Operational Independent Variable?

[chickenpop]

I'm writing up an ERA, where the participants were shown a bunch of unambiguous images, which morphed into an ambiguous figure to test if past experience affects visual perception. There was two experimental groups and no control groups, where one group started off with the unambiguous image of a man and the other a woman and they morphed into the same ambiguous image.  Participant who said that the ambiguous image was the same as the first unambiguous image they saw indicated that past experience did affect visual perception.

I said that the independent variable was 'the set of 3 visual stimuli images shown before the ambiguous figure'. However, I got this incorrect as it 'should have been an operational independent variable and what you said wasn't measurable, hence not operational'. I can't figure out how we can measure it, it's not like the dependent variable where you can count the number of people who had results consistent with the unambiguous image. Anyone have any idea what it could be?

[Tashi]

I did this exact exact experiment for my SAC. I said the independent variable was the sequence of cards shown to participants (either man -> woman or woman -> man) and that the dependent variable is the participants' interpretations of cards, particularly the ambiguous card. Although I don't really know what an 'operational independent variable' is....

[Glockmeister]

I'm writing up an ERA, where the participants were shown a bunch of unambiguous images, which morphed into an ambiguous figure to test if past experience affects visual perception. There was two experimental groups and no control groups, where one group started off with the unambiguous image of a man and the other a woman and they morphed into the same ambiguous image.  Participant who said that the ambiguous image was the same as the first unambiguous image they saw indicated that past experience did affect visual perception.

I said that the independent variable was 'the set of 3 visual stimuli images shown before the ambiguous figure'. However, I got this incorrect as it 'should have been an operational independent variable and what you said wasn't measurable, hence not operational'. I can't figure out how we can measure it, it's not like the dependent variable where you can count the number of people who had results consistent with the unambiguous image. Anyone have any idea what it could be?

operational = defined precisely (usually so that you can measure it).

I'm still not quite sure what exactly this experiment is entailing. So basically you have two groups, one that is exposed initially to an image of a man, and the other that is exposed to an image of a woman. After which they are given a image of a ambiguous figure, and asked to interpret. Is that right? If so:

IV - Initial exposure to either the figure of the male or female (see the precision bit? You can measure who many people were exposed to the figure of the male or female)
DV - Gender identified by participants on the ambiguous figure.

[Transcendent]

Sounds like the MHS ERA...

I got the IV as 'the order and the type of the figures exposed to the participants before being exposed to the ambiguous figure'