Introduction to terms
It is a kind of experimental condition, which is usually not subject to treatment and is only used for baseline level.
The important attribute of control condition is that it provides a comparable baseline for the independent variable to be studied. Sometimes the best baseline level does not have any treatment, but in most cases the best baseline level requires a certain activity. This is a common example in memory research. A group of subjects is asked to learn two different word lists. What the experimenter is interested in is how the learning of one word list interferes with the learning of the other word list. experience group (Accept the level of independent variable) Learn Table A first, then Table B, and then test Table A. The experimenter wants to show that the learning of Table B interferes with the maintenance of Table A. But before reaching this conclusion, a comparable control condition is required. It is not sufficient to compare the final test of Table A with the first test, because the subjects may perform poorly in the final test of Table A simply because they are tired, or because they have extra exercises that lead to good results. An untreated control condition can be to ask the control group to learn Table A, and then wait until the experimental group has learned Table B well before testing Table A together, but this is also a poor control condition, because the subjects can practice or repeat Table A while waiting, which will improve their scores in the final Table A test, This makes the experimenter reach the wrong conclusion that the learning of Table B in the experimental group interferes with Table A more than it actually does. The appropriate baseline condition should be that the control group cannot learn Table A when learning Table B in the experimental group, and the experimenter can let them do some arithmetic or other busy work to prevent them from retelling. Sometimes, the existence of control conditions is not obvious in the experiment.
Many types of experiments require multiple baseline levels.
[1]
