STRUCTURED ABSTRACT TEMPLATE FOR EXPERIMENTAL REPORT:
TITLE GOES HERE
Authors’ names here (alphabetical order)
Yale University, Cognition of Musical Rhythm, Virtual Lab (this is your affiliation)
1. BACKGROUND AND AIMS
This section introduces your topic and research question and situates it in the larger context of musical experience and music research.
1.1 Introduction
Start with one or two sentences that situate your topic in the larger context of musical experience. Follow with highlighting the particular aspect of musical experience your study aims to investigate, providing all necessary definitions. You can also state your research question (or a series of related questions) in a preliminary form here.
1.2 Previous Research
This section provides a brief summary of previous research that has addressed some aspects of your research question. The summary can be organized topically (grouping sources that have investigated related aspects together) or methodologically (grouping sources that have employed similar methods together). References to specific articles should be given in parentheses, including authors’ last name and publication date (in alphabetical order within the parentheses, if there is more than one).
1.3 Present Research
State your formal (i.e., operationalized) research question here. You may include one or two additional sentences for clarification or details, including the predicted outcome.
2. METHOD
This section provides the details of your experimental design as concisely and clearly as possible so that readers can better assess your results. You may include figures to illustrate some aspects of the method (e.g., diagram of procedure, notation of sample stimuli, etc.).
1.1 Participants
Provide some basic information about your population sample (age, gender, musical training). This is the population you can generalize to.
1.2 Stimuli
Describe your experimental materials and how they were constructed. Be as specific as possible: What are the source materials? What are the variables? How many different conditions and trials?
1.3 Task & Procedure
What is the experimental paradigm, i.e., what is the specific task your participants had to perform, including the specific instructions, and how were the materials presented (apparatus, order, type of response, etc.)?
1.4 Data Collection & Analysis
How was the data collected and in what format? What are your measures? How was the data transformed (if applicable)? What kind of statistical tests did you conduct?
3. RESULTS
This section presents an analysis of your data and basic findings. Begin with some descriptive statistics of your population sample (e.g., gender, age, musical training, etc.). Follow with descriptive and/or inferential statistics based on performance measures. Each analysis will generate one main observation supported by some form of statistical analysis (e.g., comparison of means and standard variations based on one variable, e.g., % correct scores in slow vs. fast tempo). Each result should be accompanied by a well-formed graph and/or table.
1.1 Population Sample
Report descriptive statistics related to your population sample (the population you will be able to generalize to).
1.2 Analysis & Figure 1
Report your first finding and supporting data.
1.3 Analysis & Figure 2
Report your second finding and supporting data.
1.4 Analysis & Figure 3
Report your third finding and supporting data.
4. CONCLUSIONS
This section aims to provide a brief summary of your study and contextualize its results. How do your results inform your original question? What are some of limitations of your method? What is the next step?
REFERENCES
References should use current APA style and be well demarcated by indenting all the lines after the first (as exemplified below).
Fidali, B. C., Poudrier, È., & Repp, B. H. (2013). Detecting perturbations in polyrhythms: effects of complexity and attentional strategies. Psychological Research, 77, 183-195.
Poudrier, È. (2009). Local polymetric structures in Elliott Carter’s 90+ for piano (1994). In B. Heile (Ed.), Modernist legacy: essays on new music (pp. 205-233). Farnham, England: Ashgate.
Poudrier, È., & Repp, B. H. (2013). Can musicians track two different beats simultaneously? Music Perception, 30, 361-390.