Taking part
How the interactive experiments will work as citizen science, what we record, what we never record, and how to withdraw.
Not open yet We are not collecting any data. This page describes how the experiments will work once Cornell's Institutional Review Board approves our plan. The wording may change before then.
Who we are
The Cornell Computational Cognition Lab studies how perception and culture shape each other, across many countries and musical traditions. The experiments on this site are part of the study The cultural foundation of perception and cognition: online experiments (Cornell protocol IRB0150361), led by Nori Jacoby in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University.
What you would do
Each experiment takes about 5 to 10 minutes: tapping along to music or a rhythm, rating short clips, or adjusting a colour to match a word. Each one is a study from our published research. At the end you see how your answers compare with other participants’. Some experiments pass your answer on to the next participant, as in a game of telephone.
What we would record
- Your responses: tap times, ratings and slider choices, and how long each took.
- If you choose to answer: your age band, the country you live in, your years of musical training, and whether you are listening on headphones or speakers.
- A few facts about your device that affect timing and sound: browser family, whether it has a touchscreen, its language setting and its audio delay.
- The day your response arrived, without the time.
- Checks on data quality, described below.
How we check data quality
Online studies attract repeat visits, automated programs and, increasingly, AI assistants. To tell these apart from first-time human participants, each response also carries:
- Counts of how you interacted with the page: how many pointer movements, clicks, touches and key presses there were, how long the page was open and how long it was in a background tab. We keep the counts only, never the movements or keys themselves.
- Whether the browser reports being controlled by software.
- How many times this browser has done the task before, and a short code computed from general device settings (such as screen size, time zone and language), which many devices share. It lets us notice one device taking part under several codes. It does not tell us who you are.
- Your answers to two optional questions: whether you have done our experiments before, and whether anyone or any AI tool helped with a task.
- A few check items that a person would not normally see, such as an invisible form field, which only automated programs fill in.
We use these to label responses in our analyses, not to judge anyone. Answering that you had help does not remove your data.
What we would never record
- Your name, email address or any account.
- Your IP address. Our server does not log addresses for these experiments.
- Sound or video. The experiments on this site do not use your microphone or camera.
Instead, your browser makes a random code, such as 7K3QD-M9X2A, and stores it on your device. Your responses are saved under that code only. Clearing your browser data removes the code from your device.
The website study
Separately, we may ask whether you would let us study how people use research websites like this one. If you agree in the banner, we record which pages of this site you visit, for how long, how far down each page you scroll, and which links you follow, under the same kind of random code. Nothing you type is recorded. If you say no, nothing is recorded and the banner does not return. As with any website, the server that delivers our pages keeps standard technical logs for security; those are not used in this research.
Taking part is voluntary
You can try every experiment without sharing anything: choose Just explore on the experiment’s page. If you do take part, you can stop at any time by closing the page. Taking part is unpaid. You must be 18 or older.
Withdrawing
On any experiment page, choose Withdraw my data to delete everything saved under your code. If you have lost access to that browser, email cococo@cornell.edu with your code and we will delete your data. Once data have been published in de-identified form (see below), we cannot remove them from copies that others have downloaded.
Risks and benefits
The tasks involve no risks beyond normal computer use. Some people find them a little repetitive. There are no direct benefits beyond seeing your results and contributing to research on how people around the world perceive music and colour.
How the data are used and shared
Responses are stored on Cornell servers with restricted access. We use them in research papers, and we may publish the de-identified data so that other researchers can check and build on our work. Because we never collect names, contact details or addresses, published data cannot be linked back to you.
Your rights
If you live in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or another place with data-protection law, you have rights to access, correct or delete your data. Because we only know you by your code, we need that code to act on a request. Contact the lab at cococo@cornell.edu or Cornell’s Data Protection Officer at privacy-requests@cornell.edu.
Questions
Email cococo@cornell.edu. For questions about your rights as a research participant, contact the Cornell Institutional Review Board for Human Participants at +1 607-255-6182 or researchservices.cornell.edu/offices/IRB. You can also report concerns anonymously through Ethicspoint or by calling +1 866-293-3077.