What do I do if my experiment didn't work?
Out of all the pictures you chose to show, it may be that some are so inherently memorable that people recognize them regardless of the condition in which they appear. These would be considered "outlier stimuli", and may cloud the significance of a genuine effect. There's a tradition of running "pilot" experiments, which test out one's design as well as one's hypotheses. If you think you really do have an effect, but your experiment failed to demonstrate it conclusively -- call what you've done a "pilot", and revisit your design to see if you can create a better experiment. Hint: if your p-value is between .05 and .1, you may very well be able to get a better demonstration of your effect with a better-designed experiment. |