CONTEXT DEPENDENT MEMORY

• State the two variables you are assessing
• Independent Variable


  Music or No music
• Dependent Variable


  Number of words recalled
• Outline how the IV and DV were operationalised


  1. IV = Music/no music. Operationalised by playing the piece Yiruma – River Flows in You during the music condition

  2. DV = Memory was operationalised by testing recollection of words from a list of 20 two syllable words either in the original context in which they were learned or in the different context
• State an operationalised alternative hypothesis
• Identify if your alternative hypothesis is directional or non-directional


  The alternative hypothesis chosen is directional or one-tailed. This is because the direction of the difference is predicted that more words will be recalled in the context in which they were learned than a different context
• Justify/Explain why you chose to use a directional or non-directional hypothesis

  A directional hypothesis was chosen because evidence suggests that memory performance is reduced when an individual's environment differs from encoding to retrieval than if the two environments were the same. For example, Godden and Baddeley (1975) reported that participants recalled more words when they learnt and recalled the words in the same environment than when they learned and recalled the words in different environments.
• State an appropriate null hypothesis

  There will be no significant difference in the number of words recalled when tested in the context in which they were learned (music/no music) and in a different context. Any difference found is due to chance.
• Type of research method

  Laboratory experiment
• Strengths and weaknesses of the research method


  • Advantage: High levels of control over environmental factors, enhancing internal validity
  • Disadvantage: Lack of ecological validity, limited applicability to real-world contexts
• Type of Research Design

  Repeated measures design
• Strengths and weaknesses of the research design


  • Strength: Accounts for individual differences, minimises effects of individual variability
  • Weakness: Order effects (practice, fatigue)
• Sampling method


  Opportunity sample
• Strengths and weaknesses of the sampling technique


  • Strength: Removes researcher bias
  • Weakness: May not be representative of the target population
• Outline steps to assess reliability and strategies to deal with it


  1. Issue: Variability in participants' responses due to different types of music or variations in music exposure

  2. Deal/Assess: Standardised Music Selection - Select a single piece of music or a specific playlist that is standardized across all participants and conditions
• Outline steps to assess validity and strategies to deal with it


  1. Issue: Lack of ecological validity due to laboratory setting

  2. Deal/Assess: Replicate the study in real-life settings where individuals commonly study or encounter memory tasks to improve ecological validity
• Give a step-by-step description of your procedures


  1. Decided on aim and wrote alternative and null hypothesis

  2. Operationalised IV by selecting song for music condition

  3. Randomly selected 20 two-syllable words for participants to memorise

  4. Randomly assigned participants to music or quiet condition

  5. Participants memorised words for 3 minutes in their assigned condition

  6. Half of participants swapped to other condition for recall

  7. Participants recalled words for 90 seconds

  8. Calculated mean words recalled in original and other context

  9. Conducted Wilcoxon test to compare scores
• Appropriate descriptive statistics

  Calculate mean number of correctly recalled words for each condition (Music Environment and Quiet Environment)
• Explain why your choice of descriptive statistics is appropriate

  Calculate the mean number of correctly recalled words for each condition (Music Environment and Quiet Environment). The mean provides a measure of central tendency and represents the average memory recall performance within each condition.
• Appropriate graphical representation


  Bar graph to visually compare the mean number of correctly recalled words between the Music Environment and Quiet Environment conditions
• Explain why your choice of graphical representation is appropriate

  
  

  A bar graph is appropriate for comparing the mean number of correctly recalled words between conditions (Music Environment and Quiet Environment). It visually represents categorical data and facilitates easy interpretation of differences in memory recall performance, with error bars providing additional information about variability within each condition.
• Appropriate inferential statistical test


  Wilcoxon test
• Explain why your choice of inferential statistical test is appropriate

  • Hypothesis is testing for a difference in memory recall between the music condition and the quiet condition.
  • The experimental design is repeated measures design with participants being used throughout the investigation
  • The level of data collected is ordinal as the data being collected is number of words recalled
• Summarise your findings

  Mean score for same context 13.72

  Mean score for different context 7.81

  
  

  
  

  Critical value is 10

  Observed value 4.5
• What conclusion(s) can you draw from these findings?

  Based on these findings, we can accept our alternative directional hypothesis and reject the null hypothesis. As Critical valvue is greater than observed value