Steyvers and Hemmer

• AIM

  Investigate the interaction between semantic and episodic memory; to see whether schemas for particular scenes aided or hindered memory for objects within these scenes​
• PROCEDURE p1

  • 49 Ps, opportunity sample, University of Cali​fornia
  • Each P saw 1 set of stimuli, each set contained a picture of an office, kitchen, urban, hotel, dining area​
  • Length of time manipulated – short duration (2s) to use semantic memory where schemas would be used, or long duration (10s) to use episodic memory where schemas wouldn’t be used​
• PROCEDURE p2

  • 4 experimental conditions with varying durations e.g. 2,2,10,10,10 or 10,10,2,2,2​
  • Repeated measures – ppants did long and short duration​
  • Control for order effects – randomised order of pics​
  • Ppant free recalled objects from scene in own time + researchers noted objects + order recalled​
• Findings

  • Mean number of objects during free recall​:
  • Short duration condition – 7.75 items​
  • Long duration condition – 10.05 items
• Conclusion

  When recalling naturalistic scenes, prior knowledge from semantic memory can aid recall in episodic memory tasks. When in familiar environments, when the objects are consistent with expectations and prior semantic knowledge, cognitive processing can be freed up to process novel and unexpected objects in a scene.
• :) Standardised Procedure

  all 49 ppants had same procedure when being tested on their recall of episodic or semantic memory. Same set of 5 images, same intervals of either 2 or 10 seconds, and all given as long as needed to recall items. T/f study on...is reliable as it can be replicated to produce consistend findings of the recall​
• :) Cause and effect

   highly controlled lab setting at uni of california. All extraneous variables controlled, such as controlling order effects by randomising the order of images shown. T/f can establish c+e as change in IV of diff times conditiones caused change in DV of items recalled, increasing internal validity​
• :( Deception

  Steyvers + Hemmer withheld aim as they told ppants that it was a memory test, not a test on episodic + semantic memories. T/f breached ethics as they deceived their ppants​
• :( Mundane realism

   highly controlled artificial lab, with a task of recalling objects from 5 pictures of naturalistic scenes including a hotel and dining room, which is not an everyday task. T/f the recall of objects is not naturally occurring and cannot be generalised to everyday memory​