This week my main focus was finalizing the IRB paper work and starting the experiment protocol and pre-registration for the project. I was able to have multiple folks in the lab review my work, which provided a bunch of insights into how to improve my writing surrounding this topic. During this process, I was able to hash out a greater number of lower-level details about the exact experiment protocol that we will be using during the process. This insight allowed me to create a detailed timeline for the rest of my time at DREU and the experiment, in a general sense. I was also able to begin setting up my environment, and mapping out the experiment platform that I will need to build starting next week to conduct the study. I realized through the mapping that I would need to build the platform a bit out of order, and will possibly use another study’s code base (in my lab) as a base to build off of, as one of the 3 tools that we’re using is already integrated and customized in that code base.

The papers that I read this week were Originality of Word Associations as a Function of Majority vs. Minority Influence by Nemeth & Kwan and Finding Waldo: Learning about Users form their Interactions by Brown and colleagues. Both papers are central to the research that I’m conducted. The Word Association paper allows us a more precise way of testing color association from the literature. While the Finding Waldo paper builds on the study of the users interactions in a controlled environment.

Next week, I plan on iterating the experiment protocol and pre-registration for the project, starting to develop on the code base (as I have meeting with another lab member to discuss the code base), and completing my weekly tasks (literature search, reading articles, and iterating on article writing).