The relationship between need for cognition and present recall of acquired information

The relationship between need for cognition and present recall of acquired information.

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between a person’s need for cognition and their ability to recall acquired information. The study incorporated an experimental test of difference design. It consisted of analysing the mill hill vocabulary scale results of 96 undergraduate students from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The participants were divided into two groups with the use of the need for cognition scale and the relationship between need for cognition results and the Mill Hill Vocabulary results was examined. The mean score of the high need for cognition results were marginally higher than the low mean score of the low need for cognition results (16.0625 14.8125 respectively). A parametric test (t-test) was used to establish whether or not the results were normally distributed, it found that they were with differences of (3 High and 2.7 low needs for cognition).

Introduction:

“Cognition refers to the ability of the brain to process, store, retrieve and manipulate information” D. Ingnatavicius and L. Workman (2002). Cognition can be measured through the employment of a scale known as the need for cognition scale (NFC scale), it was developed by and its aim is to measure the level of a participant’s cognition in various situations. High need for cognition can be correlated with a larger capacity of recalling information, Cacioppo et al., (1983).

According to the University of Bolton’s glossary section vocabulary is defined as being: “The body of words used in a particular language or in a particular sphere of activity; the body of words known to an individual person; a list of difficult or foreign words with an explanation of their meanings.” The mill hill vocabulary scale is produced from a test, which records a participant’s recall of acquired information Raven, Raven, & Court,(1998). Therefore a person’s need for cognition can be related to a participant’s ability to utilize a vocabulary.

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between a participant’s need for cognition and their ability to recall acquired information. Cacioppo et al., (1996) study into; The life and times of individuals varying in need for cognition, relates to this study as they found that people with higher need for cognition are “more likely to draw out all of the information available to them”. I.e. a person with higher need for cognition is more inclined to take more information in, meaning that they should have a larger capacity for storing detailed information.

A study into the relationship between need for cognition and the acquisition of complex skills by Day et al (2007) relates to this study as it tested the relationship between need for cognition and a participants ability to learn complex motor skills. The study found that need for cognition was “associated but distinguishable” from general cognitive ability and was linked to skill acquisition and “was a possible determinate to leaning complex motor skills.” This should be reflected by the mill hill vocabulary test as it tests for a complex cognitive skill.

However a study conducted by Loranel (2007) suggests that people with a higher need for cognition level are susceptible to false recall of critical words. Sixty undergraduate students were tested (39 women and 21 men) to find whether false recognition in the Deese Roediger McDermott paradigm was related to need for cognition or not. This could mean that people with higher need for cognition may get a lower score in the mill hill test than those with a low need for cognition due to false recognition.

A higher need for cognition can be related to larger capacity ...

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A higher need for cognition can be related to larger capacity for recalling information and learning of complex motor skills, as a result of this the hypothesis is that participants with a higher need for cognition will generally have higher mill hill vocabulary score. However the effects of false recognition will be taken into account.

Method

Participants

The participants who took part in this study were all 1st year LJMU undergraduate psychology students. Their gender was not noted as it was not deemed relevant to the study. Convenience sampling was used to select the participants. Although their age was not noted it is possible to say that a majority of the students were between the ages of 18-20 as a high percentage of undergraduates are.

Design

This study has been designed to show whether or not there is a relationship between a high need for cognition and a person’s present recall of acquired information. This information will be gathered in a quantified way through the application of two different scales (Need for Cognition scale and the Mill Hill vocabulary test). The study can be defined as an experimental test of difference.

Materials

In order to prove or disprove a relationship between the two variables, it was necessary to measure them in a quantified way. In this case Need for Cognition was measured with the use of the need for cognition scale, the results were formed with the use of a test called the Rational-Experiential Inventory scale as well as need for cognition it measured other factors which were irrelevant to this study (see appendices). It was presented in the form of a 5 point Likert scale, with 1= meaning extremely uncharacteristic; 2 meaning somewhat uncharacteristic; 3 meaning uncertain; 4 meaning somewhat characteristic; 5 meaning extremely characteristic.

Vocabulary was tested with the use of the mill hill vocabulary scale this scale formed a result which represented a participants ability to recall acquired information. The test consisted of a multitude of individual alpha words with a group of 6 delta words following each of them respectively. The 6 delta words consisted of five words whose meanings were unrelated to the meaning of the individual alpha word, with one delta word that was directly related to the alpha word (see appendices). The higher the final score was the higher there variable score was. A parametric test known as an unrelated t test was then used to identify a relationship between the two variables.

Procedure

The questionnaire was administered to the subjects in their workshop groups which consisted of approximately 17 people. The participants were given clear instructions and were given a briefing sheet which informed them of what was required of them and were given the right to withdraw from the study. Each subject completed the form independently and all were given adequate time and were asked to answer honestly.

