The data
In a study into the effects of acute negative mood on attentional control,participants (N=40) were allocated to either a neutral or negative mood induction where they were played either neutral music whilst recalling a neutral event;or negative music whilst recalling a negative event.
They then did a Flanker Task (Eriksen&Eriksen1974), which measured their reaction time (RT)to correctly classify a letter appearing on the screen either alone, or while ‘flanked’ by either the same (e.g. SSSSSSS), or different (e.g. SSSCSSS) letters. The strings of target and noise letters were presented either: close together(e.g. SSSCSSS), at intermediate spacing (e.g. S SS C S S S), or wide apart (e.g. S SS C S S S).
The task was expected to be more difficult (leading to slower RTs) when the letters were closer together and the noise letters different from the target.
| Variable name | Description | Codes | |
| 1 | participant | Identifies each participant with a unique number | |
| 2 | mood | Mood induction condition | 1 = neutral 2 = sad |
| 3 | Gender | Gender | 1 = male 2 = female |
| 4 | Age | Age | |
| 5 | Subject | Subject studied | |
| 6 | NervousT | POMS: negative mood item 1 | 0 =Not at all 1=A little 2= Moderately 3= Quite a bit 4= Extremely |
| 7 | LonelyT | POMS: negative mood item 2 | |
| 8 | UnworthyT | POMS: negative mood item 3 | |
| 9 | TenseT | POMS: negative mood item 4 | |
| 10 | AnxiousT | POMS: negative mood item 5 | |
| 11 | DiscouragedT | POMS: negative mood item 6 | |
| 12 | UneasyT | POMS: negative mood item 7 | |
| 13 | GloomyT | POMS: negative mood item 8 | |
| 14 | SadT | POMS: negative mood item 9 | |
| 15 | ShakyT | POMS: negative mood item 10 | |
| 16 | sadBMI | VAS rating of sadness before mood induction | |
| 17 | happyBMI | VAS rating of happiness before mood induction | |
| 18 | anxiousBMI | VAS rating of anxiousness before mood induction | |
| 19 | boredBMI | VAS rating of bored mood before mood induction | |
| 20 | sadAMI | VAS rating of sadness after mood induction | |
| 21 | happyAMI | VAS rating of happiness after mood induction | |
| 22 | anxiousAMI | VAS rating of anxiousnessafter mood induction | |
| 23 | boredAMI | VAS rating of bored mood after mood induction | |
| 24 | sadAF | VAS rating of sadness after flanker task | |
| 25 | happyAF | VAS rating of happiness afterflanker task | |
| 26 | anxiousAF | VAS rating of anxiousnessafterflanker task | |
| 27 | boredAF | VAS rating of bored mood afterflanker task | |
| 28 | values.responsecondition | ||
| 29 | ERRORS | Number of errors on Flanker task | |
| 31 | numbertotallycorrect | Correct recall of number | 1 = correct 0 = incorrect |
| 32 | SpacingNarrowCongruent | Mean RT narrow spacing noise same as1 target | |
| 33 | SpacingNarrowIncongruent | Mean RT narrow spacing noise different1 from target | |
| 34 | SpacingIntermedateCongruent | Mean RT intermediate spacing noise same as target1 | |
| 35 | SpacingIntermedateIncongruent | Mean RT RT intermediate spacing noise different from target1 | |
| 36 | SpacingWideCongruent | Mean RT wide spacing noise same as target1 | |
| 37 | SpacingWideIncongruent | Mean RT wide spacing noise different from target1 | |
| 38 | NoNoiseMixedMean | Mean RT target presented alone1 |
1Reaction times less than 200ms, greater than 1000ms, or more than 2sd above the participant’s mean, and trials with errors were discarded before calculation of mean reaction times.
Flanker task
- For the flanker task part of the study there were three factors in the design (mood (2), congruence (2), and spacing (3)). Use an appropriate ANOVA design to analyse this data and consider whether the mood induction affecteddistractibility by incongruent distractor stimuli, and how this was affected by the spacing of stimuli?
- Would it be helpful to use either: i, errors made on the flanker task; or ii, reaction time for trials with no noise stimuli, as a covariate in the analysis of the flanker task data?