grant et al Flashcards
aim
To test for context-dependency effects caused by the
presence or absence of noise during learning and retrieval of
meaningful material.
Method
The research method was an experiment, using an
independent measures design. Opportunity sampling was used
to find 39 participants (aged 17–56 years, females and males).
The independent variable was the matching or mismatching of
study and test conditions. The study/test condition pairs were:
matching (silent/silent and noisy/noisy) and mismatching (silent/
noisy and noisy/silent). Participants always studied and retrieved
while wearing headphones. In the noisy condition the recorded
sound of a cafeteria was played. Participants read a short piece
of meaningful material and were tested first on their recall using a
short-answer test, and then on their recognition using a multiple-
choice test.
Results
The presence of noise or silence during study or test
conditions in itself had no effect. However, in both types of test,
performance was better in matching conditions than non-matching
ones, i.e. retrieval is improved when studying and testing are
performed in similar environments.
conclusion
Noise may not distract study, but as performance
is worse when in mismatched conditions, and exams are
held in silence, students would benefit from studying in quiet
surroundings.
CONTEXT
Many studies have shown that recall is better when the participant is in
the same environment during recall as they were when learning occurred, in
situations as diverse as different classrooms, indoors or outdoors, on land or in
water, and with a range of features to indicate contexts, such as colours, images
or types of music. This effect was originally explained by the encoding specificity
principle (Tulving, 1972) as the consequence of ‘context-dependency effects’.
This suggests that some aspects of the environment during learning are stored
or ‘encoded’ with the to-be-remembered item and become part of the ‘memory
trace’. These extra pieces of information, or ‘cues’, then help with retrieval of
the learned items. Thus, when the environment at learning and recall ‘matches’,
recall is better than when the two environments are mismatched.
The effect of context-dependency is less consistently found for recognition
tests, i.e. where the participant has to identify previously learned material,
rather than recalling it with minimal aid. For example, in a study using divers as
participants, Godden and Baddeley (1975) showed that in contexts matched for
encoding and retrieval (i.e. water/water or land/land) the effects of context were
much greater than for mismatched environments (water/land or land/water).
Smith, Vela and Williamson (1988), however, found no context-dependency
effects on recognition using different levels of processing (such as counting
vowels, making rhymes or generating images) as contexts. This difference has
been used to suggest that recall and retrieval rely on different processes. One
explanation says that recognition tasks themselves act as strong retrieval cues,
so any additional effects of context are minimal. If this were so, then even in
recall tasks using meaningful items this ‘outshining’ of existing cues, in
this case from meaningfulness, would prevent context-dependency effects
appearing (Smith, 1986). Indeed, some recent evidence also supports the
outshining hypothesis. For example, Isarida et al. (2012) tested undergraduates
in a ‘long study time’ condition for words or non-words. When these were recalled
in matching or non-matching environments, the context cue helped only in
the non-word condition, i.e. when meaningfulness had not already provided
sufficient information to cue recall.
The idea that salience (meaningfulness) matters to context-dependence is
important as it is useful to know about the factors affecting memory for realistic
material, such as the things that students have to learn on their courses. An
interesting comparison by Smith (1988) looked at recall of meaningful items by
reviewing studies of students’ exam performance in which they had been tested
in the same room as they had been taught, or a different one. The findings of these
studies were mixed, although most found that there was no harm in changing
rooms, i.e. that context-effects were absent even with meaningful material.
However, you probably study in lots of different places – at home, in the library, at
friends’ houses, on the bus, etc. – so the material you learn might not have specific
context-related cues that tie it to the classroom. Indeed, Smith reports one study
which controlled for this, and still found a context-dependency effect.
In this study, Grant et al. suggest that perhaps an important difference
between study environments and test environments was the amount of
background noise. Think about the exam room – it’s silent – whereas you might
study while listening to background music, with the television on, or with people
talking around you. Of course, people differ in the type of music they like, so
rather than introduce a potential confounding variable, Grant et al. investigated
the effect of general noise, in matching and mismatching learning and retrieval
conditions, for both recall (short-answer questions) and retrieval (multiple-
choice questions). To ensure that they were testing memory for meaning, rather
than simple verbatim memory, they gave participants a comprehension task on
new material which mimicked a typical classroom test.
key term : cue dependancy
Cue dependency is the idea that when a
to-be-remembered item is stored, other
pieces of information present at the same
time are stored with it. These extra pieces
of information, from the context or the
person’s state, can later act as cues to aid
recall. They provide a way to retrieve the
to-be-remembered item itself if they are also
present at the time of recall.
