The simulation is a web based program that allows you to "collect" the data on the web and then save the resulting output file to your computer to do subsequent analyses. The biggest question is what should you study. To answer this, you need to consider the variables available.

What are the variables you can specify in this simulation?

Independent variables that are under control of the experimenter may be categorized as experimental variables and subject variables. Experimental variables may be manipulated by the experimenter. Subject variables are characteristics of the subjects that may be measured but not manipulated.

In this experiment the Experimental Variables include

  1. Drug condition (placebo or caffeine),
  2. Time of Day. Given the realities of volunteer subjects, Time of Day is assumed to only vary between 8 am and 10 PM (22.00 hours).

The Subject Variables are that are "assessed" are:

  1. Sex (Male=1, Female=2)
  2. Trait Anxiety (0-10)
  3. Trait Impulsivity (0-10)
  4. Subject Number reflects when the subject appears in the quarter.

The Dependent Variables are measures of motivational state

  1. Energetic Arousal
  2. Tense Arousal)
  3. Performance (accuracy on some attention task)

The values of the IVs and DVs may be specified by the experimenter for each subject, or may be allowed to vary randomly. If allowed to vary randomly, the experimental variables will be assigned values in a uniform random distribution. The subject variables may either be specified (this simulates choosing particular subjects based upon a pretest) or may be allowed to vary randomly. If varying, they will be assigned values based upon samples from a normal distribution. If subjects are selected for particular personality types, this is the same as rejecting many potential subjects and thus the Cost of running grows more rapidly than the simple number of subjects who participate.

It is a good idea to think carefully about your design before you run it.

Subject Number increases for every subject run in a particular experiment. Currently, it can not exceed 1000, but most runs will use less than 100. You will be asked to specify the number of subject that you want to run.

How many subjects do you want to run?