This project is enhancing undergraduate training in experimental psychology. A three-field tachistoscope, with automatic card changers and reaction time apparatus for key-press and voice responses, is being used to expand laboratory assignments and original research projects in areas of human information-processing that have used basic paradigms involving timed presentation of visual stimuli. The project is serving undergraduates, primarily psychology majors (70% of whom are women), enrolled in the following courses: Sensation and Perception; Learning, Memory, and Cognition; Language and Thought; General; Research Methods; and Projects (i.e., faculty-supervised independent research). Students would use the tachistoscope in conducting laboratory replications of experiments demonstrating important concepts (e.g., masking in iconic memory, semantic priming) and in conducting original research investigating human information-processing theories. Increasing undergraduate experience in scientific research is intended to encourage graduates to pursue doctoral training in experimental psychology.