AIM
The aim of the study was to test the effect of noise as a source of context on the
studying and retrieval of meaningful material in an academic context. A focus on
changing learning context was important as students can chose where to study
but not where they are tested.
METHOD
The study was an experiment and the experimental design was independent
measures.
METHOD - Participants
The 39 participants were aged 17–56 years (17 females and 23 males). They
were recruited by opportunity sampling: eight psychology students, acting as
experimenters, each found five acquaintances who would be participants. (The
result from one participant was excluded.)
RESULTS
There were individual differences in reading time, but no consistent differences
between noisy and silent study conditions or test (retrieval) conditions. An
independent measures comparison of study and test conditions showed
two interesting outcomes. First, there were no significant patterns for the
individual variables, i.e. whether material was learned or retrieved in each of
the environments made no difference to the short-answer question test or the
multiple-choice question test results. However, there was an interaction between
study and test conditions. For both the short-answer and multiple-choice
tests, performance was significantly better in matching conditions than in
non-matching ones (this pattern can be seen in Table 2.4 and Figure 2.7). This
suggests that recall is better when studying and testing are performed in similar
environments in terms of the noisiness of the surroundings.
TABLE 2.4 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR SHORT-ANSWER
AND MULTIPLE-CHOICE TESTS
- look in the booklet cus its making no sense.
EVALUATION : research method
In experiments it is possible to control extraneous variables.
In this case, the participants had the same silent or noisy
conditions (using headphones and the tape) and were given
the same instructions (e.g. to ignore the content of the tape).
To ensure that retrieval was from long-term memory not from
short-term memory, there was a timed two-minute break
between studying and testing. Such controls raise validity and
improve reliability. However, as it was an experiment, some
variables could not be standardised so well, for example the
amount of time given for the initial reading of the article was
not controlled.
METHOD - Design and procedure
The independent variable was whether the study and test conditions were
matching (the same) or mismatching (different). The experimental design was
independent measures (between subjects), so each participant experienced just
one of the four possible combinations:
matching
study context : silent test context : silent
study context : noisy study context : noisy
mismatching
study context : noisy test context : silent
study context : silent test content : noisy
The background noise for the noisy condition was a tape made in the university
cafeteria at lunchtime, with the hum of conversation, occasional words or
phrases but no audible sentences, and the sound of chairs and dishes. It was
played moderately loudly through headphones (also worn by participants in
the silent condition). The to-be-remembered material was a two-page article on
psychoimmunology, which was interesting and understandable (but unfamiliar)
to the participants. Each participant was asked to read the article through
once, highlighting or underlining if they wanted to. Reading time was recorded
but not controlled. During reading, all participants wore headphones (with the
tape playing in the noisy condition). After a 2-minute break, they asked the
participant to answer the two tests. The short-answer test was always given to
participants first, to ensure that material was being recalled from the article itself
rather than from information in the multiple-choice test. The dependent variable
of retrieval was therefore measured in two ways (recall and recognition) for each
participant:
*recall: a short-answer test of 10 questions (producing single-word or phrase
answers)
*retrieval: a multiple-choice test of 16 questions.
CONCLUSIONS
Grant et al. drew two main conclusions from this study:
1 As there was no independent effect of noise on performance, the claim made
by many students – that noise does not affect their capacity to study – is
supported.
2 However, as context-dependence affects retrieval in both SAQ and MCQ tests,
students should study in quiet surroundings, as exams are typically held in
silence.
EVALUATION : Ethical considerations
Although this is an experiment, the participants were aware
that they were participating and were not deceived and
were debriefed after testing, so it raises few ethical issues.
Participants were given enough information to give informed
consent (i.e. that the experiment would test their reading
comprehension, they would wear headphones, and there
would be a silent-study and a sound-study condition). They
were asked if they had any questions and were given the right
to withdraw at any point during the study.
EVALUATION : qualative and quantitive data
The data gathered in this study were quantitative. This is both
a strength and a weakness. On the plus side, the statistics
allow easy comparison of the conditions, clearly showing that
although study and learning conditions independently do not
affect retrieval, their match or mismatch does. On the other
hand, there was no analysis of essay-style questions, which
would have involved qualitative analysis to enable comparison,
or of participants’ views on what it felt like to study in silence.
The conclusion suggests this is preferable, but if students feel
unable to concentrate, or cannot work for as long without some
additional source of stimulation, they may end up learning
less. Either source of qualitative data might have added to the
completeness of the findings.
