A psychologist uses a driving simulator to study how quickly drivers respond to a pedestrian stepping into the road. To keep the procedure the same, a recorded voice counts down from five before the pedestrian appears for every participant. The psychologist concludes that the reaction times recorded show how quickly drivers would respond to an unexpected hazard on a real road.
Describe how the recorded countdown could weaken this conclusion.
182 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 7.1 Planning Research, covering 7.1.1 Hypotheses, 7.1.2 Variables, 7.1.3 Experimental Designs, 7.1.4 Populations and Sampling, 7.1.5 Ethical issues, and 7.1.6 Dealing with ethical issues and BPS Code. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.