Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi!

I am using shapes of different colours to text peripheral vision and measuring the angle at which the subject is first able to identify the colour/shape of the object.
Would it be accurate in saying that my independent variable could be the changing of the shapes and colours of the objects used and my dependant variable could be the subject we are using/ their eyes?

Hi,

The dependent variable is the thing that you measure--in your case the angle at which the subject first perceives the color or shape of the object. The colors and shapes that you select for each test are your independent variables as you said. The subjects themselves are variables but you cannot control for their variability without using a very large number of subjects.

What is your hypothesis? A person's peripheral vision is affected by their age and by their eyesight--whether they need corrective lenses or not. Unless you are testing for some particular variable like age, you should try to match your subjects as closely as possible for age and eyesight so that the color or shape are the only independent variables in your experiment.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have more questions.

Good luck!

Sybee

Hi there,

If you haven't seen this already, Science Buddies has a great link that explains how to identify the different variables in your experiments! https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... evariables

I also agree with SciB that it may be the best idea to match your subjects as closely as possible so that you know that what you're measuring (the dependent variable) is changing based only on the color or shape your objects. If all your subjects are of different ages and are a mixture of people with good to bad eyesight, then it'll make it difficult to conclude whether the changes in your dependent variable that you're measuring is truly due to the color or shape of your objects, since age and eyesight may also play a role.

Let us know if you have anymore questions!

Connie