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Zunaira Ali
To what extent does Peterson’s brown technique play a role in ‘serial position effect’?
Memorization is a cognitive process of the Human mind. In psychology, processes in the memory systems are divided into the Working memory model and Multi store model. Here, the theory of Multi store model (MSM) is used in the experiment “serial position effect”. MSM, proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), argues that the brain stores information in specified locations which operates in uniformity (crane, 2020).
It depicts how sensory memory gives attention to new information which then travels in short-term memory (STM). As the brain recalls STM information in the rehearsal loop, it moves to long-term memory (LTM) (Kognity,2020).
The serial position effect, a case study on MSM, describes the recalling of words based on their positions in the list which creates the primacy effect (words recall from the start of the list) and recency effect (words recalled at the end of the list). The former denotes recalling of initial words (primacy effect) which might travel to LTM. And later determine recently recalled words (recency effect) which will remain in STM.
Furthermore, the study of the ‘serial position effect’ was carried out by Glanzer and Cunitz (1966), which aims to investigate LTM and STM as varied respective stores and whether the positioning of words affects recall.
They divided 240 US Army men into control and experimental groups to present the same list of words separately and then asked for free recall. In the experimental group, participants performed Peterson’s brown technique of 30 seconds distraction task i.e. counting backwards before the recall.
Whereas, the control group immediately recalled words. The findings demonstrated that the experimental group remembered inaccurate and minimum words as compared with the control group. Hence, the distraction task confines the recency effect. Moreover, the IA is in correspondence with an above study that aims to determine the recency effect on Brown’s Peterson technique.
This topic is worthy of investigation because it demonstrates everyday discussion of people forgetting and remembering certain information in their memory. Further, to conduct this experiment, non-psychology IB students were taken as participants which will aid them to devise their learning strategies for examinations.
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Null Hypothesis:
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This hypothesis argues to show the insignificant difference of distraction task on recency effect while recalling words in control and experimental groups and this determines that interference of counting 30 backwards doesn’t affect human recall of the last six words from the list.
Research Hypothesis:
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It states that there will be a significant difference in distraction task on recency effect when recalling word control and experimental groups which describes that interference of counting 30 backwards greatly affects human recall of the last six words from the list.
Exploration:
The below exploration discusses how the selected designs plays a major role in carrying out a controlled experiment.
Independent measure design was used to increase the external validity of research through the participation of varied individuals from experimental and control groups. It will ensure that participants will mould their behaviour according to the nature of the research, which will reduce participants' biases and strengthens the reliability of experimentation.
Furthermore, the independent variable was 30 seconds interference task and the dependent variable showcased the validity of the recency effect.
A convenience sampling technique was performed as it is convenient to contact people who were readily available i.e. non-psychology IB students from the 15-18 age range. The total sample collected was comprised of 22 participants, 11 in each group, where the probability of female and male participants was equal; reducing confounding variables.
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Also, Researcher biases were reduced by the random selection of people in each controlled and experimental group.
Besides, words were randomly collected from the Online Word Generator, to reduce the extraneous variable of participants i.e. to not establish relatable connections between words from the list; thus, increasing the difficulty of memorizing words for them.
Then, for each experiment, a separate class was allocated to eliminate minimum noises and re-check all lights, projectors, tables, and chairs to create a comfortable environment for participants. Initially, while starting off with the experiment, a team member read the briefing form to participants.
Then, they were provided with a pen to fill consent form and a blank paper to write recalled words. Further, while conducting the experiment, to present the slides, the lights were immediately turned off for clear visibility and focus for the participants.
In Addition, the list of words in the slides was presented with a delay of 2 seconds. Afterwards, bulbs were switched on and participants performed 30 seconds interference task. Later, they were asked to write recalled words in one minute. Participants instantly stopped to write when time ends.
Next, the debriefing form was read, and participants were allowed to ask questions regarding the experiment. In the end, they were thanked and permitted to leave.
Similarly, for the control group, the same procedure was followed excluding the distraction task. Thus, the above-detailed description shows how the experiment was conducted while keeping in mind to control the extraneous variables that will majorly aid in decreasing the extraneous variables in the findings of our result.
