Unit 3, Question 6

What is the independent variable? What is the dependent variable?

Research has shown that losing even one night of sleep can have a significant effect on performance of complex tasks such as problem solving (Linde & Bergstroem, 1992). To demonstrate the phenomenon, a sample of n = 25 college students was given a problem solving task at noon on one day and again at noon on the following day. The students were not permitted to sleep between the two tests. For each student, the difference between the first and second score was recorded. For this sample, the students averagedM_D =4.7 points better on the first test.