Using OpenSesame to create experiments

I'm trying something different today, as I've been posting a lot about my novelist life, but there is another side of me that I've not yet shared with you.. and that is that I'm studying psychology at university (I graduate this year).

Now, when I first explain that I am a psychology student I'm usually being received in one of two replies: "Oh you want to work with people, fix their mental problems?" (such as a councellor or a psychoanalyst) or "Are you profiling me right now?"

There is a huge misconception around what psychologists do. There are many sub-divisions. A psychologist CAN be a councellor (I know in America they are called 'Psychologists'. Here in the UK they are 'councellors', or depending on what type of technique - oh yes, there are different ones! - their title can change). But there are other types of psychologists. They can be neuropsychologists, developmental psychologists, forensic psychologists and even (one of my favourites) a parapsychologist (in basic terms, they study the paranormal, near death experiences, and more).

Every one of them can study human behaviour, development and mind in two different ways: either quantitatively (using numbers, such as experimental psychologists do) or qualitatively (using text and talk).

I prefer the quantitative method. And as such, I prefer conducting experiments. An experiment is quite simple. I have a topic I want to research, I zone in on a research hypothesis to test, I find my independent variable(s) (the things I want to manipulate) and I have a dependent variable(s) outcome I measure (which is always in the form of numbers). This is then analysed using a sophisticated piece of software and this piece of software tells me if the results are 'statistically significant'.

I want to show you one piece of software that I have been using this year to BUILD an experiment, as there are many ways to build one. As as mine is being done electronically (participants are being recruited online over the internet) I have to build my experiment in this in order for it to work.

Welcome to OpenSesame:

Next time you think studying psychology is easy... or you think all psychology students just want to talk to people all day... look at this picture. This is just one programme to use. I haven't even shown you SPSS yet; the piece of software which analyses the outputs of experiments and tells you if it's significant of not.

(I don't want to work with people, I want to work with numbers, experiments, statistics, etc, working behind the scenes - as well as writing novels, of course!)