An experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of "subliminal perception" on thirst. The participants (college students) were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group watched a movie (The Return of the Pink Panther) that did not contain subliminal messages. The other group watched a movie (The Desert Fox) in which the message "Have a cool drink!" was flashed repeatedly so quickly that it was not consciously noticeable. All participants in each group were provided ample ice water during the movie. The researcher measured how much ice water was consumed by the participants as they watched the movie. Results indicated that the group that saw subliminal messages drank significantly more ice water than the group that did not see the messages leading the researcher to conclude that subliminal messages do influence behavior.

Identify: The Independent variable

The Dependent Variable

Any confounding variable

Unconfound if necessary

Indicate if an independent groups or repeated measures design was used.

What do you think of the conclusion based on the design of the study?