Reply to comment

Here is our original data:

Andy

1. 228 Act: 228

2. 275 Think: 47

3. 405 Read: 130

4. 512 Negate: 107

Rachel

1. 261 Act: 261

2. 470 Think: 209

3. 699 Read: 571

4. 833 Negate: 134

We have decided to introduce distraction by talking as our variable. Person A will do the program while Person B talks to them, trying to engage them in conversation. Person A will have to try to hold a normal conversation; they should not attempt to focus on one thing more than the other. Our hypothesis is that all of the data will slow down by a lot; we believe that the ability to read will slow down more than the others, but because the text to be read in this experiment is so simple, we doubt that the conversation-variable will have an effect.

THE RESULTS:

This was particularly difficult because it was really hard for Rachel to perform any of the tasks while talking.

1. 431 Act: 431

2. 595 Think: 164

3. 759 Read: 164

4. 1431 Negate: 672

ANDY:

1. 279 Act: 279

2. 332 Think: 53

3. 1766 Read: 1434

4. 476 Negate:-1290

The most interesting thing about our data, we think, is that our levels of activity (adding more things) did not change increasingly. In other words, Andy's Negate time was much, much less than his reading times. There were a few things we thought might explain these results:

-English is Andy's second language, so while reading, he had to translate what I was saying into Korean to understand, while translating the words on the screen into Korean, AND translating what he wanted to say to Rachel into English.

-Our discussions had varying degrees of serious. When we talked about more serious or exciting things (home, what we wanted to do in our lives), versus boring things (automatic things like what we were doing earlier today or what classes we were taking), our response times were much slower.

-Women are generally more talkative than men (and indeed, it seems Rachel talks more than Andy).