Null hypothesis Recall from a list of 20 words will show no significant difference between the 10 concrete and 10 abstract words. Any difference will be due to chance.
Direction 1 tailed
Method
Design
A lab experiment was used in order to carry out the study, with repeated measures design.
The IV was type of word (concrete or abstract). I operationalised this by presenting the participants with a list of 10 concrete words and 10 abstract words, and identifying which group of words was recalled most easily.
The DV of the study was the amount of concrete/abstract words remembered out of 10. I compared the number of concrete/abstract words remembered by each participant.
Participants
20 participants were used, 10 males and 10 females, whom were asked to take part around college – ages ranged from 16-19. As the sample consisted of college students, this was my target population and the sampling technique I used was an opportunity sample
Apparatus and Materials
- Word processed list of 20 words. I used a word processed list of words rather than handwritten to prevent any difficulties the participants would have with reading handwriting.
- Stopwatch. Ensured that all participants had exactly 1 minute to memorise and recall.
- Data recording sheet.
- Standardised instructions (word processed).
- Standardised debrief (word processed
Procedure
The study was conducted in the LRC – which provided a quiet environment so participants would be able to concentrate. The first 10 available males were tested and the first 10 available females were tested. After a participant had agreed to take part in a study investigating memory, they were then given a slip of paper which had the standardised instructions on it. When participants had agreed to take part in the investigation, they were given the sheet with the 20 words on it, and the stopwatch was started. After 1 minute, the participants were told their time was up and asked to pass back the word sheet. They were then given a blank sheet of paper and a pen (if they needed one) and told they now had 1 minute to write down as many words from the sheet that they could recall. The stopwatch was then started again, and again after one minute had passed the participant was told that their time was up and that the investigation was now over. The participant was then debriefed by giving them a sheet with a standardised debrief on it.
Ethics
Consent – participants were given a general overview and gave verbal consent.
Confidentiality – No name were used in the experiment, participants were instead given a number.
Withdrawal – participants were told about their right to withdraw in the introduction.
Harm – there were no risks to participants.
Distress – No potentially offensive words were used in the word list.
Debriefing – was done following the experiment.
Controls
- By testing all participants in the same location, I minimised the impact of any extraneous variables.
- Standardisation – I standardised as many aspects of my experiment as possible. For example, all my participants received the same instructions to ensure they all got the same information and none did not get more clues to the experiment than others. The word list was also standardised, ensuring that some participants didn’t have an advantage by having easier words to remember.
Results
Descriptive analysis
Summary table of results for an investigation into memory of concrete and abstract words
The results show that a higher number of participants remembered more abstract words than concrete words. However, there is only a very small difference between the means of words remembered, suggesting that the use of concrete or abstract words had no real impact on the participants ability to recall the words. It can also be seen that there was a noticeable difference between the ranges for the two types of words. As there was a large range for the concrete words, this would suggest that some participants found the experiment much more difficult than others.
Inferential Analysis
The inferential test I used was the Wilcoxon T test (ordinal data which meant that scores could be ranked, and repeated measures design).
The Wilcoxon test showed that my results were not significant so I cannot reject the null hypothesis as there is more than a 5% possibility that the difference in memory was due to chance and not the use of concrete or abstract words.
Discussion
Psychological context
Bower had found that if participants could visualise a word, then they would be more likely to recall it. However, in my experiment the participants recalled abstract words more effectively although I had expected that it would be more difficult to memorise an abstract word rather than a concrete one. Thus, my experiment would disagree with the results obtained in the one by Bower.
Methodology
A strength of my research would be the controls I used. For example, I ensured I used a standardised procedure for all participants to prevent unfair advantages – this will have improved the reliability of my research.
As participants generally did not perform particularly well on my memory test – the average score being 40% correct –then this could indicate that a weakness of my research could be that I underestimated the difficulty of the memory task. An improvement here could be to construct the word list by using ‘easier’ words, or to allow a longer amount of time that the participants have to memorise the words. I would expect this to improve the average recall of words.
Validity – low scores, not accurate measure of memory.
Future research
References
Bower, G.H (1972) Mental Imagery and associative Learning, In L.Gregg (ed.), Cognition in Learning and Memory. New York Wiley.
Bibliography
Tony Malim and Ann Birch - Introductory Psychology
Appendices
Thank you for agreeing to take part in my experiment. I will be giving you a sheet with 20 words on it. You will have 1 minute to look at this sheet and remember as many words on it as possible. I will then take this sheet and give you a blank piece of paper on which I will ask you to write down as many words as you can remember as you can, you will have one minute to do this. You will then have completed my experiment.
Thank you for taking part in my experiment. I was investigating whether people would remember concrete or abstract words more effectively; I expect to find that the majority of people will recall more concrete words. Your results will be used only in my Psychology coursework, your name or personal details will not be used. If it any point you wish to withdraw your results or have any questions about the investigation, you can contact me via email at .
- Raw data and workings out
- Examples of materials used
Concrete Word List: Abstract Word list:
‘table’ ‘love’
‘pens’ ‘hate’
‘house’ ‘nice’
‘lamp’ ‘kind’
‘iron’ ‘ample’
‘door’ ‘peace’
‘car’ ‘happy’
‘tree’ ‘sad’
‘ring’ ‘good’
‘book’ ‘fun’
