Cognitive practical investigation Flashcards
Aim
- to investigate if short-term memory encodes acoustically similar words better or acoustically dissimilar words better
- one-tailed: significantly more acoustically dissimilar words will be recalled in the correct order than acoustically similar words
Procedure
- all participants were members of my family, i used opportunity sampling as they were the easiest available people. it was easy to get informed consent with participants signing a paper saying they are willing to participate
- this was an independent groups design experiment as there were two sets of groups being tested
- participants were put in either condition A or condition B and were shown and was shown one of two-word lists (A= acoustically similar words, B= acoustically dissimilar words).
- Each word is displayed for 3 seconds on a computer screen. After all the words were shown, they were presented in a jumbled order, and participants were given one minute to write the words down in order.
- Once participants were done writing the words, I would check how many words will write and add the results in the Mann Whitney U table.
Findings
- The most important measure of central tendency for this data is the mean as there are no extreme results in the data set, the dissimilar words were resembled at an average of 5.6 while similar words was 3.6.
- The measure of this special news is standard deviation, which allowed to compare the data sets easier, which then showed the data sets for similar and dissimilar words having the same standard deviation of 1.14.
- I used the Mann Whitney U test which worked for this data due to its independent groups design and level of data, meaning that I’d have two datasets to calculate U value.
- As the calculated value of U was 2.5, which is less than the critical value at 5% for a one tailed test (4), we can conclude the results are significant. This means that acoustically dissimilar words performed better than acoustically similar words.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be seen that acoustically dissimilar word performed better in recall than acoustically similar words when recalled.
Discussion
how could your study be improved?
- I would use a more varied sample as my participants were all people who knew me, so I’d have to find people who I don’t personally know.
- Next time use random sampling to ensure that whoever my participants were, weren’t susceptible to bias from me.
Discussion
evaluate a strengh of your study
**I - **One strength of this study was that it was a standardised procedure every participant
J - Experienced the same procedure by showing the word lists on the computer at a rate of 1 word every 3 seconds and then giving them one minute to write down as many words as they could sequentially.
E - Therefore, this study would be reliable as participants had the same experience without extraneous variables affecting the number of words recalled.
Discussion
evaluate a weakness of your study
I - However, a weakness of the study is mundane realism.
J - The act of presenting words on a computer screen at a rate of 1 word every 3 seconds is highly artificial and could cause for participants to try much harder than they normally would.
E - Therefore, this would mean that the words recalled would not accurately represent if memory works better with similar or dissimilar words.
Mann Whitney U test
results for the experiment
Condition A – Acoustically Similar
Score (rank): (rank total = 17.5)
- 4 (4)
- 3 (2)
- 5 (6.5)
- 4 (4)
- 2 (1)
Condition B – Acoustically Dissimilar
Score (rank): (rank total 37.5)
- 6 (8.5)
- 5 (6.5)
- 4 (4)
- 7 (10)
- 6 (8.5)
Calculated U value = 2.5
Summary
Measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion
Condition A – Acoustically Similar
- mean= 3.6
- medium= 4
- mode= 4
- range= 3
- standard deviation= 1.14
Condition B – Acoustically Dissimilar
- mean= 5.6
- medium= 6
- mode= 6
- range= 3
- standard deviation= 1.14
