Memory interference

Psychology Internal Assessment

NAME: Aldo muhammad hamka

NUMBER:

SUBJECT: Psychology

Level: HL (Higher Level)

Date of submission:

Word count :

Table of contents

Abstarct .......................................................................................................0

Introduction .................................................................................................1

Method .........................................................................................................1

Design ...............................................................................................1

Participants........................................................................................1

Materials ............................................................................................1

Procedures ..........................................................................................1

Results ...........................................................................................................

Discussion.......................................................................................................

References ....................................................................................................

Appendices.....................................................................................................

Standardized briefing............................................................................

Copy iof inform consent....................................................................

Calculations ...............................................................................................

Copy of materials...........................................................................................

Abstract

Introduction

Memory has been thought of as split into two functions, short term memory and long term memory, since William James (1890) the one that first made the distinction between primary and secondary memory. Whilst everyday language treats short term memory as though it contains a lot of information, perhaps the events of the day, or at least the past few minutes or hours, reality appears to be much different.As the name says it short term memory has actually been found to have a very short time limitation, to be exact is around 2 seconds (Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan, 1975). Additionally, it has equally limits on its capacity, holding around seven items. Each item is called a chunk, and it can contain anything from a single letter to an entire phrase. For example, random letters would take up a chunk of space each, but a name will take up only one chunk, despite containing a large number of letters.The standard model of short term memory is very simple and seems unable to explain a lot of data which has been collected on the area (Nairne, 2002). Because of this, the concept of short term memory was replaced with that of working memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 1986) which consists of four parts (Baddeley, 2001), the central executive, used for controlling and organising the other components, the phonological loop for storing speech-based information, the visuo-spatial sketchpad for storing spatial and visual information, and the episodic buffer, which holds and integrates information from the long term and working memory stores (Eysenck & Keane, 2005).

The information goes on after that into the long term memory. Long term memory are a huge continuing storage of information . This information is largely outside of our awareness, but it can be called into working memory as the example of the episodic buffer so it can be used when needed. Some of this information is fairly easy to recall, while other memories are much more difficult to access. Long-term memory is usually divided into two types a declarative (explicit) memory and procedural (implicit) memory.

Declarative includes all of the memories that are available in consciousness. Declarative memory can be further divided into episodic memory (specific events) and semantic memory (knowledge about the world).Procedural memory involves memories of body movement and how to use objects in the environment.

Through the process of association and rehearsal, the content of short-term memory can become long-term memory. While long-term memory is also susceptible to the forgetting process, long-term memories can last for a matter of days to as long as many decades.As it was possible to someone to forget things that they have permanently placed in the LTM, i was interested with the idea that even the was known the most valuable storage of our brain can be breached by the information that are freshly known or learned. Evidence shown that fogetting in LTM are caused by Interference .The thory assumed that the memory in our LTM can be disturb or interfered by what the things we are already learned or we will learn in the future This theory believe that the information in our LTM may become confused or combined with other information during encoding thus distorting the memory that we already have.

This theory have three main kinds the proactive interference (PI ) , retroactive interference (RI),and output interference (OI). Proactive interference are a difficulty in learning a new information because of the already existing information, for n example if a person who used drive with right steer car will get a difficulties if the drive a left steer car .Retroactive interference are a difficulty of recalling information that have been learned if the new addition information are learned , for example if you are a learning of how to speak english as time goes it will be hard to speak your native language .And the last is output interference

There are many experiment and new suggestion about this theory , one of the first experiment of this theory was conducted by Barnes and Underwood (1959) , they come up with an illusrative experiment that was modefied from the Briggs (1954) experiment about retroactive interference (RI) where they used 2 list of eight paired-associates (A-B) ,(A-C) .The participants was divide into 2 groups ,those two group have to learn the (A-B) list until they have a perfect recall after that one group take a rest and the other group study the second list (A-C), after that the two group tried to recall the first list and the second list but the difference in briggs that in briggs experiment they only tried to recall 1 list . The result shown that the group that study the second list before recall the first list mix up the first list with the second list ,but some people showing consistency in their answer .