Ethics

The subjects were asked if they wanted to participate and there consent was noted through the use of consent forms. To insure anonymity their names were not taken and each participant was issued with a pin, which meant they could check their results in an anonymous way. The participants were informed that they could remove themselves from the test anytime they wanted.

Results

Figure 1: Table comparing the differences between low need for cognition and high need for cognition.

The results in figure one; show that the mean score of high need for cognition is larger than the mean score for low need for cognition. The standard deviation scores reflect that the mean scores are valid and the dispersion of the data isn’t that large.

Figure 2: Bar chart depicting the Mill hill vocabulary scores and standard error.

The bar chart in figure 2 depicts the mean mill hill multiple choice questionnaire scores in relation to the need for cognition split. According to the bar graph the general consensus is that; people who had high need for cognition out preformed those who had low need for cognition results. Standard error is also shown and it is possible to tell that the dispersion is relatively small compared with the overall size of the graph.

To get a greater statistical understanding of the results, an unrelated t-test was used. It tested the relationship between participants with a high need for cognition and their score on the mill hill vocabulary scale and also tested the relationship between low need for cognition and their result on the mill hill vocabulary scale. The test rendered the information as fitting to the entire body of first year under graduate students studying introduction to research methods in psychology, with the results; t = 2.142, df = 94 and p < .035). The hypothesis that people with a higher need for cognition will have higher mill hill vocabulary score was validated through this results section.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between a participant’s need for cognition and their ability to recall acquired information. The results of this experiment verify the hypothesis that people with a higher need for cognition will generally have higher mill hill vocabulary score. However as the mean score of high need for cognition is 16.0625 and the mean score of low need for cognition is 14.8125 the relationship is slight and is quite weak. i.e. the participants may have all had a some-what high need for cognition meaning that the median split was pushed higher than it would have been if the test had be broader. The standard deviation result shows that results were all grouped in the same area meaning that the test may have been too small to totally validate the hypothesis.

Through identifying that the mean score of high need for cognition participants was greater than the mean score of low need for cognition participants (figure 2), this study verified the findings made by Cacioppo et al., 1983 that high need for cognition can be correlated with a larger capacity of recalling information. The study also verified the findings made by Day et al (2007) Who found that; need for cognition was “associated but distinguishable” from general cognitive ability and “was linked to skill acquisition and was a possible determinate to leaning complex motor skills”. This means that participants with a higher need for cognition generally have a heightened ability to, “presently recall acquired information” Loranel (2007). These results disproved the findings by Loranel (2007) to certain extent; as they found that “people with a higher need for cognition level are susceptible to false recall of critical words”. This test incorporated critical words and the mean of high need for cognition participants was higher than those with a lower need for cognition.

In conclusion the information gathered by this report is not strong enough to be transferred for practical use outside the target population, to make this experiment more reliable, future researchers should investigate the position of the need for cognition split. The split was derived from the median point of the data and did not account for the people that were on and around the split. This means that a person with the score 63 was looked upon as having low need for cognition whereas a person with the score 64 had a high need for cognition, when only one score caused this distinction. The test did not account for the thought that people in higher education are bound to have a more developed vocabulary than people who haven’t, meaning a broader test with a broader variety of people may have yielded more distinct results. Although the test was statistically significant (p < .035) meaning that it could be related to the target first year undergraduate psychology students in LJMU, its statistical significance wasn’t proven to a wider population.

References

Journals & books:

Cacioppo, J.T., & Petty, R.E. (1982). The need for cognition, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42 [Electronic Version] 2, 116–131.

Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., Feinstein, J., & Jarvis, B. (1996). Dispositional differences in cognitive motivation: The life and times of individuals varying in need for cognition. [Electronic version] Psychological Bulletin, 119, 197-253.

Cacioppo, J.T., Petty, R.E., & Morris, K.J. (1983). Effects of need for cognition on message evaluation, recall, and persuasion, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45 [Electronic version] 4, 805–818.

Day, E. A., Espegio, J., Kowollik, V., Boatman, P. R., & McEntire, L. E. (2007) Modelling behaviour between need for cognition and the acquisition of a complex skill [Electronic version]. Personality and individual differences, 42, 201 - 212.

Ingnatavicius, D. D., Workman, M. L. (2002). Medical surgical nursing critical thinking for collaborative care 4th edition: Chapter 5, The Brain. Pennsylvania, USA: W.B. Saunders Company.

Loranel, M. G. (2006). Need for cognition and false memory in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm [Electronic Version]. Personality and Individual Differences 42, 409 – 418

Raven, S., Raven, J. C., & Court, J. H. (1998). Manual for Ravens Progressive Matrices and vocabulary scales, Section 5, Mill Hill vocabulary scale. Oxford, UK: Oxford Psychologists Press.

Websites:

http://www.bolton.ac.uk/learning/bissto/glossary/