An experiment to investigate if the association of words leads to better recall

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Liz Clark

An experiment to investigate if the association of words leads to better recall

Abstract

A study was conducted to investigate if the association of words leads to better recall and was based on previous research by Bower (1969).  Opportunity sampling was used in this experiment as it was convenient.  The independent measures design used was the Mann – Whitney U test to gain inferential statistics.  The participants were both sexes and there was a high percentage of 16-18 year olds.  The experimenter would show the participants the list of related and unrelated words.  It was hypothesized that the participants would be more likely to remember the related words rather than the unrelated words. The results from the Mann-Whitney U test supported the experimental hypothesis (U = -0.5, p<0.05).  It was concluded that association benefited memory by making encoding, storage and retrieval of information more efficient and less demanding.  There was a significant difference in recall between the related and unrelated words.

Background  

The cognitive processes of memory have long fascinated theorists and researchers, and are perhaps one of the most difficult areas of psychological research but one which can yield a great deal of important information to aid in the development of effective learning strategies.  A main issue is that research can only reveal indirect information.  There are generally three types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.  The sensory memories act as buffers for stimuli received through the senses.  Information is passed from sensory memory into short-term memory by attention, thereby filtering the stimuli to only those which are of interest at a given time.  Short-term memory acts as a scratch-pad for temporary recall of the information under process.  Chunking of information can lead to an increase in the short term memory capacity.  Long-term memory is intended for storage of information over a long time. Information from the working memory is transferred to it after a few seconds. Unlike in working memory, there is little decay.  Of particular relevance to this study is that by Bower, Clark, Lesgold and Winzenz (1969).  Their aim was to investigate the effects of hierarchal retrieval schemes in recall memory, comparing the results of these with those using randomised word lists.  Group A were presented with an unstructured randomised word list, while group B were presented with the same words organised into a non-ambiguous hierarchical scheme.  The participants that took part were psychology students.  Each participant was given 2 pieces of paper.  One of the paper contained the list of printed words : one set of words that were randomised and the other set of words that were organised into a hierarchical scheme.  They were given another piece of paper to write down the recalled words.  Participants were randomly assigned to group A or B.  They were given two minutes to study the words.  They were then tasked with counting backwards from 50 out loud as an interference task.  They found that recall was up to three times better when word lists were in organised schemes  

Hypotheses

Experimental Hypothesis:  There will be a significant difference in the number of words recalled by subjects who studied the related word lists and those who studied the unrelated word lists.

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Null Hypothesis: There will be no significant difference in the number of words recalled from the related and unrelated lists; any difference will be due to chance

Methodology

Subjects

The group of people of interest for this study are teenagers, mainly 16-18 year olds.  Most of the participants were family and friends.  Twenty people took part in the study – 10 males and 10 females and the mean age of all the participants was 17 years of age.  To recruit the participants for the 2 conditions opportunity sampling was used as it was convenient.  It consists ...

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