#41,683 | AsPredicted

'The influence of (un)resolved conflicts and text position on recall perfor'
(AsPredicted #41,683)


Author(s)
Anne Schüler (Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien Tübingen) - a.schueler@iwm-tuebingen.de
Yvonne Kammerer (Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien Tübingen) - kammerer@hdm-stuttgart.de
Daniela Becker (Radboud University) - daniela.becker@ru.nl
Pre-registered on
2020/05/25 08:04 (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?
The aim of the study is to conceptually replicate the unexpected findings of a prior experiment, where participants had to read two texts giving different information about the origin of the eye of Africa. Based on the findings of this prior experiment it is expected that participants will remember and evaluate the first text presented better than the second text presented (main effect of text position). This main effect will only be qualified for the following dependent variables: “open recall of explanations”, “cued recall of explanations”, “how credible did you find the first vs. second text” and “how convincing did you find the first vs. second text”. In this case we expect no differences between the first and the second text if participants are told in the beginning of the second text that the explanation given in the first text is outdated (i.e., interaction of the factors “text position” and “conflict”). Based on the findings of the first study, for time on texts we only expect longer times on the first than on the second text (main effect of text position). For switching between texts we do not expect any influence of “conflict”.

3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured.
Dependent variables are the following: Open recall of (1a) the explanation and (1b) further information given in the first and the second text. Cued recall of the (2a) explanation and (2b) further information given in the first and the second text by a cloze test. (3) Evaluation of the first and the second text (How convincing, understandable, difficult, credible, pictorially imaginable, interesting did you find the [first, second] text?
Time on texts and switching between texts will also be analysed as a function of conflict (and text position for time on text). Manipulation check: Participants have to indicate whether one of the two texts was outdated. If they agree, they have (1) to state which of both texts was outdated and (2) whether this was mentioned in one of the two texts.

4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to?
Between-subjects factor “conflict”: Three between-subjects conditions: unresolved conflict between both texts, conflict is resolved at the beginning of second text, conflict is resolved at the end of the second text. Within-subject factor “text position”: Two within-subjects conditions, first text vs. second text.

5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis.
2x3 mixed ANOVAs with text position as within-subjects factor and conflict as between-subjects factor. No main effect for conflict is expected. A main effect of text position is expected. The interaction is expected to be significant for the open and cued recall of the explanation as well as for the subjective evaluation questions “how credible did you find the first vs. second text” and “how convincing did you find the first vs. second text”. Bonferroni-adjusted post-hoc tests will be used if the interaction is significant. It is expected that no simple main effect of text position is observed for the conflict-resolved-beginning condition, whereas simple main effects of text position are expected for the other two conditions. Looking at the interaction the other way around it is expected that the conflict-resolved-beginning group outperforms the other two groups regarding the second text.

6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations.
Exclusion criteria: Participants with less than ten years of experience with German language will be excluded. Participants with prior knowledge will be excluded (prior knowledge is measured by an open question before the two texts are presented)
Outliers: “Extreme values” according to the SPSS definition will be replaced by the group mean. If a participant has more than one extreme value (s)he will be excluded. Participants with extreme values regarding overall time needed for the experiment will be excluded.
Students of geography or similar subjects are excluded from invitation to the experiment as the learning domain is about a geographical topic. Only participants younger than 35 years are invited for the experiment. If participants older than 35 years participate it will be tested whether their data differ extremely from the group means. If this is the case they will be excluded.

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.

Based on a priori power analysis we need to collect N = 159 participants (partial eta square = 0.03, power: 0.80, alpha = .05, correlation = 0)

8) Anything else you would like to pre-register?
(e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)

This is a conceptual replication. We have to change the experiment slightly due to online-data collection: Texts will be presented consecutively on two different pages (and not on one page as in the prior experiment). Participants can go back and forward between the two texts. Dependent variables will be presented partly counterbalanced, that is, it is counterbalanced whether the open recall, cloze test, and evaluation questions presented first refer to the first or the second text. The two texts will be presented counterbalanced to avoid any systematic influence of specific text content on the data. After completion of the study, two additional variables will be measures as part of two bachelor theses (scepticism, ambiguity tolerance).


Version of AsPredicted Questions: 2.00