What’s that? A New Set of Novel Stimuli for Research
Level of Education of Students Involved
Undergraduate
Faculty Sponsor
Abbie Thompson
College
Arts and Sciences
Discipline(s)
Psychology
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Symposium Date
Spring 4-25-2024
Abstract
Word learning studies require the use of novel stimuli to effectively test participants. Previous research has found that novelty of objects can affect the learning of these objects (Horst & Hout, 2015). Children who have been exposed to a novel object for a short time are less likely to associate novel names to these objects than still-novel objects (Horst et al., 2011). Having an extensive list of novel objects, as well as the novelty of these objects is important. Certain studies require objects to be easily distinguishable (Twomey et al., 2014), while others find it more useful for objects to look similar (Homa et al., 2011). Thus, we have created a set of unique items that include both easily distinguishable items and items that are highly similar that differ in surface level features, such as color. These objects were a combination of hand-crafted and store bought items that were unique and did not have easily identifiable names. These objects were tested by the public to ascertain their effectiveness as novel objects. Through a survey format, we introduced participants to these novel objects and asked a series of questions to discover how novel these objects were. This project will provide another database of novel objects for use in other researchers’ studies. This study also allows our lab to have a collection of objects that can be used in person or through digital form in any future studies that we conduct and will provide other researchers with additional stimuli options.
Recommended Citation
Mihevc, Mary Beth and North, Zoey, "What’s that? A New Set of Novel Stimuli for Research" (2024). Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 1319.
https://scholar.valpo.edu/cus/1319
Biographical Information about Author(s)
Mary Beth Mihevc is a junior psychology and music major. She plans to attend graduate school for school psychology. Zoey North is a junior psychology major and criminology minor. She is looking to go into graduate school for mental health counseling.
We both joined the Learning and Language Acquisition Lab to gain experience in research in the field of psychology. Our lab needed its own novel objects to work with in studies, so we therefore set about creating a new database of objects. Through this study, we hope to have a collection of objects that can be used in person or through digital form in any future studies that we conduct.