Grant (classic study) Flashcards
Previous research
Godden and Baddeley
What did Godden and Baddely investigate?
Divers were eight taught a list of words underwater or on land
2 groups were further divided to them recall the list of words on water or on land
What did Godden and Baddely find?
Divers in matching conditions (learn and recalled in same place) had better results than mismatching conditions
What concept does Grant + Godden and Baddely investigate?
Context dependent memory
Context dependent memory
When information is better recalled in the same environment/condition it was learnt in (called a matching condition) compared to in a different environment (mismatching condition)
What is recall?
The ability to retrieve information that is stored (from memory) without any prompts
What is recognition?
The ability to repeat information you’ve seen before when prompted by cues
What is the memory process in recall tasks?
When in the same matching conditions to what is learnt, cues in the environment are encoded for to help retrieve information
How is context dependent memory affected by recognition tasks?
The cues in the matching environment that allow for retrieving information is outshined by the recognised prompts in the question
So not a result of the context being the same but being prompted
Recall tasks
To write an answer to a question based on what information someone can retrieve
Recognition tasks
When presented a multiple choice question and participants have to select what they recognise from the information imputted
What were the aims of Grants research?
To investigate the effect of context dependent memory and see whether this differs in recall tasks to recognition tasks
To investigate whether students can remember information learnt in the same noise condition it was learnt in better, compared to different noise condition
What type of study was this?
A lab experiment which had a manipulated independent variable
What was the independent variable?
The condition participants were in to either learn information (noisy or silent)
Or condition they were tested in (noisy or silent)
What was the experimental design?
Independent measures because each participant only experienced one condition (of learning information in noisy or silent environment then were tested in either noisy or silent environment)
So results of participant compared to a different participant
What is good about using independent measures?
No effect of order effects eg participant performing better due to practise/worse due to boredom as they only experienced the condition once
Reduced demand characteristics, less likely to guess aim only experiencing one condition
Sample size
39 participants scores were analysed
Sample method
8 psych students recruited 5 participants each = 40 participants
Omission of 1 score =39 participants
Was the sample method snowball sample?
No because the researchers recruited participants not the participants
Sample demographics
Mix of genders
Fairly large age range
4 conditions
Matching conditions:
Noisy study, noisy test
Silent study, silent test
Mismatching conditions:
Silent study, noisy test
Noisy study, silent test
How did we manipulate noisy conditions?
Participants wore headphones playing a recording of moderately loud cafeteria noise from a uni cafeteria
How did we manipulate the silent conditions?
By wearing noise cancelling headphones that played no background noise
Why was cafeteria noise used instead of music?
To control for different music preferences across participants (participant variables) that may have affected their recall ability other than if they were in matching noise conditions to mismatching conditions
Why were headphones worn by all participants?
As a control so the procedure is standardised for all participants in case wearing headphones affect someone’s ability to retrieve info other than matching or mismatching conditions
Standardised instructions
The first step of the procedure where participants were told the same information detailing the task as part of a class project and that this was voluntary
Told participants which had noise to ignore it
What article was given to participants?
On psycho immunology
What was the learning task given?
Read the article on psychoimmunology
Underline and annotate it to remember the information for later
Given as much time as possible
Why is the ecological validity of the task given high?
They were given an article related to their studying so reflects real life as if they were revising
Allowed to annotate and underline to mirror studying irl
Why is it good to give participants all the time to read the article?
High construct validity as this allows participants to establish a good understanding of the article so this truly tests their memory of the article
So the test is not a measure of how much participants actually read but rather their memory of it
What happened between reading the article and being tested?
Given a 2 minute break time to allow for information to be stored/ forgotten so is a measure of their memory rather than repeating what they immediately just read
Test phase
10 short recall questions
16 multiple choice recognition task
Test phase conditions
Wore headphones that played cafeteria noise or was silent depending on which group they were in
Why did participants complete the recall test questions first?
To control for cues in the multiple choice questions that would allow for recognition of the information on the article participants learnt, rather than directly testing their ability to retrieve information on the article
So if they did recognition first, these cues would outshine the effect of the condition on their ability to retrieve information and not be an actual measure of memory
Debrief
On the true purpose of the study
Results for matching conditions on the recognition task
14.3/16
Both noisy study + noisy test and silent study + silent test
Score for mismatching conditions for recognition test
12.7/16
For both noisy study + silent test and silent study + noisy test
Conclusions
The actual noise seems to have no effect on memory ability (as there was no difference within matching to mismatching conditions which noise level caused better results) but revising in the same condition to the test will yield better performance in memory tasks
So best to revise in silent conditions if the exam is in silent conditions
How does this link to the theme of memory?
Studies how memory is impacted by the context: that information is better retrieved in the same context it is learnt in compared to a different context
How does this link to the cognitive areas?
Studies the internal mental process controlled by the mind: memory, and how it affects our behaviour
Specifically how memory is affected by context which in turn effects performance in exams and when we can recall info under what environment
