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Coming Soon: ZAPS 2.0

ZAPS 2.0 online psychology labs have been completely updated to support Introductory and Cognitive Psychology courses.

Click here to explore an updated lab.

Introductory Psychology labs will be available for Fall 2015.

Cognitive Psychology labs will be available for Spring 2016.

ZAPS online labs engage students in the scientific process

ZAPS is a set of interactive computer experiments that allow students to experience psychological phenomena and classical experiments in a vivid and engaging manner. Designed by a team of psychologists and communications technology specialists from the University of Twente and the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, ZAPS was recently awarded the prestigious Dutch National ICT Award.

Accessible four-part pedagogy
The four-part pedagogy of ZAPS clarifies the concepts behind each experiment:

An introduction helps students connect each experiment to a concrete, real-world example.

An experiment allows students to experience psychological phenomena in the role of subject or researcher. Where appropriate, a data section with a detailed breakdown of results follows the experiment. Instructors can collect aggregate class data.

A theory section allows students to read about the theoretical basis behind each experiment after it is completed.

A further info section offers students additional real-world examples or discussion of similar phenomena.

Learning by experience and discovery
ZAPS allows students to experience psychological principles as never before, through three types of interactive exercises: experience, experiment, and discovery.

Experience ZAPS exercises provide students with the chance to directly experience psychological phenomena such the Simon Effect or the Ponzo Illusion.

Experiment ZAPS exercises allow students to participate as a subject in an experiment such as a mental rotation task. Students can view their individual data after the experiment and instructors can view the aggregate data of the class or group.

In Discovery ZAPS exercises, students take on the role of the researcher, performing experiments on virtual humans and animals.