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12 Mar 2026, 07:44
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A team of researchers used eye tracking to measure how long participants took to read a single animal-related word—either the name of an animal (e.g., cat, dog, horse, bird) or its characteristic sound (e.g., meow, bark, whinny, chirp)—within each of several sentences displayed on a screen, one sentence at a time. Each sentence was accompanied by one of the following four types of audio tracks:
• Matched audio (e.g., the sound of a dog barking for a sentence containing “dog” or “bark”)
• Mismatched audio (e.g., the sound of a bird chirping for a sentence containing “cat” or “meow”)
• Unrelated audio (e.g., the sound of a car horn for a sentence containing “horse” or “whinny”)
• Silence
• Matched audio (e.g., the sound of a dog barking for a sentence containing “dog” or “bark”)
• Mismatched audio (e.g., the sound of a bird chirping for a sentence containing “cat” or “meow”)
• Unrelated audio (e.g., the sound of a car horn for a sentence containing “horse” or “whinny”)
• Silence
For each of the following questions about the study and its participants as described, select Yes if the question is answered by the information and data provided. Otherwise, select No.
| Yes | No | |
| How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with matched audio playing than to read the same name with mismatched audio playing? | ||
| How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with irrelevant sounds playing than to read the name of an animal’s characteristic sound with irrelevant sounds playing? | ||
| How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read a sentence containing the name of an animal’s characteristic sound, without audio accompaniment, than to read a sentence containing the name of an animal itself, also without audio accompaniment? |
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Official Answer
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with matched audio playing than to read the same name with mismatched audio playing?: No
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with irrelevant sounds playing than to read the name of an animal’s characteristic sound with irrelevant sounds playing?: Yes
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read a sentence containing the name of an animal’s characteristic sound, without audio accompaniment, than to read a sentence containing the name of an animal itself, also without audio accompaniment?: No
12 Mar 2026, 07:44
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Official Solution:
We are not told whether the same set of timed words was used for each of the different types of audio accompaniment, so it’s impossible to know whether the data represent differential timings for identical words. It’s possible that the timed words could have been standardized across all four types of audio backings—but this can’t be known to be true (or false) with any certainty. Therefore, the first question cannot be answered.
The average time taken by participants to read the name of an animal with irrelevant sounds playing is the height of the right hand bar for “Unrelated” on the graph, and the average time taken by participants to read the name of an animal’s characteristic sound with irrelevant sounds playing is the height of the left hand bar for “Unrelated”. The second question can therefore be answered by finding the difference between these two values.
The researchers only measured the time participants took to read a single animal related word in each sentence. They did not measure how long participants took to read whole sentences, so the third question cannot be answered.
The correct response to this item overall is therefore No, Yes, No.
Correct answer:
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with matched audio playing than to read the same name with mismatched audio playing? "No"
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with irrelevant sounds playing than to read the name of an animal’s characteristic sound with irrelevant sounds playing? "Yes"
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read a sentence containing the name of an animal’s characteristic sound, without audio accompaniment, than to read a sentence containing the name of an animal itself, also without audio accompaniment? "No"
Bunuel
We are not told whether the same set of timed words was used for each of the different types of audio accompaniment, so it’s impossible to know whether the data represent differential timings for identical words. It’s possible that the timed words could have been standardized across all four types of audio backings—but this can’t be known to be true (or false) with any certainty. Therefore, the first question cannot be answered.
The average time taken by participants to read the name of an animal with irrelevant sounds playing is the height of the right hand bar for “Unrelated” on the graph, and the average time taken by participants to read the name of an animal’s characteristic sound with irrelevant sounds playing is the height of the left hand bar for “Unrelated”. The second question can therefore be answered by finding the difference between these two values.
The researchers only measured the time participants took to read a single animal related word in each sentence. They did not measure how long participants took to read whole sentences, so the third question cannot be answered.
The correct response to this item overall is therefore No, Yes, No.
Correct answer:
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with matched audio playing than to read the same name with mismatched audio playing? "No"
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read the name of an animal with irrelevant sounds playing than to read the name of an animal’s characteristic sound with irrelevant sounds playing? "Yes"
How much more or less time, on average, did participants take to read a sentence containing the name of an animal’s characteristic sound, without audio accompaniment, than to read a sentence containing the name of an animal itself, also without audio accompaniment? "No"
