These slides are from a first year undergraduate lecture introducing concepts of experimental design in a light-hearted way. Two approaches to tackling the question "can you smell fear?" are contrasted. Firstly students watch a short clip from the TV series Brainiac Science Abuse and having discussed what is right/wrong with this approach they design better ways to address the same question, before finally we consider the methodology used in an academic paper on the topic (Prehn-Kristensen et al (2009) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005987). The latter is published in an open access journal PLoS ONE where "Under the CCAL, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in PLoS journals, so long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers." Chris Willmott, University of Leicester.

1. Experimental Design

7. A more scientific approach Prehn-Kristensen A, Wiesner C, Bergmann TO, Wolff S, Jansen O, et al. (2009) Induction of Empathy by the Smell of Anxiety. PLoS ONE 4(6): e5987 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005987 (http://tinyurl.com/anxietypaper)

14. fMRI results: Anxiety - Sport Prehn-Kristensen A, Wiesner C, Bergmann TO, Wolff S, Jansen O, et al. (2009) Induction of Empathy by the Smell of Anxiety. PLoS ONE 4(6): e5987 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005987