Find out if recall of words is better when recalled in the environmental context of which the words were learned

Authors Avatar
Project brief

PB1

Aim: To find out if recall of words is better when recalled in the environmental context of which the words were learned

PB2

A directional alternative hypothesis will be used because there is previous research to suggest what the results will be, (higher recall rates when tested in the same context).

PB3

An experimental method and independent groups design will be used, as it lowers bias.

PB4

The advantage of using an experimental method is that it produces quantitative data making it easier to analyse. It also allows for high levels of control and the ability to establish causal relationship between the independent and the dependant variable.

The disadvantages of this method are that the quantitative data produced is limited, as it does not tell you the cause in much detail. High levels of control result in low ecological validity of experiment.

PB5

Potential sources of bias and possible confounding variables are ...

- Demand characteristics - participants may figure out what is expected of them, so change their behaviour to give the experimenter better data.

- Experimenter effects - the behaviour of the experimenter may affect the participants and thus the D.V. for example, the way in which the experimenter behaves may encourage certain responses, such as a subconscious smile from experimenter may suggest the correct answer to participant.

- Possible extraneous variables - how familiar words are to individual participants

- Mood/ bodily arousal - the emotional state of a participant when learning words may affect the recall of word and not the environment in which the word are learned. Studies have shown that material is better remembered if the individual's mood is similar at the time of learning and testing

PB6

To prevent demand characteristics non psychology students will be used as participants and single blind technique will be used so participants will not be told that context is the dependant variable.

To prevent experimenter effects standardised procedures will be used.

PB7

P =0.5 level of significance is to be reached before the experimental hypothesis can be retained as then the likelihood the results are down to chance alone are less than 5%.

PB8

Potential ethical issues include

Deception - this can be dealt with by debriefing participants at the end of the study. At the start of the investigation participants are debriefed about the task at hand and told of their right to withdraw from the study once it has been started. Debriefing allows participants to be assured that the experimental results will not be used to suggest their level of intelligence ect. It also allows researches to thank participants for their involvement.

Consent - informed consent from parents of participants under 16 will be sought

Confidentiality - will be dealt with by not taking names of participants and stating that they do not have to write their names on the answer sheet.

Abstract

This experiment examined the effects context-dependent memory on a test of memory recall. Studies have found that memory is better when the learning context matches the testing context. If the words were recalled in the same room in which the participant learned them, performance was hypothesized to be better than if the room was changed between learning and testing phases. No significant main effects were found between same room and words recalled. For the recall questions, a significant interaction was found between the type of chair the participant sat in and whether the condition was matched or mismatched, which fits the Yerkes-Dodson Law (Mendl, 1999). Participants were given a short story to read during the learning phase, a demographic survey and a game of Boggle comprised the interim phase, and a test of twenty questions comprised the testing phase.

Introduction

Context-dependent memory is the idea that the recall of information is improved if the information is retrieve in the same or similar context to the context in which it was encoded. Recall is not as accurate when the retrieval context is not the same as or similar to the encoding context (Matlin, 2002). Similar to the concept of context-dependent memory is environmental context, which is defined as the environmental setting in which events are experienced and remembered. The environment can provide cues that help individuals remember material learned within the setting (Rutherford, 2000). Similar to how the environment provides clues to memory, a person's state of mind at the time they learn something is also important. State-dependent memory refers to enhanced memory for information that is retrieved in the same state as when it was learned (Lang, Craske, Brown, & Ghaneian, 2001). According to Smith (1995), the environment has some effect on the direction of mood, and manipulations to the environment affect memory only when the two environments suggest different moods to the person. Cognitive function, which
Join now!


includes the formation and manipulation of memories, is affected by stressors. Stressors may be internal or acquired from the environment (Mendl, 1999). Contextual changes in a person's environment can cause added stress to the testing situation. Stressors cause a person's attention to shift, lapse, or narrow. The person's decision speed can be influenced as well (Mendl, 1999). In this situation, the person not only has to deal with memory failures due to the lack of contextual cues, but also with stress, which affects the person's ability to remember what s/he has learned. However, some stress is necessary in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay