You are being invited to participate in a research study titled Human Learning
and Skill Acquistion. This study is being conducted by Timothy Rickard from the University
of California - San Diego (UCSD). You were selected to participate in this study because
you are a professional subject working through Mechanical Turk.
The purpose of this study is to improve scientific understanding of human learning and
memory and to apply that knowledge to improve educational and other learning outcomes. If you
agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to complete and online survey/questionnaire.
This survey/questionnaire will ask about your memory for items that you will be asked to study
and it will take you approximately 45 minutes to complete over two sessions.
You will be paid $2.50 for your participation in this study. Outside of payment for your
participation, there is no direct benefit to you of participating in this study. The investigators,
however, may learn more about human memory learning and memory.
There are minimal risks associated with this research study. Participants may occasionnaly
experience some frustration when they cannot recall something from memory, but that is
expected to occur for all participants. Personally identifying information about participants
is not collected from Mechanical Turk (and therefore not by our research team). There is no
known risk of loss of confidentiality. All data records that are collected are kept confidentiality
to the extent allowed by law and may be reviewed by the UCSD Institutional Review Board.
Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you can withdraw at any time by simply
exiting the survey. Choosing not to participate or withdrawing will result in no penalty or loss
of benefits to which you are entitled. You are free to skip any question that you choose.
If you have any questions about this project or if you have a research-related problem, you may contact
Timothy Rickard by phone at 858-822-0122. If you have any questions concerning your rights as a
research subject, you may contact the UCSD Human Protections Program Office at 858-246-HRPP (858-246-4777).
By clicking "You agree" below you are indicating that you are at least 18 years old, have read this consent form,
and agree to participate in this research study. Please print a copy of this page for your records.
This is PART ONE of a TWO SESSION experiment.
Session TWO will occur 5 minutes after session ONE.
PLEASE CHECK THAT YOUR CELL PHONE IS SILENT (not vibrate) at this time.
Press ENTER to confirm that your CELL PHONE is set on SILENT.
Please be advised: Your complete ATTENTION and FOCUS is required to participate in this experiment!
That means that you need to CONCENTRATE and do the absolute best that you can.
If you are unable to do so, please do not continue the experiment.
Click below if you are able to participate.
Today you will be learning word pairs, one pair at a time.
Please CLOSELY STUDY each pair that you see, and commit it to MEMORY.
Please make sure your screen is in FULL SIZE or the pairs will not display properly.
Before starting the study, please type the following as one line into the text box below
(capitalization, spacing, and punctuation must be exact):
I understand this is a 2 part experiment AND
will only receive payment upon completion of the second part of the study.
You will now see the same pairs again.
For some pairs it will say:
STUDY THIS pair.
This gives you more time to memorize.
For other pairs you will be shown one of the words and asked to recall the second.
You will have 6 seconds to TYPE the second word.
For other pairs you will be shown one of the words and asked to recall the second.
You will have 5 seconds to TYPE the second word.
After 5 seconds the correct answer will appear for 1 seconds.
Please pay close ATTENTION to the answer.
This concludes SESSION ONE.
You will now add two digit numbers for one minute.
This is PART TWO of a TWO SESSION experiment.
PLEASE CHECK THAT YOUR CELL PHONE IS SILENT (not vibrate) at this time.
Press ENTER to confirm that your CELL PHONE is set on SILENT.
Please be advised: Your complete ATTENTION and FOCUS is required to participate in this experiment!
That means that you need to CONCENTRATE and do the absolute best that you can.
If you are unable to do so, you may leave the experiment at any time.
Last time you memorized many pairs, such as shoe-foot.
Today we will assess your memory for those pairs.
Each pair will now be shown as a question, such as shoe-???.
Please type the ONE WORD answer that best answers that question.
If you are not sure exactly how to SPELL the correct answer, please still type it out as best as you can.
Try to be as ACCURATE as you can.
Note: CAPITALIZATION does not matter.
Please do your best to answer each question,
while being as ACCURATE as possible.
Please make sure your screen is in FULL SIZE or the pairs will not display properly.
Study this pair.
Enter target word here:
Add these numbers together.
Enter the answer here:
Enter your demographic information here:
Age:
Sex:
Male
Female
Please input your WORKER ID:
Did the experiment crash or anything weird happen? Please describe below if anything did.