Performance Asymmetries in Dual-Task Procedures

Part A: The Research
The purpose of the laboratory report assignment is to give you some practice in
understanding a classic experiment in biopsychology, examining the procedure, interpreting
the data and writing up a report about the research according to the American Psychological
Association (APA 7th edition) format. The lab report is based on the Week 3 tutorial activity
on concurrent verbal and manual performance and what it may tell us about hemispheric
specialisation.
The lab report should consist of a Title Page, an Abstract, an Introduction, and the Method,
Results, Discussion, and References sections. It is vitally important to discuss the theory
behind the experiment, along with the advantages and/or limitations of all aspects of the
experiment, especially with respect to the design, procedure, and results. Please see the lab
report template which you are encouraged to use for writing the lab report; the template is
uploaded to the PSY1210 Blackboard site.
The lab report will be marked according to the guidelines for writing about research. You are
expected to conduct a literature search in order to write the introduction and to come up with
a definable question that is related to the topic. Some of the original references to the research
are provided (these will be uploaded on the PSY1210 Blackboard site), but note: you are
expected to search the literature for more suitable and recent references to help you formulate
your research question.

Part B: Lab Report Assignment
Write up the lab report as if it would appear in a journal. The lab report must be formatted
according to current APA style (7th Edition of the APA Publication Manual) and typed on
A4 paper. (Tip: ensure that your Page Setup is for A4 paper size.). No handwritten
assignments will be accepted. Use Times or Times New Roman 12-point font (Times 12-
point font is used in this handout), double-spaced, with 2.54-cm margins left and right, top
and bottom. Block justify your text (just like the text in this document); do not use left- or
right-justification. If you follow these instructions, you should have a maximum of 25 lines
per A4 page. In other words, do not include more than 25 lines per A4 page.
The Title Page and the Abstract should be on separate pages. The Reference section usually
begins on a separate page. The main body of the lab report – Introduction, Method, Results,
and Discussion – should be no more than FIVE (5) pages long.
If you go over the page limit or format your lab report in a way that looks like it goes over the
page limit, then the lines you write in excess of the page limit will not be read or considered.
In addition, you will be automatically penalised a minimum of 7 points. No appeals – none
whatsoever, for any possible reason – to this automatic 7-point penalty will be accepted. In
other words, you must check that your Turnitin submission is formatted exactly how you
intend it to be.
You need to include a graph of the data in the Results section, formatted in APA style, with
an appropriate APA-formatted caption. The graph may be either hand-drawn or computerdrawn. (Note that if you spend more than, say, 15 minutes trying out how to create a graph
using computer software, then you are better off producing a hand-drawn graph.) For
example, it is perfectly acceptable to hand-draw the graph, scan and insert the hand-drawn
graph into your document as a picture (usually a JPEG file), and then format the caption for
the graph in APA style. In this lab report, you may text-wrap around the graph, just like it
would appear in a journal article. For examples on how to format a graph in APA style,
examine a range of recent (i.e., within the past five years) journal articles from APA-branded
journals. You may download sample APA journal articles from the ECU Library or by
visiting www.apa.org.
To be clear and unambiguous: The body of the lab report – Introduction, Method, Results,
and Discussion – must be within the 5-page limit.