Flashcards
Grant- Study of Context Dependent Memory
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1backgroundcue 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 recall. they provide a way to retrieve the to-be-remembered item itself if also present at time of recall.
recall is the accessing of memory with very few prompts (like an essay). in recognition we have to decide between two or more items we have seen before (like an MCQ) - 2aimto test the effect of noise as a source of context on the studying and retrieval of meaningful material in an academic context.
- 3method: participants39 participants aged 17-56 years. they were recruited by opportunity sampling by 8 psychology students who found 5 acquaintances each
- 4method: procedureindependent measures design.
IV- whether the study and test conditions were matching or mismatching.
The 4 conditions were:
learn in silence, recall in silence – matching
learn in silence, recall in noise – non-matching
learn in noise, recall in noise – matching
learn in noise, recall in silence – non-matching
Each participant wore headphones. Those in noisy conditions listened to the background noise of a cafeteria which consisted of occasional distinct words/phrases and movement of chairs and dishes.
The participants read a two-page, three-columned article on psychoimmunology, they were allowed to highlight or underline.
The time they took to read the article was recorded and after 2 minutes of finishing they completed to tests.
The 10 short-answer test was always administered first to ensure that recall of information from the article was being tested and not recall of information from the 16 MCQ test (retrieval). instructions, describing the experiment as a class project and stating that participation was voluntary, were read aloud.
The entire procedure lasted about 30 minutes. - 5resultsfor both the short answer test and the MCQ test, recall was significantly better in matching conditions.
for short answer test:
silent-silent: 6.7/10
noisy-silent: 4.6/10 - 6conclusionsthere was no independent effect of noise on performance.
however, as context-dependency affected both the short answer and MCQ test, students should study in quiet conditions as exams are typically held in silence. - 7evaluation: research methodcontrolled extraneous variables. participants in both conditions wore headphones, and were given same instructions. to ensure that retrieval was from long term memory and not the short term, a 2 minute break was given. such controls improve validity and reliability.
however, some variables were not as standardised like the amount of time given for reading - 8evaluation: quantitative and qualitative dataquantitative data.
statistics allowed for easy comparisons between different matching and mismatching conditions.
but there was no analysis of essay style questions, or of participant's views of studying in silence. some students cannot concentrate as well without additional stimulation etc. may have added to completeness of findings. - 9evaluation: ethical considerationsparticipants gave informed consent, had the right to withdraw and were debriefed.
- 10evaluation: validitycontrols and use of realistic materials make findings more valid.
but while study material was meaningful, it was not relevant to the students, and result may differ in a different exam framework.
also attempts to generalise from 30 minutes of studying to whole days, but could have negative effects of boredom and lack of concentration. but overall fairly valid as it used appropriate course materials. - 11evaluation: reliabilitystandardised such as materials (headphones, article) and procedure which allows for internal reliability. easily replicable as well.
but amount of time allowed for reading varied, which may have reduced reliability. - 12evaluation: sampling biasall were friends of psychology so unlikely to have formed a representative sample, although a good age range and different genders.
being friends of psychology students may have made them more aware of demand characteristics, and so may have tried harder in matching conditions
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- A level Psychology Flashcards on Grant- Study of Context Dependent Memory, created by Oishika Ganguly on 13/01/2019.
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