Simon (1974) showed that the number of bits in a chunk did have some effect on memory. People had a shorter span for larger chunks than smaller chunks.
Another thing which effects word recall is word length. Baddeley et al. (1975a) found that people could remember more short words than long words, so the length of the word affects capacity. This is the word-length effect.
Similarly to this, Schweikert and Boruff (1986) found that the number of letters and words that a person could recall was equivalent to the number of these that could be pronounced in 1.5 seconds.
Sebrechts et al (1989) showed that word recall after just a few seconds effects memory. He tested the duration of STM by showing participant 3 words. The participants were asked to recall the words, after they were tested immediately, but when the experimenter waited just 4 seconds, recall was almost zero.
Another example of word recall is Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) demonstration of participants given a list of 20 words showed one at a time and then asked to recall them in any order. Participants tend to remember the words from the start of the list (primacy effect) and the end of the list (recency effect), but they are less good at recalling words in the middle. In the primacy effect, the first words are rehearsed and transferred to LTM. The recency effect occurs because these words are in STM when they start recalling the list.
The most important theory of memory associated with this experiment was by Craik and Lockhart (1972) who alongside Pavio, Richardson and Parkin believed that images are remembered better, but not because we have a better memory for images, but because when an images are formed we increase the number of associations the words have and therefore being more likely for someone to remember the word.
Aim: to see whether people are more likely to remember words and images.
Experimental hypothesis: significantly more images will be recalled than words.
Null hypothesis: there will be no significant difference between the number of words and images recalled, any difference will be due to chance factors.
Method
Design
This experiment involved recalling a list of words and images, a repeated measures design was used in a laboratory experiment.
Participants
The 20 participants used were not picked using a specific variable; all participants were both sexes, different ages, Asian and Black, these were not picked specifically; all participants were picked from an opportunity sample.
A few participants refused to take part in this experiment, but none dropped out during it. This was because they had no idea of what the experiment was for and about, they wanted to know but I was unable to tell due to demand characteristics. Most participants though were eager to take part. There were controlled conditions.
Apparatus/materials
- List of 10 words on a sheet of paper (Appendix 1)
- List of 10 images on a sheet of paper. (Appendix 2)
- Stopwatch
Standardised procedure
Each participant was shown list of 10 words, they were words we use in our everyday lives and no more than 3 syllables, and 10 coloured everyday images. 10 opportunity participants were tested on if words or images are better remembered, showing the list of words first. Another 10 participants were shown a list of images first. (This was done to see if the first list shown effects in recalling) After 1 minute the lists were taken away and then the participants were given 1 minute to remember as many words/images on the list as they could, lastly, they were given 1 minute to write as many as they could remember.
Controls
Experimenter effects were used to minimise demand characteristics. The participants may have guessed the hypothesis.
Order effects, 10 participants were shown the list of words fist and 10 participants were shown images first.
Ethics
There was deception, because informed consent was not possible to avoid demand characteristics. Participants were fully debriefed after the experiment.
Participant had the right to withdraw at any time during the experiment.
Harm to participants as a feeling of failure may be perceived after the task.
Results
Negative difference rankings: 29.5 T= 29.5 N=11
Critical value (CV)=13. This is because one tailed hypothesis, level of significant is P≤0.05 and N=11
Calculated T must be equal to or less than the table critical value (=13) for the significance at the level shown (P≤0.05).
T>CV
29.5>13 = not significant
Discussion
Explanation of findings
The findings from this experiment show that there is no significance between remembering words and images even though the average number of images recalled is 7.8 and the average number of words recalled is 7.6. The average number of images remembered is significantly higher than words which means that imagers are somewhat remembered better.
The experimental hypothesis was rejected as it stated the images would be better remembered better, therefore, the null hypothesis is accepted.
Relationship to background research
Craik and Lockhart (1972) who alongside Pavio, Richardson and Parkin believed that images are remembered better, but not because we have a better memory for images, but because when images are formed we increase the number of associations the words have and therefore being more likely for someone to remember the word.
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) asked their participants to recall 20 words in any order, participants tend to remember the words from the start of the list and the end of the list but they were not as good as recalling the middle words. Most participants in this experiment recalled most words, but in the list ‘umbrella’ and ‘shoe’ were in the middle and because umbrella stood out of the list shoe was recalled the least. Words and images recall experiment does support Glanzer and Cunitz’s experiment.
Limitations and modifications
The experiment included 20 opportunity picked participants recalling and writing a list of 10 words and images. The first 10 were showed words first and the last 10 were showed images first. The intention was to place the participants in a room, which was quite, but in some situations that was not the case. Most of the time there was a lack of control on the noise which seemed to make the difference on the results, some participants in noisy environments recalled less words and images. To improve this, one particular environment/room should have been chosen to do this experiment, but this may have been difficult, as this was an opportunity experiment and experiments had to be taken where the participants were willing to do it.
Implications and suggestions for further research
One major implication that was made in this experiment was that before starting this experiment, background research should have been searched deeper. It was until later realised that there have been no previous experiments on words and images recall. Some on either words or images but none that could have been used in background research.
It was difficult to write the introduction with no background research on words and images recall, if this experiment were repeated; a completely different experiment would take place, which has a lot of background research.
Conclusion
This study found that there is no significant difference between words and images recall. This study may have found a difference if extraneous variables were controlled. If participants were experimented at the same time in the same place with controlled variables these results might have had a significance difference.
