Group 33 - Scents or Scences?

Day 1. 3/8/16

Today, Alliyah and I (Magan), have decided on an experiment to do for the Psychology Fair. We knew originally that we wanted to do something along the lines of finding out a person's emotional connection to scent. We did some research on different smells, and how they make people feel. We know that scents can alarm us. For example, the smell of smoke alarms us and lets us know something is burning. We also know that smells can remind us of a happy time, such as our childhood, or make us remember a bad memory. Alliyah and I want to incorporate many common scents into our project, so they are smells that many people can connect to or recognize. We can have people smell the different scents and ask them how they feel when they smell it.

Day 2. 3/9/16

Today, we filled out a worksheet that asked us questions about our topic, and what we previously knew about it. It asked us about what our subjects would want to know about our topic, or what they would get out of doing our topic. It asked us why we are interested in our topic, and what further research we would need to do to become more knowledgeable about our experiment.

Day 3. 3/10/16

Today, we are researching more about our topic about seeing what connects people to smells emotionally. We are trying to find other studies that were done that are similar to our experiment. So far, we are having a little bit of trouble finding out some studies that we can use that are related to ours. We are trying to find a study that has used scents to see what parts of the brain a certain smell can trigger. We found a few studies that describe to us how people's perception of life changes after they lose their sense of smell. Also, we found an experiment that a lady has people smell certain smells, and she asks them how each scent makes them feel. That experiment is similar to what we are going to do.

Day 4. 3/11/16

Today, we finished a handout that asked us to find experiments similar to what we are doing. The experiments had to do with scent and how people who lost their sense of smell are different than people who do have their sense of smell. We are starting to put together how we will design our project now. We are going to have 2 boxes, both decorated on the inside the same. We will spray one down with a nice, but strong smelling perfume. The other box we will not spray anything. The way we design it will be fairly neutral and not provoke any emotions. Then, we will have half the students stick their head in the box with the perfume, and the other half will stick their head in the box with no scent. We will then record everyone's reactions and see how the reactions differ between each box.

Day 5. 3/14/16

Today we are trying to factor in all the things that could possibly change the outcome of our project. For example, is a certain lighting, or a certain sound going to change the way people react? Will people who talk about our project and figure out that one box has a scent and one doesn't affect the way a person who hasn't done our project yet react to it? We are trying to figure out ways to keep as many things as possible the same. We will do this by facing the boxes the same way, so that the same amount of light goes into the box. We are also contemplating giving each person music to listen to, but they would have to listen to the same song so that the song doesn't affect the outcome of their results.

Day 6. 3/15/16

Today we finished a handout asking us to fully describe several other studies done by other people that were similar to ours. We also created the title for our project booth, which will be, Scents or Sense? We think this will be a good title to help draw people in and question what our booth is about. We figured out what our dependent variable, independant variable, and control group will be. We also filled out a handout that described all the things we will need for our project on the actual Psychology Fair day. I think our project is coming along really well and I think that we have  very good understanding on our topic.

Day 7. 3/16/16

Today, we are figuring out all the materials we will need for the project. So far, we will need a poster board, headphones to listen to music, 2 decorated boxes- one with a scent, one without a scent- four chairs, and probably two computers. We plan on having the participants listen to the music as they experience the box. We also need small slips of paper for our subjects to write down how they feel about the box. Today we also had a conversation with our teacher checking in and making sure that everything for our project was on the right track.

Day 8. 3/17/16

Today, we worked more on planning out our projects and how we will set up our booth on the actual Psychology Fair day. Instead of having people write down one word that they felt after testing out our project, we are going to have a small Google Form that they can fill out with only a few questions. This way it will be much easier for us to tabulate all of our data, as well as make it easier for the participants to answer a few questions. Google Form will calculate all the data and give back accurate results, which will assure us that all the data that we have collected is correct and in order.

Day 9. 3/18/16

Today we discussed with our teacher once again on our final project. We bought a poster and pencils, and we are buying our boxes tomorrow. We will begin the construction of the boxes and begin making the poster on Monday. Today, we are planning out exactly how our boxes will look inside, as well as designing and figuring out what we will put on our poster. So far, we want to have a poster that stands out to people with a bold color, and also a poster with a design and words that make people intrigued by our booth. Our goal is to have at least 350-400 people throughout the day come to our booth. We will have two people going at the same time, since we have two separate boxes, so we should be able to fit in more people.

Day 10. 3/21/16

Today we are designing our poster and what we will put on it. We completed the actual construction of the boxes over the weekend. They turned out really nicely. We will include pictures once our actual booth is set up. We are figuring out all the information we will need to include on the poster. We will include the name of our booth, which is Scents or Scenses?, and then we will add visual aids such as pictures to help describe the concept of our booth. We will also include our hypothesis, as well as other interesting facts. We also want to make sure we design our poster to draw peoples attention, and make them want to come and participate in our group.

Day 11. 3/22/16

Today we are putting the finishing touches on the project. We are finishing up the poster. We printed out all our information that we will need to put on there and pictures as well. I am going to bring home the poster tonight and I am going to finish designing it and making it look more presentable. We are planning out our booth and how we will set everything up. We are going to have the two boxes facing the chairs, and then the participants will then fill out the Google Form on the Chromebooks. Our project is coming together really well.

Day 12. 3/23/16

Today we finalized our project. We finished our poster and boxes, and tonight we will be coming back to school to set up our actual booth. We want to get candy as well for our experiment so that we can give it to our participants after they finish our experiment. We will upload pictures tomorrow morning.

Day 13. 3/24/16

Today is the actual psych fair! We already finished our first round of participants. It went just as we expected! The only issue is that there is music being played right next to our booth, which is influencing the answers of our participants. Nothing too crazy of a change between the answers, but we have noticed a big difference between the answers of the boxes. Pictures will be uploaded later today.

Day 14. 3/28/16

Today is the last day of the Psychology fair project. We are reflecting on how our project turned out and looking at pictures to observe what we did. We looked at the results of our participants and how they felt in each box. In the control box, out of 176 people that participated, 48 answers were opposite reactions of what we thought it would be. In the box with the scent, out of the 178 people that participated, 36 of the reactions were opposite than we thought. Most of those answers were people either who were messing around or put something random. The outcome of our project was good because even  though the results varied a slight bit, most of the answers were the same as what we were expecting, proving our hypothesis that scent has a connection to emotion.