It was assumed that only the first two tasks involved processing of meaning semantically. There were two groups: those that were asked to try to remember the words in intentional learning format and those that were not incidental learning. A free-call test followed which showed the same results for the incidental compared to the intentional learners. However recall was over 50% higher following the semantics tasks compared to the non-semantic tasks for those who were asked to recall unrelated words and 83% higher for those who were asked to recall related words.
Hypothesis
‘More words will be recalled in Condition B, which requires phonemic processing than words in Condition A, which requires shallow processing.’
Method
Design
I am going to carry out this investigation using a repeated measures design. This is an experiment design in which the same participants are in each condition. This reason why I am using repeated measure design is because it is statistical power relative to sample size which is important in many real-world research situations.
Independent Variable
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I am going to producing a list of 30 nouns which are commonly used in the English language. The list of words would be randomly divided into two. In Condition A, half of the words would be written in upper case letters and the other half in lower case letters and each word would have the questions: ‘Is the word in upper case letters?’ However in Condition B a category question would be generated. The category question would be: ‘Is the word a type of the food?’ For each condition, half of the answers should be ‘yes’ and half of tem ‘no’. Participants would be asked to recall words in both section A and B.
Dependent Variable
- I am going to be using the same words for each participant and produce standardised instructions which would be read out to each participant to ensure that the procedure is carried out the same way of each participant and that all participants receive the same amount of information about the investigation.
Controlling Variable
To make sure all the variables are controlled, all the participants are going to undertake the same experience except in the independent variable, and so a standard procedure, with standardised instructions, is developed and followed for each participant.
Ethical Considerations
Ethics are the desirable standards of behaviour we use towards others. If we have ethically, then we treat others with respect and concern for their wellbeing. Researchers have legal and moral responsibilities to those who help them in their research. Every individual has rights, and these must be respected and protected.
The privacy of participant must be protected. This includes confidentiality, observations and the right to withdrawal if participants feel uncomfortable.
To keep confidentiality, I need to make sure participants and the data gained from them, is anonymous unless they give their full consent. Also if participants initially agree, and then decide to withdraw that agreement at the end of the study or after they have been debriefed, all data and information about them must be deleted from the research.
The participant suffering from distress also needs to be taken into consideration as I need to ensure that those taking part in the research will not be caused distress.
Participants
The target population I am using for my investigation are 16 to 18 year old students and I am experimenting on a sample of 10 participants.
Materials
For this investigation I would need the follow materials:
- A quiet room or area
- A table and chairs
- 30 flash cards with the relevant words and questions (Appendix A)
- A copy of the standardised instructions (Appendix B)
- A timer
Procedure
Standardised Procedures
To ensure that all participants have the same experience, I have to ensure that they are all tested:
- In the same place, with the same equipment and materials placed in the same way.
- Under the same conditions, so the level of lighting, noise and heat remains the same for all participants; so the participants won’t get distracted
- At roughly the same time of day, as people may have behave differently if tested at nine o’clock in the morning rather six o’clock at night; so participants won’t feel tired if it is late in the evening or early in the morning.
Standardised Instructions
Participants would be given identical instructions in exactly the same way to ensure nobody is at a disadvantage.
How I carried out my research
- First, I produced a list of 30 nouns which are commonly used in the English language. I then randomly divided the list of words into two. I named on of the set of words Condition A and the other Condition B. In Condition A, half the words were written in upper-case letters and the other half in lower-case letters. The list of words was titled under: ‘Is the word in upper-case letter?’ The other set of words, Condition B was under a question: ‘Is the word a type of food’. For each condition half the answer was ‘yes’ and the other half was ‘no’.
- Each of the 30 questions was then written on a piece of card with the appropriate question on the back.
- I then collected the data by inviting a participant into a quiet room and reading out the standardised instruction to address to them the ethical issues, such as: consent to withdrawal and deception and confidentiality. The participant is shown the first word and the relevant questions are read out. Each word is shown for 10 seconds and they are presented in a different, random order for each participant. Once all 30 questions have been asked, a free-recall test is completed by asking the participant to recall as many of the words as possible on a blank sheet of paper.
- Once my experiment was complete I then recorded my result
Results
Recording Data
Here are my results from my research:
I drew a table to show results because it is an accurate way of showing data. It shows all the participants who were involved in my research and their scores. Using a table of results allows me to see all my participants’ results and allows me to compare them against the other conditions.
This graph shows that the highest number of words recalled in Condition A is 10 and the lowest amount of words recalled is 7.
This graph sows that the highest number of word recalled in condition B is 13 and the lowest was 9.
This shows that more words were recalled in Condition B than in Condition A.
Discussion
Interpretation
The results support my hypothesis, which was: ‘More words will be recalled in Condition B, which requires phonemic processing than words in Condition A, which requires shallow processing.’ My research confirmed Craik and Lockhart’s theory of memory; this is because they said the more deeply we process information, the more likely we are to remember it. In my experiment Condition A required shallow processing and Condition B required phonemic processing. I found that there was a higher number of words recalled in Condition B than Condition A. This shows that we are likely to remember more words which require phonemic processing than shallow processing.
Evaluation
My overall research followed smoothly. The participants understood and responded well to my instructions, and justified my hypothesis.
There are a number of critisisms of the levels of processing theory which include it does not explain how the deeper processing results in better memories. Deeper processing takes more effort than shallow processing and it could be this, rather than the depth of processing that makes it more likely people will remember something. The concept of depth is vague and cannot be observed. Therefore, it cannot be measured,
Conclusion
This experiment was based on Craik and Lockhart’s theory on memory. Its aim was see whether recall of information improved when it is processed at a deep level rather than a shallow level?
I found out that we are able to remember more information when you recall in deep level processing that shallow processing. As remember words in shallow processing would store the information in the short-term memory father than the long-term memory.
This result support the findings Craik and Lockhart’s study and concludes that processing information at a deep level would store the information in the long-term memory.
