Your text describes a study in which Korean, Japanese, and English speakers viewed two pictures. The first picture showed various objects. In the second picture, spatial relationships among the objects were either preserved or changed. The researcher recorded whether or not participants noticed the change. Whether the spatial relationships among the objects were preserved or changed is the __________ variable in this study.

A) control
B) dependent
C) independent.
D) experimental

The spatial relationships among the objects in the second picture are deliberately manipulated by the researcher, and therefore the independent variable in this study is the preservation or change of the spatial relationships among the objects in the second picture. The dependent variable, on the other hand, is the participants' response (i.e., whether or not they noticed the change). The control variable is not explicitly mentioned in the text, but it could include factors such as the order of presentation of the pictures, the size and type of objects in the pictures, and the demographic characteristics of the participants. The term "experimental" is not used to describe any specific variable in this study.