Grant et al. Flashcards
What area is Grant’s study in?
cognitive area
What is the background to Grant’s study?
Godden and Baddeley (1975)
dear sea divers encode their environment into recalling information
What is the aim of Grant’s study?
to look at environmental context-dependency effects (noise) with the type of material/tests usually encountered in schools
How many experimenters did Grant use? What were they members of?
8 experimenters
from a psychology laboratory class
How many participants did Grant’s experimenters select?
5 pps each - 40 overall
1 removed from sample due to having a considerable difference in score - 39pps left
How did Grant’s experimenter’s choose the sample?
acquaintances of the experimenters
opportunity sample
What was Grant’s sample age range?
17-56 yrs old
How many male and female participants were used in Grant’s study?
17 female
22 male
What was Grant’s method design?
field experiment (could be argued to be ‘flab’ -both field and lab aspects)
independent measures
What 4 conditions did Grant use?
- read in silence, tested in silence
- read in silence, tested in noise
- read in noise, tested in noise
- read in noise, tested in silence
How was Grant’s noisy condition made? What was heard? How loud?
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
What text did Grant use for the participants to recall?
2 page article with 3 columns on psychoimmunology (Hales 1984)
it was interesting and understandable
How did Grant test the participants on their recall?
10 short answer questions - single word/phrase response
16 multiple choice questions - 4 alternative answers
How were Grant’s tests administered/ set out?
questions in order of the texts info
short answer given first to ensure memory was being tested not recall from the multiple choice
What were Grant’s participants told in the instructions given before the experiment started?
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
Which of Grant’s participants wore headphones? What were they told?
all participants
told they would hear silence/ moderate noise but to ignore it
How long did Grant’s participants have to wait before being tested after reading the text? Why?
about 2 mins
to minimise chance of recall being from short term memory
What did Grant debrief their participants on?
the real purpose of the study
Which of Grant’s conditions had the highest performance overall? What percentage correct?
the silent-silent
81% correct
Which of Grant’s conditions had the lowest performance overall? What percentage correct?
silent- noisy
67% correct
What was the percentage of correct answers in Grant’s congruent conditions? incongruent?
81% (silent-silent)
79% (noisy-noisy)
67% (silent-noisy)
70% (noisy-silent)
What did Grant’s findings show about environmental context dependency effects?
studying in matched conditions is more beneficial
noise has little effect on learning/studying
