Method section bio PDF

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[Author] Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne

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2 Abstract Write a summary of the work in a paragraph of no more than 250 words. This paragraph should be double-spaced and aligned left, with no first-line indent. Note that words in an abstract should not be counted toward the final word count for the report. For further information, check the word count policy in the student manual. Keywords: [Click here to add keywords.]

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4 Method Participants Sixty participants took part in the study, 30 of whom were allocated to the hands condition (16 female, 14 male; aged 18-30 years; M = 24.03, SD = 3.33) and 30 of whom were allocated to the Shepard figures condition (15 female, 15 male, aged 18-29 years; M = 23.60, SD = 2.87). All participants were right-handed, had normal or corrected-to-normal vision, and had no history of psychological of neurological disorders. Materials and Measures A transcranial magnetic simulator (TMS) equipped with a figure eight coil was used. This was placed tangentially over the hand area of the left primary motor cortex with the handle pointing backward and rotated 45 away from the midline. Stimuli were presented on the 21” flat screen of a Dell PC using the Presentation Software Package. Stimuli were either Shepard figures (Shepard & Metzler, 1971) or hands (Bode et al., 2007) which were approximately constant in size (maximum of 10cm).

Procedure and Design Participants were seated approximately 70 cm (+/- 4) from the computer screen. Their task was to mentally rotate the left object to see if it could be made to match the object on the right. A positive match could be made in half of the trials, whereas in the other half the object was mirrored. The degree of rotation necessary to come to either a “same” or “different” judgement ranged between 45 and 315 degrees. For each category there were three objects, each presented at four different viewing angles. All stimuli were shown twice, once for “same” and once for “different”, leading to 24 trials in total per block for each condition which were randomized. Participants were instructed to mentally rotate each object in order to decide whether it was the same or different. They were asked to do this as quickly and accurately as possible indicating their decision using one of two buttons with their left hand. There were six experimental blocks

5 which were preceded by a practice block. On odd blocks real TMS was applied (i.e., a TMS pulse was applied 400 ms after stimulus onset at a pulse strength which was 110% above each participant’s motor threshold). On even blocks sham TMS was applied (i.e., TMS coil is not discharged). An average mean RT for TMS blocks and Sham blocks, for both hands and Shepard Figures conditions was obtained and compared using a one-tailed paired samples t-test.

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7 Optional Self-Assessment Form Read through the assessment criteria and assess your own performance. Select the option you believe best represents how well you satisfied the criteria. Your tutor will not base your mark on this self-assessment in any way. This task is intended to help you better gauge your own progress and to identify your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Note that this form counts as supplemental material and therefore should not be counted in the final word count. Overall Impression In your judgment, what is the overall quality of the current work? Your rating:

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 Discusses the implications of the study’s findings with regard to the problem under investigation.

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A3. Abstract (Method)

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number of participants in total and in relevant subgroups

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descriptive statistics for years of age

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eligibility and exclusion criteria

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Presentation

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 Considers what the results mean for the problem under investigation, particularly with regard to the specific issues raised in the Introduction.  Reflects on how the study advances scholarship in the field without overstating the importance of the study and its findings.

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 Concludes by briefly returning to a discussion of why the problem is important and how the findings relate to the overarching issues motivating the research.

Conclusions

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Referencing

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F2. Report Formatting

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