You can use the Thesaurus in the library's PsycINFO database to find alternative keywords and phrases that will help you with your Lab Research Projects. A database thesaurus (or Subject Index) can help you determine what subject words and phrases the database uses for your topic, which will help you do a more comprehensive search for articles.
For example, you might choose gender differences as an independent variable for your reaction time lab: how do experimental results differ between males and females. To research that topic in PsycINFO, you can use the Thesaurus to see exactly what subject phrase PsycINFO uses for the topic of gender differences.
Click the "Thesaurus" link at the top of the PsycINFO page:
Enter the keyword gender in the "Browse for" box:
A list of subject terms will appear, and you'll see the following:
Now you know that PsycINFO uses the subject phrase "human sex differences" to categorize studies that use the independent variable gender differences. Knowing that, you can make your search as comprehensive as possible, like this:
"reaction time" AND (gender OR "human sex differences")
Here's another example of using the PsycINFO Thesaurus to generate alternative keywords and phrases and give you more ideas to research a particular topic. Let's say you've browsed for self esteem in the Thesaurus. When you see your topic in the Thesaurus list, click on that link:
When you are in the Thesaurus, you can click the checkbox next to a term, then click on "Add." The term will automatically be added to the "Find" box at the top of the screen. When you click on "Search," the database will do a search on that term and retrieve articles for you:
In the Find box, the abbreviation DE next to the search term stands for Descriptor, which is just another way of saying Subject Phrase. If you took the abbreviation DE out of the Find box, the search would still work just fine!
Please let me know if you have any questions. Happy searching!