Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B.
Which of the following is the dependent variable in Dr. Kang's study?
A)the length of the distractor task
B)the number of words remembered
C)the emotional or neutral content of the words
D)the number of words on the list

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The dependent variable is the variable that is being measured and tested for its change. Here, the number of words remembered is being measured, which is the dependent variable. The emotional or neutral content of the words is the independent variable, as this is the variable that is being manipulated. The length of the distractor task and the number of words on the list are not relevant to the dependent variable being measured.

Dr Kang, a Cognitive Psychologist, Conducts an Experiment Examining the Effect