1 1. Question: Identify the big and specific question
2 . The broad question is what is the role of skin contrast and corneal reflections in memory? · The specific question is how much do skin contrast and corneal reflections impact the memory of virtual faces and human faces? 2. Alternatives: What are the alternative hypotheses or explanations · For the first experiment, virtual faces with higher skin contrast and a higher number of corneal reflections would be remembered better compared to the virtual faces with lower skin contrast and fewer corneal reflections. . For the second experiment, human faces with lower skin contrast and fewer corneal reflections would be less remembered than human faces with higher skin contrast and more corneal reflections. 3. Logic: What are the logical implications of the hypotheses . If participants better remembered both virtual and human faces in the condition where skin contrast and corneal reflections were high compared to the opposite condition, then those 2 face features do have an impact on memory. 4. Method: Describe the Methods · 63 students at Tilburg University participated in the experiment. The study was divided into 2 experiments. . The researchers used 24 virtual faces from the Internet. 12 of them appeared as female faces and the other 12 appeared as male faces. They did not manipulate them but they did assess skin contrast and presence of the corneal reflections for the purpose of this study. . As for the human faces, they used photographs of 48 faces of females and males from 4 races from an online database. They did apply manipulations in the eyes and skin of the human faces.
3 . For the first experiment, there were 3 steps. First, participants had to remember 16 virtual faces. Second, there was a distractor task where participants had to answer general knowledge questions. Finally, participants saw 16 virtual faces which 8 of them were not shown in step 1. They had to decide if they had previously seen each face or not. . The second experiment was the same as the first one but this time it was with the human faces. First, participants had to memorize 24 human faces. Second, there was a distractor tasl where participants had to answer general knowledge questions. Third, participants saw the same faces in step 1 in addition to 24 new faces. They had to decide if they had previously seen each face or not. 5. Results: What was the main result · In the first experiment, participants responded faster on the faces in which the eyes had a higher humber of corneal reflections, but higher skin contrast resulted in longer response times. However, virtual faces with increased corneal reflections and skin contrast were more likely to stick in people's memories than ones with reductions in these features. . In the second experiment, memory was worse for the faces with fewer corneal reflections but lower skin contrast did not have an impact on participants's memory performance. 6. Inferences