Measurable proof of sensory overload

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By them not knowing what the test is, if they know, they could alter the results. Except my choice of the word placebo was not completely right because them simply not knowing is not a control.

I am not a pscyc grad, but if you were to pursue it, first you need to decide what your research question is and create a hypothesis. Also think the opposite of your hypothesis would also have to be true. Like hot water is hot. So the opposite of that would be hot water is not cold.

Thinking about your hypothesis, you would need to decide what information you are looking for and how you would obtain it.
For instance, you would need a way to measure light, decide if you are going to go with squint time, or whatever. You may decide before doing an actual study to observe people for a while (as you are already doing) but searching for various ways to measure and choose what information you want and how you want to get it. In addition, to how you want to get that info, you would need to make decisions on whether or not you will have people fill out surveys or maybe you want to observe them first hand, then you would have to decide if those observations would be in a controlled environment such as a lab (which you would need if your light source is stationary) or if you want to do this in real world scenarios (such as use of flashlight in someone's home). Real world benefits are that people are more apt to be themselves, and it's always easier to get volunteers if they don't have to go somewhere and meet at a certain time and worse, wait. Lab benefits are that you are in total control of the environment which makes it easier for you to rule out certain variables.

Then, you organize how you plan to test the information. What type of statistics are wanting to get? Do you just want descriptive stats to show what percentage of what does what, or do you want to try to prove correlation? What information are you attempting to use to prove this correlation or describing? This is where you decide what groups you are working with and what statistical method you will use to obtain results.

Then, if you are working with a university, you would create a plan (including all the information sheets, privacy policies, etc.) thinking about ethics in your plan and submit for approval (I want to say IRB approval). Ethics is a big deal as it is important to fully disclose to every volunteer all the risks that could happen and that they don't have to complete the process, they are allowed to leave any time, and if you are holding back what you are studying, you would have to tell them that before they leave so as not to be deceptive. Of course, since you are dealing with the concept of anxiety and such, you would also need a doctor handy while testing people for their own safety and to avoid lawsuits. I suggest this plan if working with a university or not, but you will be required to get approval at a university.

All that is the easy part, because then you would have to implement your plan including finding any funding necessary to complete it, locations, your sample, etc. Unless you are awesome with statistics (which I am not), you would need to find someone good with that too. And, if you want it taken seriously and published in journals, it helps to have someone with a PhD to oversee everything, approve the report/article, and tag their name to the byline (basically take ownership in the study).

Then after you get the results, you would create a report in APA format. The APA book is not organized like a "for dummies" book or any book you will ever read. It's in its own language like the IRS manuals, which means, you would want someone familiar with it helping with that as well. It always helps to work on your report as you do the experiment as the research involved in the report (you would have to research similar studies to put in background information) would come in handy for performing the experiment. You may even decide there are enough similar studies with all the info you need to not really have to manually do one but use their raw information instead.

Sorry so long and probably way TMI as I doubt you are actually trying to do this as much as just stating an idea. I figure the psyc grad may have some ammendments to make to this, which is why I state that I am not a psyc grad. If you did want to do this on a small level, you could consider taking a research methods course.

In many kinds of experiments, if the participants know what the experiment is about, they'll try to give the "right" results. So it's a pretty acceptable tactic to be obscure about what you're looking for.



You're thinking of the null hypothesis, which is the opposite of the hypothesis. For example:

Hypothesis: Hot water will cause burns.
Null hypothesis: Hot water will not cause burns.



Yeah, deception and disclosure are ethical points. But for a low-risk experiment (which this probably is), it shouldn't be a big deal to not give all the details up front.

I have that, and I feel like I need dark contact lenses, because everyone bothers me about my sunglasses, and they act like I'm being really unreasonable, even when I explain that I start to get a headache from screwing up my eyes.