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TMA 02

The assignment
Cut-off date: 5 February 2025 – 12 noon UK time

Important: These pages provide guidance on how to write your assignment. Please ensure you
read all of this information right through to the end.

Before you start work on this assignment, please ensure that you have read the Assessment
Guidance specific to this module and are familiar with the advice in Social Sciences Assessment
Information. These sources contain support and guidance that you may need to write your TMA,
including, for example, advice on plagiarism, referencing and the marking system. Note that failure
to comply with relevant guidance could result in the loss of marks, or other penalties.

Experimental mini-project report

Collect and analyse data on the topic of change blindness and write up your findings as an empirical
report.

Word limit: 2000 words (excluding title, abstract, reference list and any appendices)

On the following pages you will find:

learning outcomes addressed by this assignment

student notes for each part of this assignment.

Tutor feedback
Before submitting your TMA, consider if there are any areas or aspects for which you would particularly
like to receive feedback. Add this as a note at the beginning of your TMA so your tutor has the
opportunity to focus their comments around your concerns. Your tutor will continue to provide standard
feedback too.

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TMA 02 schedule
This is a suggested schedule for preparing for TMA 02. Students may choose to approach the task in a
different way, but this is the module team’s suggested approach.

During Week 10: Participate in experiment. If you have any concerns about taking part, please talk
to your tutor.
By Week 11: Read over TMA 02 guidance (found in Week 15) and conduct your literature search.

By Week 13: Have collected data from one participant and downloaded the data set you were
emailed.

By Week 14: Have conducted your statistical analysis and considered the results.
During Weeks 14 and 15: Work through the study planner and your complete report.

Learning outcomes
The following module learning outcomes apply to this TMA:

Knowledge and understanding

On completing this TMA, you will have developed knowledge and understanding of:

key theories and research within cognitive psychology

selected research methods and types of evidence, and how they are used to develop
psychological theories
the importance of ethical issues in psychology

the application of psychological theories and research to specific contexts.

Cognitive skills
On completing this TMA, you will be able to:

construct arguments with appropriate use of psychological concepts, theories, and evidence
evaluate the contributions of different kinds of evidence to psychological knowledge
use psychological theories and evidence to engage with and justify research questions and
hypotheses

carry out a quantitative research project and analyse and interpret the findings appropriately.

Key skills
On completing this TMA you will be able to:

present psychological material effectively in the form of an empirical report with appropriate
referencing

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work with quantitative data, including the use of statistical analysis software (SPSS)

use information technology to search for, process, prepare and present psychological material as
appropriate to the module.
Practical and/or professional skills
On completing this TMA you will be able to:

employ evidence-based reasoning to practical, theoretical and ethical issues in psychology

communicate psychological knowledge and findings in an appropriate way for specific audiences
identify and prioritise tasks and adhere to a schedule of work supported by the module materials.

Student notes
One of the core themes of Block 2 is how attention and perception interact in everyday life. This TMA
gives you the opportunity to further investigate the issues raised by the module materials on this topic.
As you learned in Week 14, professional psychologists produce reports of their work for publication in
peer-reviewed journals. This allows for the dissemination of research findings which, in turn, encourages
researchers to identify further areas for investigation while also building a body of knowledge about a
particular research area. For this reason, it is important that psychology students learn the skills required
for both data collection and producing reports of this type, and that is why this assessment has been
included.

There are three stages to this TMA: data collection, data analysis, and report writing. In the following
sections you will find guidance on how to complete each of these stages. Make sure that you read all
of this guidance before beginning your assignment.

Relevant materials
The following resources will be useful in completing your report:

Book 2, Chapter 3 and the Week 13 activities provide a useful background on research into
change blindness.

Book 2, Chapter 2 may also be useful, particularly the discussion on different models of attention.
For guidance on ANOVA look at the material in the Week 11 methods and skills section. For SPSS
there is a video and a single PDF guide which provides a step-by-step guide to carrying out the
analysis.

In terms of methods, the Week 14 activities provide clear guidance on report writing.

You will need to identify a minimum of two relevant peer-reviewed psychology journal articles
that you have found through an independent literature search. You have already been provided
with guidance and advice on searching for relevant literature, which you can revisit in the Week 2
section ‘Asking questions about the literature’, but you will need to think carefully about the search
terms that you use.
In the following notes, you will find a guide from the module team as to what topic-based
information you could include in your Introduction.

