensured in the way described in the consent information on the next page. Please read this information carefully and then, if you wish to take part, please sign to show you have fully understood this sheet, and that you consent to take part in the study as it is described here.

This study has been approved by the Sciences & Technology Cross-Schools Research Ethics Committee. The project reference number is ER/MEL29/9. If you have any ethical concerns, please contact the ethics chair (crecscitec@sussex.ac.uk). The University of Sussex has insurance in place to cover its legal liabilities in respect of this study

Consent Form

• I understand that by ticking the box below I am agreeing to take part in the University of Sussex research described here, and that I have read and understood this information sheet.
• I understand that my participation is entirely voluntary, that I can choose not to participate in part or all of the study, and that I can withdraw at any stage of testing without having to give a reason and without being penalised in any way (e.g., if I am a student, my decision whether or not to take part will not affect my grades).
• I understand I can request without penalty that my data be withdrawn and deleted even after testing is complete, any time up until the results are analysed (estimated 31/03/2023).
• I understand that my personal data will be used for the purposes of this research study and will be handled in accordance with Data Protection legislation.
• I understand that the University's Privacy Notice provides further information on how the University uses personal data in its research.
• I understand that my data including my personal information will be stored safely. Electronic data will be stored on stored in a password-protected file on a University server, and hard-copies will be stored behind a locked door. De-identified data may be made publicly available through the OSF online data repository or at the request of other researchers.
• I understand that my IP address will not be collected.
• I understand that my User Agent string, consisting of my device's product, operating system, and browser versions, will be collected in the service of troubleshooting issues with the software of this experiment and will not be made publicly available in the resulting dataset.
• I understand that my identity will remain confidential in any written reports of this research, and that no information I disclose will lead to the identification in those reports of any individual either by the researchers or by any other party, without first obtaining my written permission.

You must select both of the top two options to continue

For further information about this research please contact Max Lovell (m.lovell@sussex.ac.uk). This research has been approved (ER/MEL29/9) by the Sciences & Technology Cross-Schools Research Ethics Committee (C-REC). If you have any ethical concerns, please contact the project supervisor (z.dienes@sussex.ac.uk). The University of Sussex has insurance in place to cover its legal liabilities in respect of this study.

Questionnaire

Please fill out the survey below and click 'continue' to proceed onto the first task.