Lab 1 Fall 2011

First, here are links to the pictures you viewed so you can compare your drawings against them, if you'd like:

Clock 1   

Clock 2   

Clock 3

(Added 9/23/11:  Joshua pointed out that the 3rd link had changed to a different clock, so I've repaired the links.  Let me know if
you suspect any of these are the wrong clocks...)

Ok, now for some results (I've chosen to look at only some of the features of your drawings):

First, the proportion of people who falsely wrote down IV for the 4 pm spot (it was IIII in each clock):
    Clock 1:  90%
    Clock 2:  93%
    Clock 3:  89%

(And note that in class two thirds of you claimed to have drawn the number 4 accurately!!!)

Second, the number of people who falsely failed to show the orientation of at least some of the numerals changing around the dial:
    Clock 1:  86%
    Clock 2:  86%
    Clock 3:  89%

Third, the proportion who showed a clock without hands (correct for Clock 1, but false for the other two):
    Clock 1:  97%
    Clock 2:  10%
    Clock 3:   4%

Fourth, the proportion who made some attempt to show fancy hands (correct for Clock 3, but false for Clock 2):
    Clock 2:   7%
    Clock 3:  11%

Fifth, the number of people who showed a hand (it was the seconds hand, actually) somewhere near the 4 for Clocks 2 and 3 (correct for Clock 2 only)
    Clock 2:  14%
    Clock 3:  32%


There were a bunch of other results, as well.  9 and 3 should have been at the middle left and right, respectively, but a fair number
of people put 4 where 3 should have been.  Some people wrote 9 as VIIII instead  of IX.  Everyone got the Arabic numerals on the outside of Clock 1,
but 3 people failed to realize the numbers went up to 31.  And there were also a bunch of individual mistakes - one person put in an additional smaller dial
in Clock 3; one person only showed 4 numerals on the dial face (that does sometimes occur on clocks), one person used a combination of Roman and
Arabic numerals, and several  of the people who did show some of the numbers changing orientation failed to show the orientation changing systematically
for all of the numbers.

So, in your lab, talk about issues related to both the perception and attention units we've talked about.  If you'd like, you can include some of the things
you got right or wrong from your own drawing.  Bring in anything that you think might help explain some of these results.  You might consider, for example,
what we pay attention to, top down versus bottom up processes, whether location errors play a role, and whether you can think of any type of an experiment
to run that would help us decide if the results are due to faulty perception or faulty memory.  Of course, when discussing these issues, tell me how these results
or your results fit in (or not) with experiments you've read about in the text, or heard about in class.