WHITE-GRAVENOR – In a press conference last Tuesday, representatives of Georgetown School of Psychology announced that the newly installed web of temporary walkways cropping up around campus is part of a large-scale psychology experiment testing the intelligence quotas (IQs) of Georgetown University students.
Following months of planning, researchers determined that the installation of labyrinthine and arbitrary walkways under the guise of “construction” would best allow researchers to conduct a reliable and controlled study.
The most difficult portion of the maze by Reiss. (Photo Credit: Georgetown Voice)
“Similar tests have been done using mice and mazes. The mazes were roughly the size of your average surfboard and contained relatively few barriers, but obviously, mice are much smaller and dumber than humans. Humans are behemoth geniuses compared to mice,” said Dr. John Johnston, the team’s head researcher. “This means that we cannot learn much about human intelligence from those studies. However, by observing college students, we are able to get a more reliable picture of human intelligence while isolating the effects of incentives such as free t-shirts and wheels of cheese.”
The experiment began with the installation of nonsensically placed fences, which was found to temporarily lower the average student’s IQ by roughly 7 points. However, as the maze continues to grow more complex, students have become increasingly bewildered and, hence, far stupider.
“After more fences were added, we noticed that many people inadvertently found themselves on the wrong side of campus,” says Jen Mardun (COL ’16), an undergraduate research assistant. “In a fascinating example, one of the football players appeared to be lost for close to two hours and kept trying to physically walk through the fence. We determined that his IQ temporarily dropped by about 3 points during his encounter with the fence.”
Though researchers are yet to conclude how the study will proceed, they have agreed that some sort of punishment may enhance their understanding of collected data. Though they are yet to come to a conclusion, representatives of the Georgetown School of Psychology have expressed their collective belief that both electrical shocks and shots of Burnett’s are equally unethical and have subsequently been ruled out.
At press time, President DeGioia reassured the student body that the study is being conducted for the “benefit of science” and that it has “nothing to do with a little wager with that asshole in charge of Emory University.”
