•Description of your research question, how it relates to an understanding of cognition, and why it is important to determine. Your project needs to clearly relate to course material and cognitive psychology.
• Literature review of the current understanding of the topic. This will include both topics we discussed in class as well as more modern “cutting edge” research.
•Explanation of gaps in the current understanding – and how your research will help fill in the gaps.
• Proposed experiment including information about design, procedure, and hypothesis.
• Clear explanation about how your proposed experiment will answer outstanding questions in
Cognitive Psychology, and bring us closer to understanding the mind.
Some basic guidelines:
•Your final paper will likely be around 3-5 double spaced pages, but of course quality is much more important that quantity.
•Tone, headings, style, and citations should be in proper APA format.
• Your review must include at least THREE academic sources, properly cited in APA format. Of the three sources you use, at least TWO must be from the past five years (2016 or more recent). It is fine to cite the textbook, course readings, or my slides, but those do not count as one of your three outside sources. (If you are having trouble finding a source for something on my slides, just ask).
• You must propose an experiment! This means you need at least one IV, and at least one DV. Surveys alone are not acceptable. If this is unclear, make sure you talk to me so you know exactly what I mean!
• Your study should be unique in some way to previous research. It does not need to use an entirely novel methodology or experimental paradigm, but it needs to provide new information.
• Make sure your study is ethical! However, you can still propose studies that would be hard to do, such as researching the effects of drugs, following children over long-term development, or examining people with specific neurological impairment.