Yet another CRAZY EXPERIMENT OF FUTURE SCIENCE.
Yesterday was my third experimental participation session, and it was extra credit because I've already completed the required amount. First, though, allow me to mention something I forgot in the previous CRAZY EXPERIMENT update, which is that the Bousfield psychology building is modeled after Daedalus' labyrinth. The hallways branch off at random intervals, and possibly defy conventional laws of physics. As if this weren't enough, the door numbers make no sense whatsoever. You'll walk past 200 (Janitorial), as well as a random unnecessary hallway containing 201 and 202 in no particular order. After that it gets weird. Rooms 206 through 211 lie down the path to the right, while rooms 218 through 222 are arrange backwards on the adjacent wall. Room 223 comes after rooms 224 and 225, and has its very own corridor. Room 213 is on the ceiling. Any room beyond 267 lies in a nether-realm accessible only to the highest level arch mages. To add to the atmosphere, the hallways are laden with cardboard boxes, broken chairs and overturned desks, giving the impression of a soulless and forgotten place abandoned by a once proud civilization. I managed to find my room by asking a friendly minotaur, though, so it's okay.
Here is a map.
So the gist of the experiment from the description on the sign-up site is that I answer some questionnaires about my personality, then I rate a bunch of different images. Okay, cool, sounds easy. So the examiner, a pretty blonder girl who couldn't have been older than 23, explains this to me, and she makes absolutely sure I know what to do. She tells me to view the pictures, which are displayed via Powerpoint slideshow, then mark three ratings on one of those scan-tron bubble sheets. The last part of the conversation went something like this.
*DRAMATIC REENACTMENT*
She: "So you'll view the image, then rate it on the bubble sheet based on three criteria. Do you understand?"
Me: "Yep."
She: "You rate each image on its respective lines on the sheet. Do you understand?!"
Me: "Y... yes..."
She: "THREE CRITERIA. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
Me: "OH GOD, DON'T KILL ME!"
So she goes through two practice slides. The first picture flickers onto the screen for about .3 seconds. I now have a subliminal image of a coffee mug in my mind. She apologizes and corrects the speed, this time allowing the coffee mug to stay up for a full six seconds. After these six seconds I am given another six seconds of blank screen to rate how the coffee mug made me feel. Now, six seconds is plenty of time to view a picture. It is not nearly enough time to gauge your own mood and fill in three bubbles on a scan-tron sheet. I'm on the third criterion when the second image shows up.
She: "RATE NOW GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!"
She eventually leaves the room with the computer screen bombarding me with images so fast that start to put random marks on the bubbles instead of filling them in. When the girl returns, I am curled beneath the desk, crying. My scan-tron sheet is full of hatch marks, squiggles, and on a few occasions, letters from the cyrillic alphabet. Many of them are on the wrong bubbles. A few aren't even remotely near the bubbles. Also, the pencil is now jammed through the computer screen. So then she gave me a surprise memory test, and a pack of about 324 questionnaires, all of which contain phrases which I am meant to read and say how accurately they describe me. Some samples are: "I usually keep my emotions suppressed." "I suppress my emotions." "Sometimes, rather than showing my emotions, I instead choose to suppress them." and "The capital of Botswana is Gaborone."
After wishing me a good day (LEAVE GO NOW GO GO GO GO HURRY GO!), she sent me off feeling mentally raped by pictures of giraffes and skydivers. On the way out I became trapped in the dimensional rift between rooms 245 and 247, and that is why I did not say all of this yesterday.
Here is a map.
So the gist of the experiment from the description on the sign-up site is that I answer some questionnaires about my personality, then I rate a bunch of different images. Okay, cool, sounds easy. So the examiner, a pretty blonder girl who couldn't have been older than 23, explains this to me, and she makes absolutely sure I know what to do. She tells me to view the pictures, which are displayed via Powerpoint slideshow, then mark three ratings on one of those scan-tron bubble sheets. The last part of the conversation went something like this.
*DRAMATIC REENACTMENT*
She: "So you'll view the image, then rate it on the bubble sheet based on three criteria. Do you understand?"
Me: "Yep."
She: "You rate each image on its respective lines on the sheet. Do you understand?!"
Me: "Y... yes..."
She: "THREE CRITERIA. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
Me: "OH GOD, DON'T KILL ME!"
So she goes through two practice slides. The first picture flickers onto the screen for about .3 seconds. I now have a subliminal image of a coffee mug in my mind. She apologizes and corrects the speed, this time allowing the coffee mug to stay up for a full six seconds. After these six seconds I am given another six seconds of blank screen to rate how the coffee mug made me feel. Now, six seconds is plenty of time to view a picture. It is not nearly enough time to gauge your own mood and fill in three bubbles on a scan-tron sheet. I'm on the third criterion when the second image shows up.
She: "RATE NOW GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!"
She eventually leaves the room with the computer screen bombarding me with images so fast that start to put random marks on the bubbles instead of filling them in. When the girl returns, I am curled beneath the desk, crying. My scan-tron sheet is full of hatch marks, squiggles, and on a few occasions, letters from the cyrillic alphabet. Many of them are on the wrong bubbles. A few aren't even remotely near the bubbles. Also, the pencil is now jammed through the computer screen. So then she gave me a surprise memory test, and a pack of about 324 questionnaires, all of which contain phrases which I am meant to read and say how accurately they describe me. Some samples are: "I usually keep my emotions suppressed." "I suppress my emotions." "Sometimes, rather than showing my emotions, I instead choose to suppress them." and "The capital of Botswana is Gaborone."
After wishing me a good day (LEAVE GO NOW GO GO GO GO HURRY GO!), she sent me off feeling mentally raped by pictures of giraffes and skydivers. On the way out I became trapped in the dimensional rift between rooms 245 and 247, and that is why I did not say all of this yesterday.