Psychology Case Studies Unit 1

Psychology Case Studies Unit 1

1. Memory

   • Peterson and Peterson (1959)
     • The aim of this study was to see how long information stays in the short term store without rehearsal.
     • Participants were given a list of nonsense trigrams to remember e.g. HGW, BYN. Immediately afterwards they were asked to count backwards for a specified amount of time. This was done to prevent rehearsal. The participants were then asked to recall the nonsense trigrams.
     • The results showed that participants had forgotten nearly all the nonsense trigrams after 18 seconds.
     • They concluded that information stays in the short term store for a very short amount of time if rehearsal is prevented.
     • All the participants had to recall lists of words. This is not very realistic.
   • Murdock (1952)
     • The aim of this study was to provide evidence for the multi-store model.
     • Participants were asked to learn a list of words. They were then asked to recall them in any order.
     • The results showed that the words at the end of the list were recalled first (the recency effect). Words at the beginning of the list were also recalled well (the primary effect). The words in the middle were forgotten.
     • All the participants had to recall lists of words, which isn't very realistic.
   • Bartlett (1932)
     • The aim of this study was to see if people are given something to remember, would the information be altered?
     • Participants read a story called "The War of the Ghosts", a Native American legend. They were later asked to recall the story as accurately as possible. This continued over several weeks as they were asked to retell the story.
     • The results showed that the participants found it difficult to recall elements of the story concerning spirits. These parts were altered so they were more familiar to the participants. Every time the story was retold, parts were changed more.
     • Bartlett concluded that memory is influenced by our own beliefs.
   • Craik and Lockhart (1972)
     • The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the amount of words affects the numbers of words recalled.
     • Participants viewed a list of words, one at a time. They were asked questions about each word and answered yes or no. The words required various levels of processing, structural, phonetic and semantic. The list of words then became longer and the participants were asked to recall and identify which words they have previously been asked questions about.
     • The results show that participants identified 70 percent of the words that required of the words that required semantic processing. 35 percent of words that used phonetic processing and 15 percent structural processing.
     • They concluded that the deeper the information is remembered, the more likely it is to be remembered.
   • Underwood and Postman (1960)
     • The aim of this study was to see if new learning interfered with previous learning.
     • Participants were divided into two groups: Groups A - were asked to learn a list of words in pairs. They were then asked to learn a second list of word pairs. Group B - were the asked to learn the first set of word pairs only. Both groups were asked to recall the first list of word pairs.
     • The results showed the Group B's recall of the first list was more accurate than that of Group A's.
     • They concluded that new learning interfered with participants' ability to recall the first list.
   • Godden and Baddeley (1975)
     • The aim of this study was to see if people who learn and are tested in the same environment will recall more information than those recalling them in different environments.
     • Participants were all deep sea divers. They were divided into four groups. All of the groups were given the same lists of words to learn. Group 1 - had to learn underwater and recall under water. Group 2 - had to learn underwater and recall on shore. Group 3 - had to learn on shore and recall on the shore. Group 4 - had to learn on shore and recall underwater.
     • The result showed that Group 1 and Group 3 recalled 40% more words than groups 2 and 4.
     • They concluded that we remember information better if we recall it in the same environment as where it was learnt.
   • Miller (1968)
     • A patient suffering from epilepsy had his hippocampus removed. He could no longer learn new information. This shows the hippocampus must be involved in making new memories.