Puzzling Out the Best Method: On the Influence of Medium and Researcher Presence

Abstract

Zuckerman (2015) came up with a new visual word recognition method: the word search puzzle. He conducted his experiment on paper. In this thesis, the effects of medium (paper or computer) and presence of the researcher (present or absent) are investigated in order to check whether further research can be performed digitally, as that would yield many advantages. It turns out that conducting the experiment digitally without a researcher present is not less good than on paper with a researcher present, as long as a couple of aspects are taken into consideration. A few improvements to the method and the digital version are suggested as well.