Article Summary of “The Capacity of Visual Short-Term Memory Is Set Both by Visual Information Load and by Number of Objects”, by Alvarez-Cavanaugh 2004 (See attachments).
Summarize the psychological phenomena under investigation, the research goals and theoretical bases, the participants, task, procedure, and stimuli used in the experiment(s), the design, independent, and dependent variables, the
results, statistical tests used, and the conclusions drawn by the researchers. (Alvarez-Cavanaugh 2004)
Also, include a minimum of two empirical journal articles in paper to provide evidence either corroborating or contradicting the evidence presented in your target article. These articles must be empirical sources, not review articles,
and citations from textbooks or secondary citations are not suitable. ((See second attachment, and Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity – PubMed (nih.gov) )) as empirical sources.
You must write this paper in APA format; point form responses are insufficient. The first part of this paper will consist of a summary of the target reading as outlined below.
Note that the length of your paper is not what determines the quality. Writing clearly and
concisely is preferred, demonstrating clearly organized and persuasive arguments, unique thought, and proper grammar and spelling. For each section listed, writing quality will be a factor in determining the score in that section. Paper will include a title page and reference page.
Article Summary:
This part of the paper can be divided into 4 broad sections (below), corresponding to the typical
sections in a research article: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion.
Introduction/Theoretical Rationale:
A summary of the introduction of the paper. Explain the goals of the research, and what the
researchers were expecting to find:
1. What is the topic of study?
2. What is the research question?
3. Define the relevant psychological constructs under investigation.
4. What theories are discussed? Briefly explain them.
5. What were the researchers expecting to find (their predictions)?
Experimental Methodology:
A summary of the research methods used:
1. Describe the participants.
a. how many, demographic information, how recruited, any special characteristics
2. Report the experimental design.
3. Report the IVs: the independent variables and their levels.
4. Report the DVs: the dependent variables.
5. Describe the format of the experimental task and the procedure followed.
6. Describe the type of stimuli presented to participants.
Results and Statistics:
A summary of the results found by the researchers and the statistical tests used:
1. What statistical tests were used?
2. What were the major results?
3. You do not need to report statistics (e.g., t(60) = 3.4, p < .001), just describe the effect
(e.g., they found an effect of conflict, where...)
4. You do not need to report every single result found, decide on what are the most crucial
results to report and focus on those.
Discussion and Conclusions:
A summary of the discussion in the paper, particularly focusing on the conclusions drawn by the
researchers:
1. Did the results support the predictions made by the researcher in the introduction? Why
or why not?
2. What did the researchers conclude from the results they found?
3. Did they suggest any research that should be performed as a follow-up to their paper?