Appendix V pg.13
Appendix VI pg.13
Appendix VII pg.14
Appendix VIII pg.14
Appendix IX pg.15
Appendix X pg.16
Appendix XI pg.17
Introduction
Memory (as a mental process) can be defined as when a living being has the capability to recall events prior in his/her life. Schema is defined as a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model in one’s head (by the English Oxford Dictionary) and reconstructive memory is recall that is hypothesized to work by storing abstract features which are then used to construct the memory during recall (by the American Psychological Association). Numerous studies say that memory is not always a fully trustworthy source of information and therefore, memory is not a perfect representation of the event that is being recalled. As a result, three studies, Loftus and Palmer (1974), Bartlett (1932) and Anderson and Pichert (1978) are used to demonstrate and exhibit how the theory of reconstructive memory and schema is indeed true and valid.
The theory of reconstructive memory is basically tied into the theory of schema and therefore schema can be defined as a cognitive level of representation or one’s specific knowledge structure (as previously mentioned). Studies such as Loftus and Palmer (1974) asked the question of “How reliable is memory?” and conclusively they had supported the theory of schema. Loftus and Palmer (1974) concluded that when words were put into different subcategories of connotation, memory could be manipulated to such a result of having significant statistically outcomes from a simple car crash. The participants involved were shown a video clip of a car crash and were asked numerous randomized questions to make the participants unaware of a single question being tested. They were asked “How fast was the car going when it ____ the car?” When they were asked this question, these blanks were filled in with many other verbs ranging from positive to negative connotations such as “hit” and “collided”. Results after this gathering of data was shown to be that passive connotations (hit) had a lower speed estimated compared to the more aggressive connotations (collided). They found that smashed had 40.8 km/h, collided had 39.3 km/h, bumped had 38.1 km/h, hit had 34.2 km/h and contacted had 31.8 km/h. With these results in place, it was then known that every word contains its own place in one’s schema and with different word connotations, one’s memory can be easily influenced.
With the belief of memories being modified through the layers of schema, Bartlett (1932) thought that with these layers, memories could deviate from what it originally was. Bartlett (1932) did an experiment where its sole purpose was to show that culture affected schema. The participants that were involved were given the story of The War of the Ghosts and were read twice – later the participants were asked to then reproduce the story several times. It came to notice that every time the story was reproduced, the story became shorter and shorter but with the main idea intact. Results later showed that the story was being changed in their brain to fit their own schema and thought processing skills which ultimately supports the theory of memory is not fully the same when it is being recalled.
Anderson’s and Pichert’s (1978) aimed to see whether schema had any effect on the process of encoding and retrieving memory. To do this, participants were branched into two different groups with different schemas associated with each group. The first group was given the schema of a house buyer and the second group was given the schema of a thief. They were then asked to read a story about a house – after, the participants were given assignments to complete. After these tasks were given, they were asked to retrieve memories about what they remembered from the house. Then, one of the groups were asked to change schemas (from house buyer to thief or vice versa), while the second group remained with their first schema. With this, they were asked to recall the story once again – it showed that the switched schema group remembered 7% more information than the group who didn’t change schemas. With these outcomes, it shows that schema indeed affects both the encoding and retrieving memory.
The study of Loftus and Palmer (1974) was being replicated because there felt the need to investigate and find out whether memory is a fully trustworthy source of information or not. The aim of this replicated study is to examine the effects of word connotations having a statistically significant effect on speed estimates. The research hypothesis (is two tailed because there are two possible outcomes for this experiment, with the connotation having either an effect or no effect on the accuracy of the speed estimate) is that the connotation of the word will lead to a statistically significant effect on the accuracy of the speed estimates and the null hypothesis is that the connotation of the word will not have a statistically significant effect on the accuracy of speed estimates.
