A participant in an experiment is told that a particular pill should improve her performance on a cognitive task.The participant is then given the pill,and she performs better than usual on the task.In actuality,the pill did not contain any ingredients that would affect her performance on the task.The participant's improved performance is most likely due to ____.

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The participant's improvement in performance is likely due to the placebo effect, where the individual's belief in a treatment or intervention (in this case, the pill) causes them to experience positive effects even if the treatment itself is inert. Since the pill did not contain any ingredients that would affect performance, it rules out the possibility of random variables or confirmation bias. The double-blind design refers to a study design where neither the participant nor the researcher knows which treatment the participant receives, which is not relevant to the given scenario.

A Participant in an Experiment Is Told That a Particular