Ethical Deception in Research

Ethical Deception in Research

• Participants typically receive full information in psychological research for informed consent.
• Deception involves misleading participants about an experiment's true purpose.
• It is employed to manage or control subjective reactivity.
• Deception may involve "cover stories" or omitting information about the experiment.

Ethically Addressing Deception

• Employ deceptive techniques only if justified by the study's significant scientific, educational, or applied value.
• Ensure the study involves "minimal risk," with discomfort not exceeding daily life experiences.
• Explain the deception's integral role in the experiment's design, ideally at the end of participation but no later than data collection's conclusion.
• Allow participants to withdraw their data.
• Debrief participants by explaining why deception was necessary, thanking them for their participation, and providing resources for help or advice if needed due to their participation.

Results and Plagiarism

• Presenting others' ideas as your own is unacceptable.
• Citations are essential to give credit.
• Contextualize cited material to make it your own.

Classical Psychology Experiments

• Psychophysics explores physical stimuli and psychological experiences
• Edwin G. Boring (1950) marked the beginning of scientific psychology because the scientists using psychophysical techniques were able to formulate the first mathematical laws of psychological phenomena.
• Sensation and perception use both bottom-up and top-down processing.

Aspects of Sensation

• Modality: Includes touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste.
• Quality: Includes qualities like color, sound, and smell (e.g., hue, loud, flowery).
• Intensity: Refers to the strength of a sensation, such as light or dark blue
• Duration: How long a sensation lasts in consciousness.
• Reaction time: Time between stimulus and recognition response.

Thresholds

• Thresholds represent the level at which physiological or psychological effects begin.
• Absolute threshold: minimum energy detectable by a sense organ.
• Terminal threshold: maximum energy detectable by a sense organ.
• There can either be a change in sensation, or no more of one beyond the terminal threshold
• Differential threshold: minimum energy to distinguish two stimuli.
• Sensory adaptation: Sensitivity changes with exposure; increased sensitivity after lack of exposure, decreased sensitivity after prolonged exposure.

Informed Consent Essentials

• The informed Consent includes purpose, procedures, mutual responsibilities, and the right to decline or withdraw.
• Foreseeable consequences, risks, research benefits, and confidentiality limits should be explained.
• Information concerning rescinding consent, incentives, and contact information for research questions should be provided

Experimental Elements

• Dependent Variable (DV): Participants make judgments.
• DV can involve absolute judgment (signal presence/absence, direct stimulus estimate).
• DV can also involve relative judgment (stimulus comparison, direct estimates).
• Independent Variable (IV): Magnitude and quality of stimuli.
• IV can involve changing stimulus intensity or comparing foods.
• Confounding Variable (CV): Participants' willingness to respond in a particular way.
• Traditional psychophysics assumes participants can maintain constancy when responding.

Threshold or Limen

• Stimuli must surpass a hypothetical barrier to enter the brain or mind.

Method of Limits

• A method used to determine a particular limit.

Absolute Threshold

• Conceptual definition: the minimum amount of physical energy that can be detected by a sense organ
• Operational definition: the mean (average) of the points in each trial block.
• Upper and lower thresholds define the range where the comparison changes from heavy to equal and vice versa
• Interval of uncertainty is the size difference between Upper and lower threshold means
• The differential thresholds can be defined as dividing the 'interval of uncertainty' in half
• Point of subjective equality (PSE) is the mean of the upper and lower thresholds.

Differential Threshold

• Conceptual definition: the average point at which two stimuli are judged to be different, it is the minimum energy required to distinguish between 2 stimuli
• Operational definition: the mean point where the observer switches between "yes" and "no."
• This operational definition is statistical.
• Also known as Just Noticeable Difference (JND).
• Operational definition is half the interval of uncertainty

Terminal Threshold/Limen

• This is the stimulus intensity above which no sensation or another sensation is experienced.
• The visible light spectrum, detectable by the human eye, ranges from 380 to 700 nanometers
• Light beyond 700 nanometers, such as infrared, is invisible.

Interval of Uncertainty

• Point of subjective equality is the mean of the upper and lower thresholds.

Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887)

• Gustav Theodor Fechner formalized methods measuring psychological attributes in relation to the physical world in 1860/1966.
• Fechner aimed to justify psychological understanding of stimulus.
• His 1860 Elemente der Psychophysik discussed quantitative experimental psychology.
• Fechner believed in panpsychism, the idea that everything is made up of mind.
• Fechner's solution to the mind-body problem is the identity hypothesis: mind and body are different sides of one reality.

Ernst Heinrich Weber

• Properties of differential threshold.
• The magnitude of the difference threshold increases with increases in the magnitude of the standard stimulus .
• Weber's Law addresses the relative constancy of the difference threshold to the standard stimulus.
• The higher the stimulus intensity, the more change is needed to notice a difference.

Absolute and Differential Thresholds

• Absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation needed for detection 50% of the time.
• Differential threshold is the smallest detectable difference in stimulation 50% of the time.

Two-Point Discrimination Threshold

• Introduced by Weber in 1853
• Distance between compass points necessary to feel two contacts
• It assesses the ability to discern two distinct points on the skin.
• Tactile sensation is crucial; participants' eyes should be closed.