From a Time

question 50

Essay

From a Time.com article entitled "Why Men Shouldn't Listen to Rock Music While Playing Board Games," published on December 13, 2016.
Researchers Fancourt, Burton, and Williamon wanted to find out whether different types of music would impact participants' performance on a mock-surgery game, "Operation." Many real-life surgeons listen to music while operating, so the authors were interested in whether this may actually help performance, and whether that differed by sex of the participant.
The psychologists asked male and female participants to play the mock-surgery game, "Operation," in which they needed to remove three different organs from a "patient" using tweezers. The experimenters played either rock music, classical music, or operating-room sounds. They found that the type of music made a difference on the performance of male participants, who were slower to complete the task (in seconds) while listening to rock music compared with classical music. The performance of female participants did not differ based on the type of music they listened to.
Name the variables in this study and indicate the levels of each.

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Definitions:

Extinction

Extinction refers to the process in conditioning where the occurrence of a conditioned response decreases or disappears when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.

Acquisition

The process of learning or obtaining new information or skills.

Spontaneous Recovery

Refers to the sudden reappearance of a previously extinguished response in the absence of further conditioning.

Testing

The process of administering a test to measure an individual's abilities, knowledge, or performance on a specific task or subject.