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Stage 1: Data collection

The Experiment
As part of TMA 02, we ask you to collect data from one participant. You can find more information on this
in the section on Ethical Considerations.

The experiment is designed to explore the phenomenon of change blindness, using the flicker paradigm
(which you read about in Book 2, Chapter 3). The experiment is identical to the one you took part in
during Week 10 and is designed to investigate whether the type of change made to a scene influences
how quickly the change is detected. You can access the experiment here.

Participants will view sixteen everyday scenes. Each scene represents an experimental trial. In each
trial, two almost identical images appear one after the other, with an intervening blank screen. The
images and the blank screen appear for 0.25 seconds (i.e. 250 ms) each, providing the experience of
the screen ‘flickering’ (you learnt about the flicker method in the Week 13 attentional blink activity).
Participants must view the images presented and try to detect whether any change has occurred in the
scene. If they believe they have seen a change, they should use the mouse to click on the image to
indicate that they have seen it. When a participant clicks the mouse their reaction time is automatically
recorded.

The aim of this experiment is to explore if change blindness varies according to the type of change that
is made to a scene. To test this, three different change types have been made to the stimuli. Only one
change is made per trial, and each type of change appears four times. The possible changes present in
the trials fall into three different categories:

Within-category change: an object is replaced with another that belongs to the same category
(for example, in a kitchen scene, a wooden chopping board might change to a plastic chopping
board).

Congruent change: an object is replaced with another that is in keeping with the scene (that is,
you would expect to see it in that context) but does not belong to the same category as the original
object (for example, a hole punch in an office scene might change to a stapler).
Incongruent change: an object is replaced with an unexpected item (for example, in a dining
room scene, a plate might change to a watering can).

The order of presentation of these trials is randomised for each participant and all participants view and
respond to the same clips. The reaction times for responses are recorded to enable comparison of
mean reaction time across the different types of change.

To make sure that participants are completing the task correctly and not simply claiming to detect
changes in all of the images presented, a safeguard (or control) has been built into the experiment.
While three-quarters of the trials have a change occurring in them, a quarter of them do not. Although
you do not need this ‘no change’ data for analysis, the module team will use this information to identify

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any data that is likely to be unreliable: the data from participants who consistently (and incorrectly)
‘identified’ changes in these ‘no change’ trials will be removed by the module team from the data set, so
that you can be confident that your data is accurate and reliable.

Ethical considerations
Prior to collecting your data, you need to ensure that you are aware of the ethics of this study. You can
do this by looking back at resources you have already encountered. For example, you learned about the
need for informed consent and clear debriefing in your previous modules. You can (re)visit some of the
level 1 ethics resources here: Online Activity 8.1: Research ethics; Online Activity 15.4: DE100 project –
Ethics. Specifically, it is important that participants are made aware of the purpose of the study,
understand what they are being asked to do, and are aware that they can withdraw from the experiment
at any point. After completing the study, it is important that participants are told what the experiment was
seeking to investigate and how their data will be used. You should also give them an opportunity to ask
any questions they may have. These, and the other ethical considerations you have previously learned
about, are important safeguards to protect individuals participating in research. You may also wish to
consult the British Psychological Society’s Code of Human Research Ethics – which all psychologists
need to follow – for further information. As this study has already obtained clearance from the ethics
committee, there is no need for you to request clearance again.

Once you are clear on the experimental procedure and have the link to the experiment, you are ready to
collect data from one participant, following the guidance provided below.

First recruit a participant; someone over the age of 18, except another DE200 student. For
example, they could be a friend, relative or colleague. You should gain informed consent from
them, using the form provided. You should also have the debriefing material available for the
participant to see once they have completed the experiment.

The experiment has already been built for you, enabling you to easily collect data from your
participant. Instructions for participants are included in the experiment, but you will also need to
explain the procedure to your participant before the experiment begins and answer any questions
they may have.

You need to understand the rationale behind the experiment and the choice of variables, so that
you can answer any questions your participant might have, both before and after they have taken
part in the experiment. This information will also be needed in your final report, so it is important
that you are aware of these fine details at the data collection stage.

Stage 2: Data analysis

You will be analysing data for this experiment that was collected by previous DE200 students. The
module team have screened the data and divided the overall data set into multiple subsets of data.
Every student is allocated a unique data set to analyse. Each data set contains data from 250
participants who completed the experiment and is provided in a pre-formatted SPSS data file (note: you
need to have SPSS installed on your computer to open this file).

