Grant et al (1998)

Grant et al (1998)

1. Aim

   • To investigate context dependent memory on both recall and recognition
   • He thinks that if people have background noise (such as music) when revising, it will not do them any favours in the exam.

2. Background information

   • Context dependent memory was previously tested with deep sea divers (Godden and Baddeley 1975). They remembered more information (word list) in the sea than on land because they had revised words underwater.

3. Participants

   • 8 psychology students acted as experimenters and recruited 5 acquaintances as participants. Data from 39 participants were recorded (1 male was omitted because his scores were atypically low)
   • There were 17 females and 23 males (ages ranging from 17-56 years- mean age of 23.4 years). ALL participants wore headphones as a control

4. Method

   • The IV of this experiment was the type of music (they classed it as background noise) as everybody has different tastes
   • Independent measures design
   • They had another control of level of noise because they wanted to see it that interferes with the encoding of material

5. Task

   • Participants read a 2 page article article (reading for meaning) the conditions were supposed to represent learning in the classroom. They tested the comprehension of the study rather than learning verbatim.
   • Recall was operationalised by a short answer recall test
   • Recognition was operationalised by using a multiple choice test

6. Test conditions

   • Each experimenters participant was randomly allocated one of their 5 participnats to each of the following 4 conditions except they tested the 5th participant on only 1 condition (instructed by lead researcher)
   • 1. Silent study/Silent test conditions
   • 2. Silent study/ noisy test conditions
   • 3. Noisy study/ silent test conditions
   • 4. Noisy study/ noisy test conditions

7. Materials

   • Each experimenter provided their own cassette tape player and headphones
   • The noisy condition was moderately loud (noise in a cafeteria in the university)
   • The article that the participants read was deemed interesting and understandable
   • The recognition test was made up of 16 multiple choice questions.
   • Recall test- using items from the multiple test (10 short word answers)
   • The recall test was always done first to ensure that nothing was being recalled from the multiple choice.

8. Procedure

   • Participants were all read standardised instructions that ensured that what they were doing was voluntary (this was the experimenter's deception)
   • The experiment was overt about the tests and about the different conditions.
   • All participants had a break for 2 minutes (rested without headphones)
   • There was no difference in times
   • The participants were then debriefed to the true nature of the study

9. Results

   • Recall test
     • Silent condition
       • Silent study
         • Noisy study
       • 6.7
         • 5.4
     • Noisy condition
       • 4.6
         • 6.2
     • Study condition
   • Recognition test
     • Silent condition
       • Silent study
         • Noisy study
       • 14.3
         • 12.7
     • Noisy condition
       • 12.7
         • 14.3
     • Study condition
   • This shows a context dependency advantage (this is true for both recall and recognition)