--Original published at WilliamsCollegeBlog

The ever-popular show, “MythBusters”, creates scenarios that are tested to either be plausible or not. The experiment for this episode was supposed to test if the amount of alcohol consumed from anyone would affect their judgement in how they viewed the opposite gender. The first round was the three participants rating the opposite gender on a 1-10 scale based on attractiveness. The same three were supposed to get buzzed and do the same procedure. Lastly, they got drunk and repeated accordingly.

I believe that there were more weaknesses to this test rather than strengths, which led to somewhat of a failed experiment in my eyes. The first flaw was the minimal number of participants for what would seem like a popular test for many individuals. With only three people, the results are more likely to get skewed one way rather than what was expected. Even adding another female participant would have made for better results, since there were two males and one female initially.

It was also noted that in the beginning that each attempted test brought a new group of photos for each participant. This brought another flaw because even though each group was considered “matched” in terms of attractiveness, the participant might not think the same way as whoever chose those photos. If the same group of people were shown each turn, the results might reflect a better outcome.

A strength from the test was how the scaling for rating each person was a general system used daily and most people can make a fair judgment using those numbers. The other strength goes along with the rating system, but because there was no prior description as what qualified as attractiveness, the rates for each person was solely based on the participant selecting a number. This made for fair assumptions no matter how drunk a participant was at each point in the experiment.

At the end, the experiment was deemed plausible based on initial hypothesis. After reviewing the case, it was not approached from a good angle and therefore not designed in a good way. The weaknesses outweigh the strengths in my opinion and makes for a poorly executed plan. Analyzing how beer effects a person’s mind and visualization of any person is a quality thought. Since the majority of the results reflected some sort of inflation in overall rating of groups of people, the hypothesis was accepted.

--Original published at MaddieHinson

For this experiment, they had a woman dress up in a different breast size each day to determine if people would tip more with a bigger breast size. They had the woman wear the same clothes, and work the same time shift, and the only thing changed was the size of her breasts. One of the issues with this experiment is that there could be different days of the week where this coffee shop is busier. Yes, she could’ve gotten more tips on a Wednesday when there was more customers, versus on a Thursday, when it was slower. A solution could be to do the experiment on each Saturday at the same time, so it would be a closer estimate to the amount of business.

Another issue I noticed was the fact that it’s hard to determine the reasons behind a customer tipping. It’s hard to know for sure, that the reason the customer gave a tip was because she had big breasts. A possible solution to this would be to give a survey after they tip, to determine the reasoning behind why they did it.

I also noticed that they split up the tips between men, and women, and gave a statistic that women tipped 40% more when she was wearing the bigger breast size. Again, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that, unless they had an equal number of women customers coming each day of the experiment.

I think Mythbusters did a good job of monitoring the experiment to see the reactions of the customers. Filming the customers faces, (especially some of the men) was interesting to see because they were clearly checking her out, and could possibly be the reason they gave her a larger tip.

--Original published at JanellesCollegeBlog

For this assignment I chose to watch the Mythbuster’s video “Do Hands Free Devices Improve Driving Safety?” There were two different experiments included in the clip that tested this question. The first experiment took place on a man-made track that was mostly made of cones. The second experiment took place on a virtual track. Thirty people took part in the second experiment, while only two men took part in the first experiment. There were many strengths and weaknesses of the research methods used in both experiments.

One of the weaknesses of the first experiment was the amount of trials that were conducted. There was only two trials for each variable, hands free and hands full driving. Two trials is not sufficient to gather concrete evidence in order to make an end claim. A solution for this weakness is to have more trials of each variable. The second experiment did this. There were fifteen volunteers that drove hands free and fifteen volunteers that drove hands full. The second experiment was also better because the volunteers did not test both variables, only one. In the first experiment each volunteer completed both types of driving.

Another weakness in the first experiment was that each volunteer essentially had two tries. The second time that they drove through the course it is likely that they knew it better as they had already driven through it once. This would in turn not provide accurate data. The solution to this would be to have each volunteer only test one of the variables. One of the strengths of the second experiment was that each trial was regulated. The volunteers did not know what the course would be like because they only completed it once.

