Author(s) Bärbel Garsoffky (Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien) - b.garsoffky@iwm-tuebingen.de Stephan Schwan (Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien) - s.schwan@iwm-tuebingen.de
Pre-registered on 2021/02/12 00:37 (PT)
1) Have any data been collected for this study already? No, no data have been collected for this study yet.
2) What's the main question being asked or hypothesis being tested in this study? Does the 3-dimensional room, that surrounds information arrangements, influence memory of this information? Which viewpoints does a viewer chose when trying to memorize visual information placed on the walls of a room?
In the study participants memorize picture pairs hanging on the walls of virtual rooms. These rooms are either quadratic (4 walls with corners between) or round (no corners). In the quadratic room, the two pictures of a pair could either be placed on the same wall or on two adjacent walls, i.e., they are separated by a corner. In the round room the two pictures of a pair could either be separated by a line or not. A former experiment with only quadratic rooms showed that memory for picture pairs is better if the two pictures of one pair are hanging on the same wall instead of hanging on adjacent walls, independent from the spatial distance between them (see AsPredicted #53821). The study now examines if this detrimental effect of corners becomes smaller if the separating elements are not corners, but only lines. It is expected that lines between two pictures of a pair have less influence on memory than corners.
Hypotheses: (1) The difference between the memory of two pictures separated by a separating element or not, becomes smaller if the separating element is only a line instead of a corner. (2) Viewers in the learning phase orient their central viewing axis more often to the middle between two separating elements if these separating elements are corners instead of lines.
3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured. Participants´ task: We examine the correctness of visual memory with a kind of “memory play cards”. In the learning phase participants stay in a virtual room and see several pictures (cards) showing different motifs hanging on the walls, a little bit like in a museum. All pictures in one room belong to the same category, e.g. “fruits”. Every motif occurs twice in the room, e.g. two cards present the same picture of an “orange” as motif. In the test phase the participants stay in the same virtual room as in the learning phase, but now all cards are turned and only their black back is visible. Then in each trial one card is turned so the motif can be seen and another card (only black back visible) is marked by a square. Then the participants have to press one of two buttons to decide if the marked card (if it would be turned around) would show the same motif as the card with the visible motif or not.
Measuring memory in the test phase: For analysis of memory, nonparametric sensitivity A´ and nonparametric response bias B´´ will be calculated according to signal detection theory (Macmillan & Creelman, 2005; Stanislaw & Todorov, 1999). Participants with an overall Sensitivity A´ < .5 are excluded, because values < .5 point to sampling errors or response confusion (Stanislaw & Todorov, 1999). To conduct the ANOVA on the main effect of “room” the difference between A´ (pictures on the same wall respectively between lines) – A´ (pictures on adjacent walls respectively across a line) is calculated.
Measuring direction of central viewing axis during the learning phase: The viewing direction to the middle of the wall vis-à-vis the door in the virtual room is defined as 0 degree and then 360 degrees are defined in the horizontal plane in clockwise direction. During the learning phase every 0.5 second, the degree of a participant´s central viewing axis will be recorded.
4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to? A within Design is realized with the following variables: (1) variable “separation” (the two cards in one trial are separated by a visual marker, i.e. corner or line, vs. they are not separated; (2) variable “distance” (between the two cards of one trial are 1 or 3 other cards); (3) variable “room” (quadratic or round).
5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis. The experiment studies the effect of “separation” on memory, and additionally the direction of central viewing axis in the learning phase.
Sensitivity and response bias of memory will be measured (according to SDT, Macmillan & Creelman, 2005; Stanislaw & Todorov, 1999) and a two-factorial repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each of the two depended measures will be conducted with the variables “room” (quadratic vs. round) and “distance” (one vs. three cards between). As dependent variable for each person the average difference between trials without separation and trials with separation is calculated. According to the main hypothesis for sensitivity, it is expected that this difference becomes bigger in the quadratic rooms than in the round rooms.
For exploratory reasons response bias will be eaxined: It is expected that participants answer more liberal if the two cards are presented without instead of with separation between them, and if there are only one instead of three cards between them (main effects on response bias).
Exploratorily, it will be described how long each participant looked in each direction of 360 degrees. Then, a single-factorial repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be conducted with the variable “viewing direction” (central viewing axis towards “in the middle between two separators” and “towards a separator”). Therefore, only those viewing directions will be analyzed, when a participant´s central viewing axis was either in the middle within two separators (355 – 5 degrees, 265 – 275 degrees, 85 – 95 degrees) or towards a separator (310 – 320 degrees, 40 – 50 degrees). We expect participants to look more often between two separators than towards a separator (main effect). Before analyzing viewing directions, the first 5 seconds of each participant after starting a new room will be omitted from analysis because for ecological validity, the central viewing axis after start in a new room always is 0 degree. Additionally, data during which a participant pressed one of the arrow keys (“turning around, moving eyes”) will be deleted before analysis.
6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations. We will exclude data of a participant if this participant leaves the experimental procedure before it ends, if he or she does not work thoroughly (e.g. hiting always the same button), if he or she has an overall sensitivity A´< .5 (Stanislaw & Todorov, 1999), if he or she reloads the virtual realities during the experimental session, or if he or she uses a tablet or handy for participation.
7) How many observations will be collected or what will determine sample size? No need to justify decision, but be precise about exactly how the number will be determined. This study is based on findings in the prior study “infoanordnung03” (preregistered as #53821). In this prior study data of 27 participants were analyzed and showed a significant effect of "wall" on sensitivity (partial Eta Square = 0.21). Of course, the study design was different in some aspects, nevertheless we use this eta to calculate N. Based on this value, G-Power suggests a sample size of n = 52. Because we will make an online study (Prolific) and there is always the possibility that we have to exclude participants, we will sample data of 55 participants.
8) Anything else you would like to pre-register? (e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?) This is an online study using Prolific.
