Name:Seung Hee ShinNeurobiology Experiment

Name: Seung Hee Shin

Partner: Steven Yun

Date of experiment: Feb.17th&18th

Relationship between the various sounds and Stroop Test

Aim: The aim of this experiment is to find out whether the various types of sounds, noises, classic, rock and questions, affect the time to do Stroop Test which is about saying the color of the words which have different color with the word on the paper.

Hypothesis : I predict that children will show the different results depend on the types of sounds. My hypothesis is that children would take the longest time to read the color when I am asking the question because they will think about the questions while they are thinking about the color of the words. Children would take longer time to say the words if they listen noise and rock music. Because of the noise and the loudness of rock music, they couldn't be concentrated on the paper. Then, they would take shorter time to say the words on the paper when the are listening classic or no any sounds because they wouldn't be disrupted by the music.

Variables :

Input variable : The input variable is the various types of music. I will change it by changing the music on the computer.

Output variable : The output variable is how long the student goes through the words from the start to the end. I will measure it by using

stopwatch.

Control variables :

Control variable 1 : The first control variable is gender. I will keep it same by choosing four students all girls in grade 4.

Control variable 2 : The second control variable is the volume of music. I will keep it same by keeping the level of the volume to 4 on the computer.

Control variable 3 : The third control variable is the place(Environment). I will keep it same by doing the experiment at the same place (Science class).

Control variable 4 : The fourth control variable is the person who asks the questions. I will keep it same by choosing the person who asks the questions to Steven, a boy who is another group member.

Materials:

1. Macbook2. Earphone3. Stroop test paper4. Stop watch5. mp3 file of classic music(Lakelouise, Yuhki Kuramoto)6. mp3 file of classic music(over my head, Sum 41)7. mp3 file of noises8. List of questions(-What did you eat for today's breakfast?-Do you have any siblings?-What's her/his name?-How long have you been at BISS?-What is your favorite color/TV program/band/subject?)

M ethod:

1. Choose eight people as test-subjects(not together)2. Have one of the test-subjects do the Scroop test without any music3. Record how long the test-subject took time for saying the words on the paper4. Have the test-subject do the Scroop test after he listens the classic for 10 seconds5. Record the result6. Have the test-subject do the Scroop test after he listens the rock for 10 seconds7. Record the result8. Have the test-subject do the Scroop test after he listens the noises for 10 seconds9. Record the result10. Have the test-subject do the Scroop test with asking questions11. Record the result12. Repeat steps 2-11 with other seven test-subjects

Data Table:Relationship between the various sounds and Stroop Test

The types of sounds

Time measured(in seconds)

student 1

student 2

student 3

student 4

student 5

student 6

student 7

student 8

No 17.44 19.35 21.72 16.42 16.47 17.37 41.07 25.29Classic 17.34 20.52 15.68 15.62 15.78 14.15 29.94 22.03Rock 18.52 19.20 15.22 17.25 21.18 14.09 22.84 22.13Noise 18.68 23.68 16.82 15.85 19.25 13.97 21.75 28.57

Questions 23.27 29.92 23.87 20.95 24.09 18.53 27.75 27.56

Average Data Table :Relationship between the various sounds and Stroop Test

The types of sounds Time measured(in seconds)No 21.89

Classic 18.88Rock 18.80Noise 19.82

Questions 24.49

Graph:

Conclusion:

Children took the longest time to do the Scroop Test while Steven is asking

questions. Then children took long time to do the Scroop Test without any sounds. Lastly,

they took the shortest time to do the Scroop Test while they are listening classic, rock or

noises. However, student 7 took the longest time to do the Scroop Test without any

sounds. That is because he is not familiar with the Scroop test, so he had to adapt at the

Scroop Test. It was very difficult to measure because children who know what is Scroop

Test and who don’t know what is Scroop Test would take different time. There is the

pattern, children take the longest time while someone is asking something. That’s because

children can’t concentrate on both the Scroop test and the questions. Therefore, they feel

confused. They are not familiar with multitasking because their brain is not developed

perfectly. Children take the shortest time for doing the Scroop Test when they are

listening rock, classic and the noises. That is because they feel rush when they are

listening music. Also, dopamine is released when a person is listening music. This

dopamine makes the person happy so the person could do the test faster. As a result,

children say the color again to the beat of the music as they feel happy. There is one thing

very hard to measure. Because we don’t know what types of music children like, the

happiness of children would be different. They take longer time than without any music

because they feel relax and not familiar with the Scroop Test.

The data from the experiment supports some parts, but doesn’t support some parts.

My hypothesis tells us that children will show the different results depend on the types of

sounds and the children would take the longest time to read the color when I am asking

the question because they will think about the questions while they are thinking about the

color of the words. This hypothesis is right. It is reliable however, my hypothesis also

tells us that children would take longer time to say the words when they are listening

noises and rock music. Because of the noise and the loudness of rock music, they couldn't

be concentrated on the paper. Then, they would take shorter time to say the words on the

paper when the are listening classic or no sounds because they wouldn't be disrupted by

the music. This part of the hypothesis is incorrect. Children weren’t disrupted by the the

noises, classic and rock music. In addition, because they feel relaxed, they take longer

time without any music.

Evaluation:

The data is unreliable because the human never can start the stop watch exactly the

same time when the person starts doing the Scroop Test without professional machine. I

tried to start the same time as the student starts the Scroop Test, but I am not sure whether

the data is reliable or not.

My method gave me reliable data after we fixed some problems. There were four

problems. The first problem was the the human can’t measure the exact time without the

professional machine. The second problem was that we didn't write 'listens ~ music for

10 seconds.'. We had to write 'for 10 seconds'. Without listening at least 10 seconds of

music, we couldn't see any difference between not listening music and listening music.

Therefore, I wrote 'listens ~ music for 10 seconds' in my method for more reliable data.

The third problem was that We put the normal music at the beginning of the planning

stage. However, the classic and normal music were very similar to each other. Therefore,

we changed listening the normal music to asking the questions because asking the

questions was shown very different result from listening the musics. We found that when

Steven tried to talk with Iz who were doing the Scroop Test. The last problem was that

we wrote only four children as the subjects. We had two periods for doing the

experiment. We finished four children in the first period so we thought that doing more

experiment by using more subjects would give us more reliable data. Therefore, we

finished the experiment with eight children as the subjects. So I changed 'Choose four

children as the subjects' to 'Choose eight children as the subjects'.

I researched about whether the voice of gender and the way of speaking affects the

reaction of thinking the questions. As a result, Steven’s voice was more effective because

he speaks very fast and his voice is very annoying like the tomboy’s voice. Therefore, I

put one more control variable which is the person who asks the questions.

Interesting Facts :

Types of sounds Time measured(in seconds)Mr. Denmar Mr. Covington

No 19.18 23.35Classic 17.95 20.53Rock 15.94 21.34Noises 14.06 18.07

Questions 17.14 23.10

Mr. Denmar and Mr.Covington did the experiment too. As a result, we found that

adults can concentrate on the work more than the children. Mr. Denmar said “I was

thinking what you are asking when I was doing the test.”. We could see the Mr. Denmar

can do the multitasking very well. Both Mr. Denmar and Mr. Convington showed that

they took the longest time without any music. That is because they feel relaxed or

confused about the Scroop Test. In addition, both of them showed that they took the

shortest time with listening the noises. That is because they were already adapted at the

Scroop Test or they wanted to finish listening the noises as fast as they can.