Method
Design
Independent measures were used for the design for this research because if a participant were to be asked both questions with both verbs, he/she may be able to figure out what the research was actually looking for. The independent variable of this experiment was the word connotation (aggressiveness vs. passivity) and the dependent variable is the accuracy of the speed estimate. The controls of this experiment are the four misleading questions and the video of the train crashing into the bus.
This experiment could have had two factors that could have been influencing this replication of Loftus and Palmer’s study. The first factor would be the amount of sleep because it can highly influence one’s concentration in not only school but in life. The second factor would be demand characteristics, which could have been present because the class that was being tested on may have already been tested with the same type of study.
Without a doubt, ethical considerations were highly considered in this experiment as all the points in ethics were present, such as informed consent, confidentiality, withdrawal and harm in general. Informed consent (appendix I) was given to the participants before the experiment had started (they were asked to sign the consent form). Confidentiality was kept as the names of the participants were not required and not given out to the public and the right to withdrawal was also given. They were then briefed and debriefed accordingly to the procedure. Then, unquestionably, physical or mental harm was not given to fully guarantee the considerations of ethics.
Participants
The participants consisted entirely of grade twelve’s and were chosen to experimented on as they were from a high school in Langley (being most convenient) in a History 12 class. These participants were our target population with ten males and ten females resulting in twenty participants in total with general balance for some credibility. The left side of the class was classified as Group One and was given the question sheet that contained the word smashed (appendix IV) and the right side, Group Two was given the word contacted (appendix V). The participants were split in half mostly because it was convenient and that splitting the groups in half ensured randomness for higher credibility.
Procedure
- Brief participants
- Give out consent forms
- Collect consent forms
- Give out question sheet A/B upside down (left half of class is A, right half of class is B)
- Tell participants to not interact with other participants
- Show video clip
- Debrief participants
- Collect question sheets
- Thank participants
Results
The type of descriptive data that was used for this experiment was ordinal data because the speed estimates were compared. Median was used as well for measuring the central tendency and then range was used for measuring the distribution of numbers – they were the most appropriate methods for gathering ordinal data.
Range and Median for “Smashed” and “Contacted”
Table #1
*Refer to appendix IX and X for calculations.
*This graph shows the median of the speed estimates of the two verbs of smashed and contacted.
The Mann Whitney U test was used for inferential statistics because of ordinal data and independent measures were used because of the small sample size that was given. The U1 value was 64 and U2 value was 36. The critical value was 20 and because it is lower than the smallest sample sizes the null hypothesis must be accepted.
*Refer to appendices VII, VIII and XI for raw data and calculations.
Discussion
Ultimately, through this experiment that was performed, it showed that word connotation has no effect on schema, which ultimately means that the null hypothesis must be accepted. With the use of the Mann Whitney U Test, it was proven that the critical value of U (the critical value was 23, the U1 was 64 and the U2 was 36) was smaller than both U1 and U2. Through calculations, it showed that the aggressive word, smashed had a smaller median of 40 (however a larger range 71) while the passive word of contacted had a larger median of 50 (with a smaller range of 51). This research contradicts Bartlett’s and Anderson’s & Pichert’s because Bartlett’s studies found that memory was highly dependent on schema with encoding and retrieving with culture and Anderson & Pichert’s studies found that schema had a noticeable effect on memory with different schemas. This is contradictory for this experiment because this experiment did not show any statistically significant changes to the speed estimates according to word connotation.
The results may have been affected by three things; the amount of sound it produced, the train being incredibly large compared to the bus, the aftermath of the bus and the participants’ knowledge of the experiment beforehand. The amount of sound it produced can be a huge factor in this experiment because of how it can leave an impression in one’s ears, the train’s size could have also been a factor because of how large it was, the aftermath of the bus could also leave an impression but on the eyes and the participants’ knowledge of the experiment could have easily changed the results due to demand characteristics.
