Andrew Mason

PSY 1010
Signature Assignment #1
It seems almost natural that many psychologists, counselors, therapists, and
psychological researchers disagree as to how the human mind works. The process of cognitive
thought could be considered to be one of the most important topics of psychology, thereby
making it a prime target for said debate and controversy.
I would consider cognitive thought processes to be a topic in psychology that I would
strongly consider conducting research into; after all, we, as human beings, experience cognitive
thought processes every waking moment of our lives. As such, it seems appropriate to devote
considerable time and energy to researching such an influential and highly debated subject.
To conduct this research, I would first come up with a series of questions that would
involve changes in thought processing. Then, after gaining approval from the local IRB, I would
ask participants to solve a series of problems. I would then inform them that in order to solve the
problems, they would have had to, in layman's terms, "think outside the box", or use a change in
their cognitive thought processing. Next, I would supplement the introduction of said
information by giving a concise description of what cognitive thought actually is. After
conducting the experiment, I would finish by thanking the participant, assuring them that the
outcome of the experiment itself would remain confidential, and dismissing them.
The leading independent variables of the experiment would include both the specific
questions asked and the participants in the experiment. The dependent variable would be the
responses given by the participants, as the independent variables (the questions and the

individual participants) would affect the outcome. A control group would be one composed of
participants who were not asked any questions and were not given a request to offer any
responses.
This particular experiment of discovering cognitive thought might sound rather vague
and too chancy to draw any true conclusions about cognitive thought processes. However, it fits
the credentials and, by extension, the criteria of the individual conducting the experiment: Me. I
am most certainly not a graduate student capable of conducting highly academic experiments.
However, such a seemingly simplistic experiment might be more widely accessible to the general
public, as one does not need a thorough understanding of psychological research to become
familiar with the basics of psychology.
Research is, without a doubt, an ongoing method used to widen an understanding of the
subject or topic in question. Methods of research can-and often do-vary greatly in their exact
processes used to obtain information, but the key to conducting professional research lies in the
handling of the data collected. Any first-year college student or high-school student can conduct
a simplistic experiment similar to my proposed examination of changes in cognitive processes.
However, this particular method I have proposed seems to me an ideal type of experiment to use
in collecting information when one is short on time or resources.