Different students will receive different subsets of data, so don’t panic if your data set looks
different from someone else’s. You must use your specific data set to carry out your analysis.

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Earlier this year, your data set was emailed to your preferred email address. To download your data set,
search your email for a message with the subject line ‘DE200 TMA02 Data Set’ and download the
attached file. Instructions for downloading the attached file can be found in the email. Remember to
save the file in an easily accessible place. For further guidance on downloading your data set, see the
guide available under the Assessment tab. If for any reason you cannot find the email or think you have
not received it, your tutor has also been sent a copy of your data set, so you can ask them to send it to
you.

Please note, if you have previously studied DE200, e.g. because you deferred the module, you will be
given a new data set.

You can download your data at any time once you receive it, but we recommend you wait until
Week 10 of the module presentation, after you have participated in the experiment that is used
for TMA 02.

Next, decide which analysis is most appropriate for your data set. If you are unsure about which test to
use, then look back at the guidance you were given last week as well as the statistical decision tree.
Remember to consider:

how many independent variables (IVs) you have

how many levels your IV(s) have

whether all participants completed all conditions or whether there were different groups of
participants.

Once you have decided on the relevant statistical test, carry out your analysis. If you need to revise how
to do this analysis in SPSS, go back to the tutorial entitled ‘How to run the test in SPSS’ in study week
11 for a step-by-step guide. Once you have completed your analysis, make sure you save both the data
file and the output file. You will need to submit your output file along with your completed report.

Next, you need to interpret your SPSS output. For guidance on how to do this, look back to the tutorial in
study week 11, and the section entitled ‘What does it tell you?’ which explains which parts of the output
are important for interpreting your data.

Once you have identified the relevant output from your analysis you can think about putting together the
results section of your report. Again, go back to the study week 11 section entitled ‘How do we write it
up?’ for guidance on how to report your findings. Remember also to look back to the Week 14 materials
and activities that guide you through writing up your results section. Before writing your report, it would
also be worthwhile to note down:

your IV(s), with levels

your DV
your hypothesis.

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You can then note down the relevant statistics from your SPSS output. By putting these details together
now, you will have a clear reminder of what you are investigating and what your results are prior to
formally writing them up. Remember to also note down the demographic information on the participants
in your unique data set (that is, gender, age, and so on).

Stage 3: Writing your Report

When writing your report, you may find it easier to write the sections in a different order from how they
will be finally presented. For example, you may wish to write your Methods section first, followed by the
Results, before writing the Introduction and Discussion and finishing with the Abstract. By breaking the
report down in this way, you may find the task more manageable, and it will ensure you focus on the
specific details required for each section.

In Week 14, Section 3, you completed activities on the different sections required for a report. Make
sure you revisit those resources prior to writing up your report, as they offer clear guidance on what
information is required in each section of a report.

For further examples of published articles on change blindness, see the following links. Note that these
papers are included simply to demonstrate how real-world research is presented in peer-reviewed
journals – you do not have to include reference to them in your report. Remember, however, that you
need to include information from two independently sourced, peer reviewed papers.

Simons and Levin (1998)

Herbranson (2015)

Writing your Abstract

An abstract presents a short summary of your completed research. There is some material to help you
with writing abstracts in Week 14. Some guidance on how to write abstracts is given in the revisiting
your abstract section. Remember to include all relevant information but also to keep your abstract
succinct and stick to the suggested word limit (between 100–150 words).

Writing your Introduction

As this is the first mini project report on DE200, the module team have provided below a list of topic-
based information to include in the Introduction to your report, in the order in which it should appear.
Remember, your introduction should be written in prose and serve as a justification for your research
(see Week 14 for more information about this). In this case, you should:

1. It is essential that you start by defining change blindness, using Section 3 of Book 2, Chapter 3.

What is it?
Why is it important?

What does it tell us about perception?

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2. Outline key research on change blindness using Sections 3.2 and 3.3 of the chapter and Activity 1 in
Week 13. You should draw upon:

Rensink, O’Regan and Clark’s (1997) Flicker method and the attentional blink. Briefly explain the
procedure and their findings.The authors claim that full attention, and high-level interest, is needed
to detect changes. Their findings show differences in reaction times for detection of central and
marginal changes.

In addition, you may well wish to draw upon one or more of the following sources. In doing so, you need
to balance the essential requirement to provide a background to and rationale for the current
experiment, with the need to write concisely and clearly.

