Grant (Cognitive)

Question 1

What are the three stages of memory and what do they mean ?

Answer 1

Encoding - changing what we experience into something that makes sense to us

Storage - keeping the information for later use

Retrieval - retrieving the information from the storage

Question 2

What might influence retrieval ?

Answer 2

Characteristics of the environment act as cues to enhance retrieval

Referred to as context dependent memory effect

Question 3

What did godden and baddeley study ?

Answer 3

They studied the effects of context on memory using deep sea divers

Question 4

What did was godden and baddeleys procedure?

Answer 4

Divers had to learn a list of words either underwater or on land and then had to recall either in the same or different environment

Question 5

What did Godden and baddeley find ?

Answer 5

Divers recalled more words when the condition they learnt in matched the condition they had to recall in

Question 6

What was the aim of grants study ?

Answer 6

Grant aimed to investigate context dependent memory effects on both recall and recognition

Is performance on a memory test improved when the environment in which we encode and recall are the same

Question 7

What were the 2 IV’s ?

Answer 7

IV 1- the environment the P’s read the article in (silent or noisy)

IV 2- the environment the participants were tested in (matching or mismatching)

Question 8

What were the 2 DV’s ?

Answer 8

DV 1- 10 short answer questions (recall)

DV 2 - 16 multiple choice questions (recognition)

Question 9

What was grants sample ?

Answer 9

39 p’s, 17 female, 22 male

Age range 17-56, mean age 23.4

8 researchers in the study recruited 5 participants each

P’s only took part in one condition (independent measures)

Each experiment allocated one of their p’s to a condition then the lead experimenter allocated the remaining one so each condition was even

Question 10

What were the conditions ?

Answer 10

Noisy study - noisy test = 10 p’s
Noisy study - silent test = 10 p’s
Silent study - noisy test = 10 p’s
Silent study - silent test = 9 p’s + 1

The plus one was because a P’s results were omitted as they were an outlier

Question 11

What was the article they gave people to read about ?

Answer 11

Psychoimmunology

Question 12

How was the noisy condition made ?

Answer 12

They played a recording of a uni cafeteria through earphones at a moderate level

All participants wore earphones

Question 13

What was grants Procedure ?

Answer 13

P’s to read article once highlighting then given a 2 min break, then earphones on

P’s then completed the SAQs first so the options of the MCQs would not affect memory

MCQ then completed

Participants were then debriefed

Question 14

Mean number of correct answers out of 10 on recall (SAQ) task for each condition

Answer 14

Noisy study - noisy test = 6.2
Noisy study - silent test = 5.4
Silent study - noisy test = 4.6
Silent study - silent test = 6.7

Question 15

Mean number of correct answers out of 16 on the recognition (MCQ) task for each condition

Answer 15

Noisy study - noisy test = 14.3
Noisy study - silent test = 12.7
Silent study - noisy test = 12.7
Silent study - silent test = 14.3

Question 16

What were the findings ?

Answer 16

The difference in time spent on the article was not significant so the researchers said this did not influence their results

Context dependent memory applies for newly learned material in recall and recognition

Learning and remembering in the same environment leads to enhanced performance on memory tasks

Question 17

What was the ecological validity like for this test ?

Answer 17

This has a high ecological validity as ut is a task often seen in classrooms

P’s were tested a few mins after learning the material where as most assessments occur a significant time after learning the new information

Question 18

What are the ethics like in this test ?

Answer 18

P’s had given consent to take part

There was an element of deception as they were not told the focus was on context dependent memory but this was necessary

P’s were debriefed after the study

Question 19

What was the quantitative data ?

Answer 19

MCQs and SAQs both collected quantitative data

This allowed for a quick and easy comparison between conditions and both experiments

It also means the data is objective and not influenced by researcher opinion

Question 20

What are some of the criticisms of the sample ?

Answer 20

All p’s were known to the researchers and lived in the same area of America

There may be biases in the sample due to opportunity sampling

The limitations of the sample may make it hard to generalise the results

Question 21

What were the demand characteristics in this test ?

Answer 21

P’s were aware the study was about memory and may have changed their behaviour because of this

This would reduce validity