Limitations in the research design could have been the knowledge of the experiment beforehand since there was a high chance of the participants already knowing what the experiment was about (demand characteristics). This would have been easily avoided by using classes that haven’t been taught psychology or haven’t been experimented on. Another limitation of this research was its sample size, which can make it much more difficult to compare to a larger portion of the world, such as the term generalizability. This can be avoided by finding a larger population to make this experiment more reliable. Limitations in the procedure could be that the participants may have been exchanging information with their peers which ruins the credibility of their own answer.
In conclusion, this experiment failed to match Loftus’ and Palmer’s (1974) research. The data that was collected during this experiment proved to not support the theory of schema because of many problems that came up which ultimately lead to non-statistical significant number changes. Things that would have greatly improved this research would be fixing the limitations (such as the sample size and knowledge by going into other areas across the world and getting the participants’ knowledge information beforehand to switch participant groups).
References
Anderson, R. C., & Pichert, J. W. (1978). Recall of previously unrecallable information following a shift in perspective. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 17, 1-12. As cited in John Crane's IB Psychology Course Companion.
Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press. As cited in John Crane's IB Psychology Course Companion.
Loftus, E.F., & Palmer, J.C (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour. 13. 585-589. As cited in John Crane's IB Psychology Course Companion.
Appendices
Appendix I
Consent Form
Dear Participant,
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Psychology 11 class will be carrying out an Internal Assessment (IA); this IA will be based upon the study of memory. This study will be testing your ability to recall memory. After the briefing, I would ask you to sign the statements below:
- I acknowledge that I have the right to withdraw from the experiment upon my desire
- I understand that information and data from this experiment will be kept confidential
- I have been notified about the nature of the experiment
- I understand the protection of my anonymity
- I understand that the processes of the experiment will not be demeaning in any way
- I will be debriefed at the end of the experiment
- I have the right to find out further results achieved from the experiment
I give my informed consent to the participation of this experiment
Name: _____________________
Signature: __________________
Date: ______________________
Appendix II
Briefing Script
The experiment being held today as part of our IB Psychology 11 Internal Assessment will test your ability to recall specific scenes from a video that shows a train colliding into a bus. Upon watching the video, you will be expected to answer five questions based on the video. Before the experiment, you will be asked to sign a consent form. The consent form will have information regarding your right to withdraw from the experiment, protection from physical and mental harms, confidentiality, and a debriefing upon request. Thank you.
Appendix III
Debriefing Script
First of all, thank you for participating in our experiment. The true aim of our experiment was to investigate the changes in speed estimates according to different word connotations. The participants were divided into two groups upon the distribution of the question sheets. Half of the participants received a question sheet asking for the speed of the train when it ‘crashed’ into the bus. The other half received a different question sheet asking for the speed of the train when it ‘contacted’ the bus. If there are parts of the experiment that you want to know further about or if you are curious to find out the result, you are welcome to come by and ask. Once again, thank you for your cooperation.
Appendix IV
Questions
1.) What color was the train?
2.) How many people were on the bus?
3.) How fast was the train travelling when it smashed into the bus? (km/h and in multiples of 10)
4.) How many tires did the bus have?
5.) How many cargoes did the train have?
Appendix V
Questions
1.) What color was the train?
2.) How many people were on the bus?
3.) How fast was the train travelling when it contacted the bus? (km/h and in multiples of 10)
4.) How many tires did the bus have?
5.) How many cargoes did the train have?
Appendix VI
Link to video:
Appendix VII
Raw data, word "smashed"
Table #2
Appendix VIII
Raw data, word "contacted"
Table #3
Appendix IX
Median
Table #4
Table #5 Median
Appendix X
Range for "smashed" and “contacted”
Table #6 Raw data
Range Calculations
- Smashed = (80-10) + 1 = 71
- Contacted = (80-30) + 1 = 51
Appendix XI
Mann Whitney U Test
Table #7
R1 = 91 R2 = 119
Calculations:
U1 = 100 + (
) - 91
U1 = 64
U2 = 100 +
) - 119
U2 = 36
Critical value = 23