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Odor on Memory

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Submitted By aghaffari
Words 454
Pages 2
Method
Participants
One hundred-fifty four current undergraduate students at California State University Northridge were recruited. Each signed up for the experiment through the SONA system for class credit. They were randomly assigned to one of the two different conditions; one being a pizza odor filled room and the other an odorless room.
Materials
The materials used in our experiment were a cheese pizza from the supermarket Fresh and Easy, the pizza was used in one of the two conditions to fill the room with its overpowering stench. A consent form which was given to the participants before the experiment was conducted. They were given a pen and a standard sized piece of paper (8.5" x 11") to write on. We used an Apple brand iPad to run a PowerPoint slide show of the words to be memorized and a timer on an Apple brand iPhone to time the participants after the slide show to see how many words they were able to recall from the word list shown on the slide show.
Stimuli
The stimuli used for our experiment was a word list generated from the Vancouver Word List. We used a number generator to randomly select number and then matched the corresponding number from the word list and used the word that went with that number in our word list. We also made a separate word list by using Google and searching some other odor related words, and since one of the conditions used would be a pizza odor we constructed a third word list through Google search consisting of Italian food related words. From the three lists we randomly assigned the words into one list.
Procedure
Each participant would walk into one of two conditions, either a pizza odor or an odorless room with an experiment conductor; sit down on a chair and given a consent form to read. Once finished reading the form a verbal consent would be needed before the conductor could proceed with the experiment. The conductor would then place an iPad on the table and begin the slide show. Each word will be shown for two seconds before the next. At the end of the slide show the participant will then be instructed to pick up the pen and start writing down as many of the words they were able to recall from the word list as possible. The maximum time allotted will be two minutes; they are either allowed to use up the whole two minutes or just let the conductor know when they are done; the conductor would then record the time taken to recall the words. At that point the participant will be thanked for their time, debriefed and able to leave.

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