Cognitive

Cognitive

1. Grant

   • 39 Participants
     • Aged 17-56
       • Mean age 23.4
         • Standard Deviation 5.9
           • 17 Female, 23 Male, 1 ppt removed (from silent, silent condition)
   • Investigated Context Dependent Memory
     • Suggests we may remember better if the context is the same at encoding and retrieval
   • THE STUDY
     • Ppts were allocated to 1 of the 4 conditions which means this study is the independent measures design. There were 10 participants in each condition.
       • The conditions were Silent then silent, silent then noisy, noisy then noisy, and noisy then silent
         • Noise - recorded during lunchtime at a university cafeteria. No complete sentences audible. General conversational 'hum with the movement of chairs and dishes. Played at a moderately loud level.
       • PPts were recruited and allocated into conditions by - 8 experimenters (Grant's students) each ran 1ppt for each of the 4 conditions. Also an additional ppt for one of the conditions assigned by the instructor. Each of the experimenters randomly assigned ppts to their conditions
     • Procedure - approx. 30 mins long
       • Standardised instructions were read aloud to each participant. Participants were told their participation was voluntary.
         • All participants read the same article on psychoimmunology and could highlight and underline, as if they were studying.
           • Participants studied in either noisy or silent conditions. They were told to ignore background noise in the noisy condition.
             • All participants wore headphones whilst they studied.
               • Reading time was recorded by the experimenter.
                 • Participants had a 2 minute break without headphones on between studying and being tested
                   • Participants then completed a short answer test and multiple choice test
                     • Participants were then debriefed.
                     • Short answer questions were out of 10.
                       • Questions about the text that could be answered unambiguously with a single word.
                       • Questions followed the order of the text and were always given first so ppts were remembering from the text, not the MCQs
                     • Multiple choice questions were out of 16.
           • Chosen as it was judged to be interesting and understandable by the experimenters.
             • 2 pages long and ppts could study it for as long as they wanted.
   • Findings
     • Reading Time Mean
       • Silent then silent - 15 mins
         • Silent then noisy - 11.8 mins
           • Noisy then noisy - 14 mins
             • Noisy then silent - 13.8 mins
       • All conditions spent roughly equal amounts of time studying, suggesting performance probably isn't down to reading time.
     • Short Answer Mean Score /10
       • Silent then silent - 6.7
         • Silent then noisy - 4.6
           • Noisy then noisy - 6.2
             • Noisy then silent - 5.4
       • People did better on short answer questions in matching conditions rather than mismatching ones.
     • Multiple Choice Mean Score /16
       • Silent then silent - 14.3
         • Silent then noisy - 12.7
           • Noisy then noisy - 14.3
             • Noisy then silent - 12.7
       • People did better on multiple choice questions in matching conditions rather than mismatching ones.
   • Conclusions - learning and recalling in the same environment improves performance
     • Students will perform better in exams if they study for them with minimum background noise as this will not be present in the actual exams

2. Loftus and Palmer

   • Investigated eyewitness testimony and whether information gained after an event could change the participants' memories,.
   • Experiment 1 - 45 Participants
     • From University of Washington
       • 9 per condition
         • Smashed, Hit, Bumped, Contacted, Collided
   • Experiment 2 - 150 Participants
     • Different from participants in experiment 1
       • 50 participants per condition
         • Smashed, hit, control group
   • Procedure
     • Experiment 1 - Participants watched 7 film clips of traffic accidents originally made as part of a driver safety film
       • After each clip, participants were given a questionnaire which asked them to describe everything they could about the accident and answer a series of questions about the accident
         • The hidden, critical question was 'about how fast were the cars going when they [hit/bumped/smashed/collided/contacted] into each other? The verb depended on the condition they were in.
         • In response to the critical question, participants had to give their estimate of the speed of the car in mph
     • Experiment 2 - Different participants watched a 1 minute film clip of a 4 second multiple car crash
       • Participants were then asked to describe everything they could about the accident and answer the same questions (incl critical question) as were used in experiment 1.
         • Participants then went home for 1 week. When they returned, they were asked 'did you see any broken glass?' There was no broken glass.
   • Findings
     • Experiment 1 - mean speed estimate
       • Highest - smashed - 40.8
       • Lowest - contacted - 31.8
     • Experiment 2 - did you see any broken glass?
       • Smashed
         • 16 Yes
         • 34 No
       • Hit
         • 7 Yes
         • 43 No
       • Control
         • 6 Yes
         • 44 No
   • Experiment 1 - Verb did appear to affect memory however participants may not have been very good at judging so had demand characteristics
     • Experiment 2 - The verb 'smashed' did have a significant effect on the mis-perception of glass in the film
     • Conclusions

3. Assumes our behaviour is influenced by inner mental processes such as thoughts