Running head: WRITING UPSIDE DOWN

Writing Upside Down

Victoria Espitia
Center for Advanced Research and Technology

WRITING UPSIDE DOWN

2
Methods

Participants
A random sample of five female and one male students (N=6) from the PM Psychology
and Human Behavior Lab at the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART)
participated in the study.
Materials
For a timer iPhones were used. Microsoft Excel was used for data analysis. Additional
supplies included a pencil and lined college ruled paper.
Procedure
The sentence The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog was written down at the
top of the paper for the participants to rewrite upside down, right to left, and from top to bottom.
Before the participant started to write a stopwatch was set to record the amount of time it took
for the participant to rewrite the sentence. This process was repeated six times on each
participant without a break between trials.
Results
There was a negative correlation (p = 0.8) between time and the speed at which the participant
wrote the sentence (see Figure 1).
Discussion
The hypothesis stated that if a student attempted series of trials of writing upside down,
right to left, top to bottom, the time it took them would decrease with each trail. The results
supported the hypothesis, because the time of each participant decreased, indicating the action
became easier. The difference in the initial time and the final time was in the range of 30-40

WRITING UPSIDE DOWN

seconds. As in most experiments there are errors. For example, there was no control trial, needed
more participants, and more trials.
The first uncontrolled variable that could have caused the data to be inconclusive was not
having a control. By not having a control trial, the data did not measure but demonstrated
plasticity. To measure plasticity, the control variable would help indicate the initial writing times
difference with the final writing time to show change in writing right side up versus upside
down. By not having the control, the demonstration was showing the negative regression of the
time, which supports the hypothesis.
The second uncontrolled variable that harms the data is the lack of participants. Only six
participated and to get reliable data more participants was needed the more participated the more
our data will become easier to show a trend.
Lastly, there needed to have been more trials. The trials would have shown how the
amount of time it took them decreased in x amount of trials. The more trials, the more a trend can
appear.

WRITING UPSIDE DOWN

Writing Upside-Down
70
60
f(x) = - 4.73x + 63.12
R = 0.78

50
40

Average

Time 30

Linear (Average)

20
10
0
0

Trials

Figure 1: The graph represents the participants average writing speed

at each trial.