Some hints about data analysis

How to determine the design of your experiment? If you tested the different levels (values) of your independent variable (predictor) on each participant you have a within subjects design (repeated measures) you used the same participant in all conditions. o For instance, with mental rotation you have amount of rotation as independent variable and levels: 0, 60, 120, 180 and 240 degrees of rotation. Each participant is tested for each level, and so you have a within subjects design, because you tested all conditions on all participants. o Also, when you measured the same variable twice using the same participant on different moments in time (test-retest), this is within subjects. If you tested the levels of your independent variable on different groups you have a between subjects design you used different participants in every condition and so you compare different groups of people to each other. o For instance, with mental rotation you have dimension as independent variable and 2 levels: 2-D and 3-D. One group is tested on 2-D rotation, the other on 3-D. A participant takes only part in one condition, and thus you have a between subjects design. If you tested some factors between subjects and some within subjects you are dealing with what is called a mixed design for some conditions you used different participants, for other conditions you used the same participants. Example of between subjects data

How to represent your data in SPSS? In SPSS your data should have such a form that your variables are in the columns and your participants are in rows. For a between subjects design you create a dummy variable to indicate the condition a person was participating in. So you could give the 2-D condition value 0 and the 3-D condition value 1 on the newly created variable Group or Condition. In this way SPSS will compare persons with value 0 to persons with value 1 and you get the desired comparison. For a within subjects design you have to create a new variable for every condition of your study. So in the case of mental rotation with 5 different degrees of mental rotation you would have to create 5 variables and thus in SPSS 5 different columns. Note that in this case 1 participant is represented on a single line, and that the different scores are listed in the columns of the variables that represent the conditions.

Taken from Field, A. (2009) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS

In the next example you see two columns that represent two conditions. The scores in both columns are anxiety scores. In the picture condition people were presented with the picture of a scary spider, in the real condition the same people were presented with a real spider. So every condition is represented as a different variable. Example of within subjects data

Taken from Field, A. (2009) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS

For a mixed design you would have a combination of both methods; the conditions that every subject participated in will be listed as different variables (as in the picture above), the factor that splits the participants in different groups has a column of its own is a variable itself, for instance in case of variable sex, there would be a column with values 0 for female and 1 for male.

Which statistical analysis do I need? It depends on the type of data you have. I think you have numerical data (ratio/interval) and hypotheses related to means so we can use the statistics for comparing means. If you have 2 groups (between) or 2 conditions (within) you can use a t-test If you have more that 2 groups or conditions, or a mixed design you should refer to ANOVA. o For independent groups you can use one-way ANOVA o For repeated measures you need to use repeated-measures ANOVA o For mixed designs you need to use mixed design ANOVA

How do I do the analysis in SPSS? On the CogLab site I posted extracts from Andy Fields book Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for each of the tests listed above. This material provides a relatively straightforward explanation of what to do in a step-by-step manner. Download the guide for the test you need and you should be able to do the job. In case you get stuck, do contact me, but not before you have tried yourself!

What if my E-prime data are a mess and dont fit into SPSS? You will have a data file for each individual participant. E-prime has the option Emerge to create a single large data file out of multiple single ones. How to do it? On a computer that has E-prime installed click Start -> programs -> E-prime and then there should be a list of option to click where E-merge should be one of them if I remember well. From there is should be straightforward how it works. E-prime overloads you with data, most of which you dont need: Delete all the columns that you dont need. Keep the ones that contain your measured variables, and grouping factor in case you have multiple groups. Still the file is not ready to be used in SPSS, because each participant has probably many lines of data, each connected to a single trial. So the data for each participant has to be condensed so that 1 participant is represented by a single line of data. Essentially what you have to do is to either sum up, or take the average of each participants response for each condition. For instance, if you have a reaction time (RT) experiment with three condition A, B and C and 10 trials each, you would have to sum up, or average the 10 scores of A, B and C respectively. This new summed score or averaged score will useful in SPSS. o E-prime has an option to Export the data file, which means that it will transform it so that other programs like SPSS and EXELL can read it. If I remember well this is done by clicking File -> export. You can export the data file after deleting the columns you dont need, and open in EXELL and to theses calculations semi automated if you know how to work with EXELL. o You can export the file and open it in SPSS and then make transformations using the compute variable function for example. I will not go into detail on this here. o The old hand calculator may be a low-tech, but very reliable option as well. In this case you dont need to export your file from E-prime. What you can do best is to open new SPSS datasheet (or EXELL if you dont have SPSS to your disposal, SPSS can read it no problem). You create 1 line for each participant and you enter the hand-calculated values manually into SPSS. Since the number of participants in your study is relatively low this should be manageable. Of course make sure that you name the variables correctly.