Personal Information E-mail: CNLucas@mail.utexas.edu Major: Psychology Minor: Business Administration Member of: The National Dean's List The National Society of Collegiate Scholars The Psi Chi National Honors Society for Psychology Research Information Summery I have run an experiment to determine which of several types of risk presentations are most accurately perceived and which prompt the quickest response. This was done by incorporating six types of risk presentation which can be collapsed into three groups. For numerical presentations, percentages and fractions were included. For graphic presentations, horizontal bar graphs and highlighted human figures were included. For presentations using language, percentages and frequencies were written out in English.  Each of these presentations were shown for ten seconds before a question appeared asking the participants to calulate how many organisms would die given the size of an infected population if the presentation just shown were the mortalitiy rate of the infection. The question provided six multiple choice answers, and the responses were timed. Each of the six types of presentations were shown nineteen times as five to ninety-five percent in multiples of five. The size of the infected popuatlions was counterbalanced for all groups. I have collected data from 31 participants using the Psychology 301 Research Pool at The Univerisity of Texas at Austin. The participants were between the ages of 18 and 24 inclusive, and there were 12 males and 19 females. I am currently analyzing the results which will be posted soon. |