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New Jersey junior academy of science annual meeting.

Article Excerpt
KEAN UNIVERSITY

UNION, NEW JERSEY

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 2002

AWARD WINNING ORAL PRESENTATIONS

PSYCHOLOGY

PATTERN RECOGNITION BASED UPON BRAIN HEMISPHERE DOMINANCE

CHRISTOPHER HARRIS

High Technology High School (Roche)

FIRST PLACE

The purpose of this experiment was to determine if there was a significant difference between the number of patterns recognized by left brain dominant subjects and the number of patterns recognized by right brain dominant subjects. Subjects were tested on a laptop; first, subjects took the Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT) test to determine their dominant brain hemisphere. Subjects then attempted to recognize patterns in a 5-minute period of the electronic card game SET. The game SET requires players to find trios of cards that share characteristics in number, color, shape, and shading. The game requires the use of both logical and spatial skills (left and right brain traits, respectively). Twenty subjects were tested, and there was found to be a significantly greater number of patterns identified by right brain dominant subjects than left brain dominant subjects. The t-test value was .032. The null hypothesis was rejected and the research hypothesis supported. Further study could include expanded testing of subjects or a change of independent variable to another characteristic such as gender or age.

THE EFFECT OF TASKS ON PERCEPTION OF ELAPSED TIME

GARRETT MARINO

High Technology High School (Roche)

SECOND PLACE

(and Second Place in the poster competition)

"Work," said the philosopher Diderot, "has the advantage, among others, of shortening our days and lengthening our lives." If we are idle or bored, time drags; if we are occupied, time flies. An experiment was developed to accurately demonstrate how perception of elapsed time differs when subjects are placed in "task" and "no task" situations. It was hypothesized that individuals in different working situations (work, no work) would exhibit a significant difference in their perception of elapsed time. A total of 100 subjects were individually tested in a clockless room, first using a word find puzzle. The participant was told to work on the word find and alert the proctor when he or she believed five minutes had elapsed. The subject's guess of when five minutes had elapsed was recorded in a data table. After this phase of the experiment, the subject worked on nothing and was told to tell the proctor when he or she believed five minutes had elapsed. The subject's guess was recorded in the same manner as befor e. According to the data collected, the times guessed for participants in the "task" situation were significantly different than the times guessed for the subjects doing nothing. As a result, the null hypothesis of no significant difference between the two data sets was rejected.

THE INTERPRETATION OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

ADRIENNE FELT

High Technology High School (Roche)

THIRD PLACE

No one reason can explain the commonplace clashes between children and adults; could they be rooted in unobvious misunderstandings? This study hypothesized that adults would be more accurate at identifying facial expressions than children. Surveys were created for two audiences: 5th/6th graders, and their parents. The surveys contained six female faces (from a referenced expert experiment) depicting one of six extreme emotions. Participants were asked to match each image with one of seven emotions (surprise, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, interest, and happiness). The null hypothesis could not be rejected (there was no significant difference between the abilities of the adults and children). However, in specific areas groups did demonstrate different abilities. Students showed less accuracy identifying "surprise" and far less identified "interest". Gender comparisons revealed that males were less likely to properly...

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