Identify, research, critically summarise and apply key concepts in cognitive psychology to a range of psychological issues.

Assignment Brief – experiment chosen is exp 4, info is at bottom of this page
As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Cognitive Psychology research proposal and research report.
Learning Outcomes:
After completing the module you should be able to:
1. Demonstrate a critical understanding and depth of knowledge of the core areas of cognitive psychology and the ability to assess their relevance in the understanding of the contemporary world
2. Critically understand the main theoretical perspectives and debates in cognitive psychology in their contemporary contexts.
3. Identify, research, critically summarise and apply key concepts in cognitive
psychology to a range of psychological issues.
4. Assimilate data and evidence to support a reasoned argument to explain some aspect of human mental life and behaviour.
5. Collect, evaluate, and apply information from a variety of sources in order to address questions regarding cognitive psychology.
6. Communicate arguments, evidence, and statistical information through reports in an effective way that is in accordance with discipline-relevant publication guidelines.
7. Effective Communication: Communicate effectively in writing. Be IT, digitally and information literate.
Your assignment should include: a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline and a word count; a reference list in APA format; an appendix containing the raw data; an appendix containing SPSS output, and an appendix containing examples of materials if relevant. You should address all the elements of the assignment task listed below. Please note that tutors will use the assessment criteria set out
below in assessing your work.
Maximum word count: 5,000
Please note that exceeding the word count by over 10% will result in a reduction in grade by the same percentage that the word count is exceeded.
Assignment Task
For this assignment, you are required to conduct your own piece of quantitative research (an experimental study). You design your own true experiment on a topic in cognitive psychology using the cognitive psychology approach. A true experiment is one where participants can be randomly allocated to different experimental conditions. The exception to
the true experiment is only for within-subjects factors. It must be a 2×2 factorial design (i.e. have two independent variables) and one dependent variable. You should analyse the data using appropriate statistical techniques in SPSS and write a 5,000-word report using the report writing conventions of the APA.
Please follow these steps:
2. The study needs to be well supported by literature published since 2000.
3. You need to identify two independent variables and one dependent variable in order to satisfy the 2×2 factorial design. Please refer to the Research Methods module for the design (and data analysis).
4. *As 3 example reports are made available, your design cannot employ the same independent variables as in those examples. Example 1: memory of words with IV1 (distinctive vs similarity processing) and IV2 (immediate vs no recall). Example 2:
memory with IV1 (black/white vs colour) and IV2 (picture vs word). Example 3:
memory with IV1 (deep vs shallow processing) and IV2 (music vs no music). All
these six factors (IVs) are to be excluded from your own research design.
5. You can use any appropriate method for delivering the materials, PowerPoint, paper and pencil, or even experiment generator software available through the Virtual Psychology Lab, such as OpenSesame, PsyTools and SuperLab, but make sure you have the skills required to learn quickly otherwise your project will quickly become unmanageable. Please contact the IT technicians for any support that can be provided on such software.
7. To keep track of the study design, it is important to note the following while the work is in progress:
(i) Aim, rationale and hypotheses (main and interaction effects) of the study
(ii) What literature your study is based on?
(iii) Independent variable 1: Name and Levels
(iv) Independent variable 2: Name and Levels
(v) Dependent variable: Name and measurement
(vi) Instruments/Materials used for the experiment
(vii) Participant information
This important information will help you write the various sections of the report.
8. One of the learning outcomes of this module is to understand ethical issues and how they are assessed. So, once you are ready with your design (and words) and you have identified who your participants are going to be, please complete a Student Research Proposal Form which will be used to assess the ethical issues and provide ethical approval for your study. It is expected that there will be no ethical issues but you do need to complete the form to determine whether your experiment does have ethical issues and how you might deal with them.
You should not, under any circumstances, begin recruiting until you receive
ethical approval. A zero mark will be awarded for non-approved research.
9. Please submit your Student Research Proposal Form to your module tutor by the Date – done
10. You are required to supply the raw data collected (for each participant and condition) in a clear and suitable table in an appendix. Failure to do so will lead to a failed mark.
11. You are required to analyse the data in SPSS and to include SPSS print-outs
(outputs) of your analysis as an appendix. Failure to do so will lead to a failed mark.
12. The suggested word allocation of the report is
a. Abstract 150 words
b. Introduction 2,000 words
c. Method 400 words
d. Results 250 words
e. Discussion 2,200 words
This does not need to be strictly adhered to but your report should NOT exceed 5,000 words
Guidelines
You MUST underpin your analysis and evaluation of the key issues with appropriate and wide ranging academic research and ensure this is referenced using the APA system. The Additional notes:
Students are required to indicate the exact word count on the title page of the assessment.
The word count excludes the title page, tables, figures, diagrams, footnotes, reference list and appendices. Where assessment questions have been reprinted from the assessment brief these will also be excluded from the word count. ALL other printed words ARE included in the word count. See ‘Word Count Policy’ on the homepage of this module for more information.

Experiment chosen is number 4
This experiment has been designed to investigate the picture superiority effect and affective valence of words on free recall. Participants are shown positively rated and neutral items presented as either words or pictures. The positive and neutral words were relatively matched on arousal and were selected from the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) database (Bradley & Lang, 1999). The images were selected from a combination of PowerPoint icons and images from Pixabay.com and were chosen to be similar silhouette-style images with very little distinctiveness. The number of stimuli included was based on Ferré (2015).