Grant et al.

Question 1

What area is Grant’s study in?

Answer 1

cognitive area

Question 2

What is the background to Grant’s study?

Answer 2

Godden and Baddeley (1975)
dear sea divers encode their environment into recalling information

Question 3

What is the aim of Grant’s study?

Answer 3

to look at environmental context-dependency effects (noise) with the type of material/tests usually encountered in schools

Question 4

How many experimenters did Grant use? What were they members of?

Answer 4

8 experimenters
from a psychology laboratory class

Question 5

How many participants did Grant’s experimenters select?

Answer 5

5 pps each - 40 overall
1 removed from sample due to having a considerable difference in score - 39pps left

Question 6

How did Grant’s experimenter’s choose the sample?

Answer 6

acquaintances of the experimenters
opportunity sample

Question 7

What was Grant’s sample age range?

Answer 7

17-56 yrs old

Question 8

How many male and female participants were used in Grant’s study?

Answer 8

17 female
22 male

Question 9

What was Grant’s method design?

Answer 9

field experiment (could be argued to be ‘flab’ -both field and lab aspects)
independent measures

Question 10

What 4 conditions did Grant use?

Answer 10

1. read in silence, tested in silence
2. read in silence, tested in noise
3. read in noise, tested in noise
4. read in noise, tested in silence

Question 11

How was Grant’s noisy condition made? What was heard? How loud?

Answer 11

recording of people talking at a lunchtime in a uni cafeteria
no audible complete sentences and was a conversational hum with general cafeteria noises in the background- eg. chairs and dishes
moderately loud

Question 12

What text did Grant use for the participants to recall?

Answer 12

2 page article with 3 columns on psychoimmunology (Hales 1984)
it was interesting and understandable

Question 13

How did Grant test the participants on their recall?

Answer 13

10 short answer questions - single word/phrase response
16 multiple choice questions - 4 alternative answers

Question 14

How were Grant’s tests administered/ set out?

Answer 14

questions in order of the texts info
short answer given first to ensure memory was being tested not recall from the multiple choice

Question 15

What were Grant’s participants told in the instructions given before the experiment started?

Answer 15

the experiment was a class project
participation is voluntary
to read the text as if it was for an assignment
allowed to highlight/ annotate the text
told they would be tested after comprehensively

Question 16

Which of Grant’s participants wore headphones? What were they told?

Answer 16

all participants
told they would hear silence/ moderate noise but to ignore it

Question 17

How long did Grant’s participants have to wait before being tested after reading the text? Why?

Answer 17

about 2 mins
to minimise chance of recall being from short term memory

Question 18

What did Grant debrief their participants on?

Answer 18

the real purpose of the study

Question 19

Which of Grant’s conditions had the highest performance overall? What percentage correct?

Answer 19

the silent-silent
81% correct

Question 20

Which of Grant’s conditions had the lowest performance overall? What percentage correct?

Answer 20

silent- noisy
67% correct

Question 21

What was the percentage of correct answers in Grant’s congruent conditions? incongruent?

Answer 21

81% (silent-silent)
79% (noisy-noisy)
67% (silent-noisy)
70% (noisy-silent)

Question 22

What did Grant’s findings show about environmental context dependency effects?

Answer 22

studying in matched conditions is more beneficial
noise has little effect on learning/studying