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The Impact of Visual Distraction on Reaction Time in Spot It!

This repository contains a statistical analysis project completed during my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto in Winter 2022.

The project investigates how increasing visual distraction affects participant accuracy and reaction time in a visual spot-the-difference task, using classical statistical modeling and hypothesis testing in R.


Project Overview

Participants were shown pairs of images under varying levels of visual distraction and asked to identify differences within a fixed time window. The goal was to quantify how distraction influences:

  • Identification accuracy
  • Reaction time
  • Performance trends across difficulty levels

The analysis focuses on measuring correlation, fitting regression models, conducting ANOVA tests, and validating assumptions through diagnostic plots.


Methods and Tools

  • Language: R
  • Visualization: ggplot2
  • Statistical techniques:
    • Pearson correlation tests
    • Linear regression
    • ANOVA
    • Residual diagnostics and model validation

Repository Contents

  • InputModeling.R — Data ingestion, preprocessing, and exploratory calculations
  • StatsTesting.R — Statistical modeling, hypothesis testing, regression, and ANOVA
  • PDF report — Final written analysis with methodology, results, and interpretation
  • README.md — Project documentation

Analytical Questions

  • Does increasing visual distraction significantly reduce participant accuracy?
  • Is reaction time positively associated with difficulty level?
  • Are the observed relationships statistically significant?
  • Do linear model assumptions hold for the collected data?

Future Work

If I were extending this project today, I would explore:

  • Increasing the sample size and number of repeated trials
  • Randomizing experiment order to reduce learning effects
  • Mixed-effects or hierarchical models to account for participant-level variation
  • Bootstrapped confidence intervals for regression estimates
  • Non-linear relationships between distraction and performance

About

Statistical analysis of how visual distraction affects reaction time and accuracy in a spot-the-difference task using regression and ANOVA in R.

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