O’Regan, Rensink and Clark’s (1999) ‘mudsplash’ study. Briefly describe the procedure and
findings. Removing the attentional blink meant visual memory was not overwritten, but change
blindness still remained. The researchers suggest that the ‘mudsplashes’ made items more salient,
therefore capturing attention. As with Rensink, O’Regan and Clark’s work, central changes were
detected faster than marginal changes.
Simons and Levin’s (1998) door study. Briefly explain the procedure and findings. What does this
tell us about attention and the position of the change in the scene? Here you could also link to the
models of attention discussed in Section 3.3 of Chapter 3 and/or Lavie’s (1995) perceptual load
theory in Section 2.3.4 of Book 2, Chapter 2.

Nisbett (2003) and Miyamoto, Nisbett and Masuda’s (2006) research on cultural environment and
salient or contextual changes to a scene. Briefly explain the procedure and findings. If cultural
environment can affect change blindness, what does that tell us about how individuals deploy their
attention?

Remember that you also need to include research from at least two independently sourced, peer-
reviewed journal articles. These additional articles should ideally be integrated into your Introduction and
revisited in the Discussion. It is not conventional to first mention such articles in the Discussion unless
they explain an unexpected result.

3. Explain the particular issue examined in the current study.

Previous research has considered the position of the change as well as the impact of individual
differences on change detection.
This study varies the type of change presented: congruent, incongruent or within category.
What can varying the type of change tell us? Think about what previous research has identified
regarding salience and context.

4. Formally state your hypothesis or research question. Importantly, your introduction should finish with
a statement of the hypothesis for your study.

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Writing your Methods section – a quick note on procedure

As part of TMA 02, you will be given a data set that contains data from 250 participants who completed
the experiment you took part in during Week 10. You need to write up your report (including the Methods
section) as if you collected all of this data yourself. This means that your Participants section should
refer to information about all of the participants in your data set as if you recruited them yourself from the
DE200 cohort.

Likewise, your Procedure section should describe what steps all of the participants in your data set went
through when completing the study, not just what your particular participant did. However, you may find
it helpful to think about what you did to collect data from the one participant we asked you to recruit. For
example, did they just read the Consent Form or did you talk them through it? Did they complete the
experiment with you in the room or on their own? Remember, this section should contain enough
relevant information to allow other researchers to replicate the study. Week 14 offers a lot of information
about how to write up a Methods section of a report, so make sure you revisit this material for guidance.
Please make sure that you observe the conventional structure for method sections: design, participants,
materials and procedure. If you have studied D120, you may have previously been asked to use a
different structure. Please make sure you follow the DE200 guidance for TMA 02.

Writing your Results

Before you write up your results you will need to have carried out your Analysis. Details of how to do this
in SPSS are given in Week 11, which also discusses how to interpret the results from an ANOVA.

In Week 14, you are given an exercise (in task 4) to try your hand at writing a results section. When you
have done so a model answer is revealed. This exercise also provides a model of how to write up your
TMA 02 results, indicating how your results section might be structured and what information you need
to include.

Writing your Discussion

Some material for writing up your discussion can be found in Week 14. This highlights the purpose of a
discussion and emphasises the need for critical evaluation. To recap, your discussion should address
the following issues in order:

1. Provide a summary of your findings, stating the results of the experiment in plain language, without
citing the actual statistics.
2. Provide an explanation for the results and describe how they compare with other research in the
field (as laid out in the Introduction).
3. If applicable, explain how the findings could be applied in the real world.
4. Critically evaluate the study, pointing out its limitations and strengths. Make suggestions for future
research.

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Report sections, word count and marking scheme

The table below sets out the various sections that will comprise your completed report. It shows
approximately how the available 2000 words would ideally be allocated across the report. The words
that you use for your Title, Abstract, List of References and Appendices are not included in the 2000-
word count. If you include a table in the report, e.g. in the Results section, this will count towards the
word count. Tables in the Appendix will not count towards the word count.

The maximum number of marks available for each of these sections is also seen in the table. You will
see that tutors are able to award a number of marks for the overall quality of the report, taking the
accuracy, brevity, clarity etc. into consideration.

Section Words (approx.) Marks

Title (not included in word count) 25 2

Abstract (not included in word count) 150 8

Introduction 500 10

Method 650 (overall)

Design 8

Participants 4

Materials 4

Procedure 8

Results 250 20

Discussion 600 20

List of references (not included in word count) 2

Appendices (to include SPSS output) 2

Overall (e.g. accuracy, brevity, clarity) 12

Total 2000 100

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