One of the weaknesses of the second experiment was how accurate the virtual road was. Not only were the volunteers distracted by a device, but there were also other cars as well as bikes on the road that they were on. It would be hard to distinguish in this situation whether the device or other distractions had the most effect on the driving.

In the end of the first experiment it was determined that there was no real difference between hands free and hands full driving. The average score for hands-free driving was 71, while the average score for hands-full driving was 72.5. The same results were shown by the second experiment. There was 1 pass and 8 crashes for the hands-free drivers. On the other hand, there was 1 pass and 9 crashes for the hands-full drivers.

--Original published at Allison's Psych Blog

The myth busters clip I decided to watch and critique was “Do beer goggles really exist?” The point of this experiment was to see if the myth that people become more attractive to a person the more they drink, is true. This experiment was set up into three trials. The first trial was a set of 30 girls/guys on a computer system, and everyone had 5 seconds to rate each of the pictures 1-10. The second trial was when the myth busters were only buzzed, and they had to rate 30 new people. The third trial was when they were completely drunk, and they had to judge 30 more new people. A weak spot in this study was that for each trial, between being sober and being drunk, the pictures changed, the myth busters never saw the same picture twice. If they wanted to find out if people become more attractive to them, they should have rated the same picture all three times to test if that was true. Using different people for each trial does not help the study as much as it should. Another weak point in the study was that the way people react to alcohol was not taken into account. All three of the busters drank the same amount of alcohol, but the girl seemed to be way more affected than the men were, clouding her judgement even more. I do think though, that doing three trials and testing them between being completely sober, buzzed, and drunk was a good way to test their hypothesis. It was interesting to see how much alcohol changed their point of view.

--Original published at Jessica K's College Blog

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A study made by the popular television series MythBusters tries to decipher the puzzling circumstances around yawning, and to prove whether or not yawning can easily be passed from one person to the next. Throughout the ages, yawning is perhaps one of the more known mysteries of human nature, letting the action be linked to a tiring atmosphere, boredom, or an evolutionary trait, the circumstances behind yawning has proven to be an anomaly.

From the episode, the group forms the hypothesis that yawning can be contagious, and build an isolated waiting room with recording devices, a two-way mirror, and a hidden camera to monitor the test. Then, they gather an audience of nine strangers (independent variable), and one of the testers places themselves in the room, purposefully spreading the “yawning sickness” (dependent variable).

The control, or the independent variable of the test, is the group sitting patiently in the room, and while they are not allowed to talk, are measured on the the times they yawn. However, ten minutes passed, and not a single yawn was recorded.

Then the dependent variable was introduced, the group is given a clipboard with tax laws, letting ten minutes pass once again to record the results. Eight and a half were recorded from one person, while five and a half yawns were shown in the rest.

While the results were promising, the variables between the amount of volunteers and the studied time were constant, it can perhaps be a weakness to the test. If the stimuli and the allotted time within the studies could be changed, then they could get a more accurate set of results.

However, with the dependent variable proven successful, MythBusters made the logical conclusion to confirm that yawning is contagious. In conclusion, yawning in of itself is relatively unpredictable, and even if the group was able to record a reasonable amount of yawns, many people can assume that yawning will still remain a mystery, waiting to be properly studied and solved.

--Original published at Maddy Vingom's PSY105 Blog

In this clip from MythBusters Adam and Jamie are testing their driving abilities while using hands-free devices, to discover whether or not it results in safer driving. I hypothesize that hands-free devices are equally as dangerous as using a cellphone while driving, because they are still considered a distraction. The episode opens with the two men discussing the subject of distracted driving. To begin their research they discussed their methods, Adam and Jamie will both drive through a course two times. Adam will run the course once while holding the phone and once using a hands-free device, and Jamie will complete the task in the opposite order. They scored their driving in both situations based on the same 100-point scale. Each of the tests produced very similar results, however their test contained a few flaws. First the course they drove though did not simulate actually driving on roads with other drivers, needing to read signs, and focusing on directions. In addition, they need more than two participants who are non biased to complete the course, in order to have multiple comparisons that are impartial. They then refined and completed another trial using Sanford University’s driving simulation with 15 outside participants. They determined through the second study that there was no statistical difference between hands-free devices and talking on the cell phone. Meaning that, according to this study, both options for driving while talking on the phone are equally dangerous.