Analysis:
In order to devise a substantial analysis of data, the last 6 words were examined from the end of the collected list to observe the recency effect. The results were as follows:
In calculations, we use verified statistical website1 to calculate statistics and conduct the Man Whitney U test of raw data. For measuring mode, data were ordinally set up for each group and for standard deviation, the sample was chosen as a size for the participants involved. The descriptive statistics (Table.1) given above present results of mode and standard deviation of the last 6 words from the list.
The higher variant values in standard deviation results support the findings of our data, stating an insignificant difference between dependent and independent variables. Thus, this insignificant difference increases the validity of our findings which supports our null hypothesis that carrying out an interference task doesn’t affect the recency effect i.e. recalling words from the end of the list.
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Further, the graphical presentation (Graph 1) shows less difference in mode results between group 1 and group 2 which shows that there was no significant effect of distraction task that differentiates the outcomes of recency effect in both the groups. Also, (Graph 2) clearly indicates a greater probability of recency effect, having no considerable effect on distraction task as words heard at the end of the list presents an increase in a bar chart.
Thus, these graphs greatly support our findings and increase the reliability of our result which accepts our null hypothesis. In inferential statistics, the suitable test that can be conducted while using an experimental independent measure design is Mann Whitney U Test because it investigates whether the two variables are significant or not. Data was set to a one-tailed experiment as we were aware of the direction i.e. to observe the recency effect in our research.
Thus, in the findings, the results illustrate that data was insignificant as p ≤ 0.344583, which demonstrates that there is no effect of distraction task on recency effect. Hence, by accepting the null hypothesis we can state that the Peterson technique doesn’t play a substantial role in the serial position effect experiments.
Evaluation:
The insignificant results of our experiment support the null hypothesis i.e. Recency effect in both the control and experimental groups remain unaffected by Peterson’s Brown Technique.
However, it contradicts the original case study of Glanzer and Cunitz which states that the distraction task overcomes the recency effect, causing participants to remember words from the middle or start of the list, thus, showing a higher probability of the interference task on the recency effect during recall.
The difference in findings of the experiment and case study might be affected by participants’ personal biases as they are able to recall recently heard words, linking with their memories or experiences.
In the study, US army men were selected using non-random sampling which may cause biases towards male and their specific culture, leading to affecting the results. Whereas, IA comprised an equal number of male and female participants, using convenience sampling that reduces the confounding variable of showing biasedness towards a specific gender and culture.
Consequently, this makes our findings stronger and differentiated from the replicated experiment. Besides, there were strengths and limitations for the selected design, procedure and sample in the experiment.
Firstly, the independent measure design interplays in reducing the ‘order effect’ (an effect that occurs when similar participants are used in the experimental and control groups causing them stress, fatigue and biases) by having different participants in both groups.
Also, it was less time-consuming as IB students were easily available. Conversely, individual differences in terms of culture and social background might affect the free recall of participants to associate or unassociated words within their memories; leading to variant results. Other confounding variables observed during the debriefing, showed low interest and response in understanding the goal of the study; which leads to high variation in respondent data.
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In the case of convenience sampling, it was easy to perform and also less time-consuming. Whereas, this might lead to selection bias as the sample only consists of IB students; hence, it might not be generalized to the whole population.
Also, the experiment Procedure has strengths in different ways. From welcoming participants with precautionary measures to the environment of the class by having comfortable chairs and appropriate light bulbs till the presentation of words was performed well. Contrarily, outside voices can be considered confounding variables as they might distract participants’ attention during recall.
In review, we did our utmost to perform the experiment at its best but there were some modifications that can be performed for future replication of IA. Most importantly, by using more time and effort we might have asked non-IB students to participate which would aid in generalizing findings or increasing ecological validity to most of the population; eventually leading to effective results.
Also, “Additional Variables” such as intake of caffeine can be considered as a dependent variable which causes an effect on recall. A researcher (Bersin, 2015) stated that the intake of caffeine increases the speed of memory; hence in our case, participants having an intake of caffeine might be able to recall the words more accurately than those who don't.
Thus, adding this variable to findings will precede adequate results. Ergo, irrespective of our research hypothesis,
"IA corresponds to the research question, by means of the Null Hypothesis i.e. in recency effect word recall at end of the list is not influenced by Brown Peterson’s technique of carrying out an interference task".
In Addition, these results also contradict the findings of the case study, therefore it questions the reliability of the case study’s results. This IA may also encourage the idea of further investigating the study of the effect of distraction on the recency effect.