SRM II paper fall 05

SRM 2 Fall ’05 Final Paper Assignment

Your final paper assignment will be a write-up (using APA style) of an experiment that we will conduct and analyze in class. You must include a title page, Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion and Reference section. You must include at least 4 references. You must also include at least one Figure.

The paper is due Nov. 8. About one week later you will get it back with comments, and will turn in a revised version on Nov. 29. The first version will be worth 30 points, and the second will be worth an additional 20 points.

You must have at least 4 references in your paper. There are 4 potential articles for you to reference, linked below. Some of the articles may be difficult for you to understand (especially the results sections), but you only need to understand the general idea. You can also get extra credit by conducting your own search of the literature and finding other, related articles to reference. You’ll get half a point for each additional reference, for up to 3 extra points. You will only get the extra credit if you show in your Introduction or Discussion that they are, in fact, relevant to the study we are conducting.

The purpose of our study is to determine whether individual differences in empathy correlate with activation of the right cerebral hemisphere. Empathy is the tendency to see things from another person’s perspective, and / or to feel the emotions of others. There is evidence that, in humans, the right hemisphere is more involved than the left in taking different perspectives, and in emotion.

Empahty will be measured using a scale developed by Mehrabian and Epstein (1972), so this article must be referenced in your Materials section. On this scale participants rate 33 statements as to whether or not they apply to them. Empathy scores can range from –132 to 132, with a higher score indicating greater empathy. (You must describe how this is scored in your Method section, see Mehrabian & Epstein).

Right hemisphere activation will be measured using an online version of the chimeric faces task developed by Levy, Heller, Banich, & Burton (1983). That article must also be referenced in your Materials section. On this task, participants are shown a vertically-alligned pair of chimeric faces (faces with one side smiling and the other side showing a neutral expression), and asked to say which face appears happier, the one at the top or the one at the bottom. Studies have shown that right-handed participants tend to choose the chimera with the smile to their (the viewer’s) left. This is most likely due to the fact that, in right-handers, the right side of the brain is dominant for the perception of faces and emotional expression. So when asked to judge the emotional expression of faces, the right hemisphere becomes more active. This causes a bias in attention to the left side of space. Thus, subjects pay more attention to the left side of the photograph. The task is scored by counting, for each subject, the number of times they chose the face with the smile to their (the viewer’s) left, and the number of times they chose the face with the smile to their right. A “laterality quotient” (LQ) will be computed by subtracting the number of smile-left choices from the number of smile-right, and dividing by the total: (R-L)/36. Thus, a negative number indicates a leftward bias, and a positive number indicates a rightward bias. A more negative score indicates greater right hemisphere activation.

In our results section, we will answer the following questions:

1. Is there a significant leftward bias (indicating the use of the right hemisphere) on the chimeric faces task? This is the same as asking whether the overall LQ is significantly less than 0. Based on previous results by Levy and others, we have a strong expectation that there will be a significant leftward bias.

2. Does right hemisphere activation (as measured by LQ) correlate with the score on the empathy scale? This is the most important question of our study. We have some reason to believe there will be a significant correlation.

3. Are there gender differences in empathy scores? Based on previous studies, we might expect women to obtain higher empathy scores.

Articles: