Grant

• background


  • context dependent memory: memory is improved if the environment that the learning takes place in is the same as the environment where memory is recalled
  • Golden and Badly studied the effects of context-dependent memory using deep sea divers, they were tested on memory of words on and off land, when the environment matched, the divers recalled more words than when they did not match
• aim


  • the effects of context-dependent memory on both recall and recognition for meaningful information (as opposed to just lists of words)
• sample


  • 8 psychology students from Iowa State University acted as experimenters in the study. they each recruited 5 acquaintances as participants in the study (snowball study)
  • one participant's results were not included leaving a final sample of 39 participants who ranged in age from 17 to 56 years, 17 females and 23 males
• procedure


  • participants were asked to read once through a two-page academic article on the subject of psychoimmunology wile wearing a pair of headphones, half of the participants did this while listening to background noise taken from the university cafeteria and the other half completed the task in silence
  • they them completed 10 recall questions and 16 multiple choice questions on what they had read. they again did this while wearing headphones with half the participants in each study group doing the tests in silence and the other half while listening to the background noise
• results


  • silent study and silent test scored the highest number of correct answers (mean of 6.7)
  • silent study and noisy test scored the lowest number of correct answers (mean of 4.6)
• conclusions


  • supports the idea that context-independent memory is found for meaningful information, rather than just when learning unrelated lists of words
  • both recall and recognition of information is better when the context matches- participants recalled significantly more information about the article when the study and text conditions matched than when they did not match
• links to the area

  • investigated memory and showed this is influenced by the environment in which information is learned and recalled (context)
  • participants remembered more details from the article when the noise conditions matched compared to when they did not match