Grant et al Flashcards
What was the aim, research method and experimental design
AIM- to see whether being in the same context at learning and recall aids memory
RESEARCH METHOD - Laboratory experiment
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN - independent measures design
Why was it a laboratory experiment
IV - whether the participant read the article under silent or noisy conditions, whether they were tested under matching or mismatching conditions
DV - participants performance on a short answer recall test and multiple choice recognition test
under controlled conditions
- all wore headphones
Why is it an independent measures design?
There were 4 separate groups of participants in different conditions
Participants were assigned to either the Matching condition (Study environment and test environment the same)
or the Mis-Matching Condition (Study environment and test environment different)
Describe the sample in grant et al’s study
39 participants from America ranging in age from 17-56 with a mixture of males and females
Opportunity sampling
Describe how the sample was obtained in this study
Opportunity Sampling
8 members of psychology lab class served as experimenters
Each experimenter recruited 5 acquaintances to serve as participants
Suggest one way in which this sample may be biased
participants were all friends and acquaintances of the experimenters
mean they share the same characteristics
unlikely to be representative of the general population
Describe the procedure of Grant et al’s study
All participants read an psychoimmunology article with headphones
In the silent condition, the heard nothing. In the noisy condition they heard background cafeteria noise.
A 2 minute break was incorporated to minimise recall of short term memory
Participants were tested on information in the article in either a matching context (silent-silent. noisy-noisy) or mismatching context (silent-noisy or noisy-silent)
Participants were tested using short answer questions to test recall and multiple choice questions to test recognition
The dependent variable (DV) was the participant’s performance on (a) short-answer recall test
(b) multiple-choice recognition test
What elements of the procedure were standardised / controlled
Each participant wore headphones
Each participant read the same psychoimmunology article
The 10 short-answer test was always administered first to ensure that recall of info from the article was tested and not recall of info from the 16 multiple choice test
What were the results of Grant et al’s study
For both short-answer and multiple choice test, performance was better in the matching conditions than in the non-matching ones
For example, for the short-answer test, the matching conditions had higher mean score
The silent-silent condition led to a mean score of 6.7, whereas the silent-noisy condition had a mean score of 4.6 and the noisy-silent condition had a mean score of 5.4
There was no significant difference in performance on the test in the matching conditions when it was noisy-noisy vs silent-silent
What were the conclusions of grant et al’s study
Studying and testing in the same environment leads to enhanced performance
Being in matching context improves recall and recognition
Assess the generalisability of grant et al’s study
8 psychology students recruited their acquaintances. Opportunity sampling
group does not represent wider population
likely to be similar type of person to students
likely to be similar age (young)
Assess the reliability of grant et al’s study
+Standardised procedure
eg. same article, all wore headphones,
study can be easily replicated to assess consistency of results
not everyone had the same amount of time to read article
reduces reliability as harder to replicate results
Assess the applications of grant et al’s study
found that matching environments improve
students should be advised to revise in silence as they will be completing their exams in silence so they are in a matching condition
this should improve students grades and performance
Assess the validity of grant et al’s study
high ecological validity
students were given material that was very similar to course material they would receive at uni
they were told to ‘treat this as a class assignment’
better generalised to student educational settings
Assess the ethics in grant et al’s study
highly ethical study
=informed consent given by 8 psychology students gathering their friends to participate
= protection from harm
students had as much time as they wanted to read over the article, limiting stress caused
How does grant et al fit under the key theme of memory
as it looks at context-dependent memory
specifically, how being in the same context at learning and retrieval eg. silent-silent matching context improves retrieval of information
How does grant et al fit into the cognitive area
The cognitive area looks at internal mental processes such as memory.
As Grant et al.’s study investigated context-dependent memory it is in the cognitive area.
Grant et al. found that participants could recall and recognise more information about a psychoimmunology article if they were in the same context as they were when the read it i.e. noisy-noisy conditions and silent-silent conditions.
Those in the mismatching contexts e.g. noisy-silent and silent-noisy found it harder to answer both short-answer recall questions and multiple choice recognition questions about the article.
This relates to the cognitive area because its looking a memory and this is a mental process
To what extent does grant et al change our understanding of individual, cultural and social diversity?
INDIVIDUAL
individual differences in memory under different environmental conditions e.g.. when participants learnt and recalled info in the same context, the performed better
didn’t look at how personality or intelligence affected this
SOCIAL
sample in loftus and palmer and grant et al were similar as both used male and female participants.
Loftus = students Grant = acquittances of students
so doesn’t improve understanding of social diversity
CULTURAL
doesnt change understanding og cultural diversity
all participants were from the sa,e culture (USA)
