Effect of category and hierachy on recall

AS and A Level Psychology

A2 unit 6 Coursework

How do categorisation and hierarchy affect memory?

Effect of hierarchy and categorisation on recall

Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Method
Results
Discussion
References
Appendix

Abstract

Introduction

Memory is the process by which people and other organisms encode, store, and retrieve information. Encoding refers to the initial perception and registration of information. Storage is the retention of encoded information over time. Retrieval refers to the processes involved in using stored information. Whenever people successfully recall a prior experience, they must have encoded, stored, and retrieved information about the experience.

Previous research into similar topics as mine include, Bower, Bousfield and Broadbent and Broadbent. Bousfield conducted the earliest program of research on organisation. In his study, Bousfield asked subjects to name, for example, as many birds as they could. The result was that the subjects tended to name the words in subgroups, such as ‘robin, blue jay, sparrow -- chicken, duck, goose, eagle, hawk.’ To investigate this further, Bousfield (1953) gave subjects a 60-item list to be learned for free recall. Unlike other work at that time, however, Bousfield used related words for his lists, 15 words for each category; animals, names, vegetables, and professions. Although the words were presented in a randomised order, the subjects tended to recall them by category. Bousfield's interpretation of this pattern of recall was that the greater than chance grouping of items into clusters ‘implies the operation of an organising tendency’. The tendency to organise was in the participants, in their unseen mental activities that went on during the learning of the list. Obviously, the participants noticed at some point during input that several words were drawn from the same categories. From that point on, they used the reasonable strategy of grouping the items together on the basis of category membership, this implies that subjects were reorganising the list as it was presented, by means of rehearsal. The consequence of this reorganisation during storage was straightforward; the way the material had been stored governed the way it was recalled.

Further more Bower (1969), implied that there are organisations in hierarchies. He conducted a study on how organised information can improve recall. He had half of his participants memorising a list of words organised into a hierarchy and the other half memorised a list of random unstructured words. When they were asked to recall the words, group 1 recalled 65% of the words and group two only recalled 19%. This implies that the LTM not only stores information by organisation but also by categorisation. If the idea of how these words are stored in the memory is correct then recall should be easier and more efficient when recalling a list of organised, structured words. My experiment will follow the same basic structure as Bower’s experiment (1969). My aim follows the same principle as his half of my participants will be memorising a list of words organised into a hierarchy and the other half memorising a list of random unstructured words.