Retroactive interference theory assumed that a new information can disturb the recall of previous information, it is said that it was the result of decreased recall of the primary studied functions due to the learning and recall of succeeding functions ,but as a contrass in the Briggs experiment if the participant given 24 hours time before recalled the first list the spontaneous recovery illustration as an account of Ai-Bi items (A-B) competing with Ai-Ci items(A-C).The idea behind this experiment are the prove that even Long term memory can be disturb and somehow change , although we cant consider it as forgotten it have the same concern as it. As i said the idea of this experiment make me interested and somehow excited , although the information are rarely found this experiment are somehow simple but hard in the process . the aim of this experiment are to see if the retroactive interference will shown if the second list of eight paired- associates (A-C) learned before recalling the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B) . The experiment will be shown not much differences by the original experiment as it was the only differences would be the way we will do the experiment and the eight paired associates would be different as it was no list given on the information page that we found .

H 0 Null hypothesis : the effect of learning the second list of word before the recalling the first list of words will give no significant effect on the participant recalling ability.

H 1 Experiment hypothesis : the effect of learning the second list of words before the recalling the first list of words will give significant effect on the participant recalling ability.

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Method

Design

Independent sample design will be taken as technique of experiment. The reason we use the independent sample design are because it is not possible to use the same participants in 2 experimental conditions as it will conflict with our experiment as they would remember the list that was given on the first time to the second trial . Independent sample design are also used because the participants will less likely to guess what is the hypothesis of the study ,althought this is not the concern of our experiment as we demand the participants to have a perfect recall of the list and it also to counter participants Naiveness and to avoid order effect .The independent variables was the second list of words that given to the participant after the first list of word are learned .And the dependent variable was the number of response correctly recalled and identified with stimullus and list in the (A-B),(A-C )paradigm . We modify the consent that are already described and the briefing are carried out the day before the experiment were excecuted and the de-briefing are carried out afer the experiment was done.

Participants

There will be 20 paticipants consist of IB students vary from age 15-17 that have a mean of 16 years old. The reason behind we used a IB students are because the language from the briefing until de-breifing are using english language and it required an english speaking student so the experiment will success and the data will be comperhend. The sampling method that are chosen are random to avoid subjective reason in the control group and experimental group , we use a coupon system to make it random so the participant will take a coupon and if he/she got the coupon were there said 1 he/she will be go to the experimental group and it also the same if he/she got the 2 . As we interested of how the student tried to remember the list and how they gonna perform when they tried to recall it and we hope that it will help them to know how they perform within certain amount of time .

Materials

The materials are the 3 list of words the A list consist of animals name ,the B list consist of house utensils name ,and the C list consist of cars developers name.The last is the inform consent that the participant will get before the briefing.

Procedure of experiment

1.) The researchers introduce themselves and explain the objective of the experiment to the target participants. The inform consent is delivered

2.) The researcher collected data of those are willing to participate in the experiment . The researchers allocate the participant randomly into the experiment group (the group who will be given the second list of eight paired- associates (A-C) after learned the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B) )and the control group (the group who will be given a time to rest after learned the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B) ) .

3.) On the day of the experiment , the participants were gathered .One class rooms are taken for the experiment group and the control group. The standardized introduction is read before the list of eight paired- associates (A-B) is given .The experiment and the control group will be given time to studied the first list (A-B) until perfect recall.

4.) The control group was given time to rest as the experiment group studied the second list(A-C) 5,10,15 or 20 times

5.) After the second list studied A paper was given to both of the groups and tested in the recalling ability of the first list (A-B). After all the participants are finish the De-briefing was conducted and the researcher told the participants what the experiments are about.

Result

Table

No

Experimental group

Participants number

Recalled data list

(A-B)

Control group

Participants list

Recalled data list

(A-B)

1

1

6

11

7

2

2

4

12

8

3

3

7

13

8

4

4

8

14

8

5

5

7

15

7

6

6

6

16

8

7

7

8

17

8

8

8

8

18

8

9

9

8

19

8

10

10

7

20

8

Mean

6.9

7.8

Range

2

1

Standard deviation

1.22

0.4

U value

27

73

Graph

The table above shows how many (A-B) pair that the participants recalled correctly it measured by the correct pair. The mean number of the control group are 7.8 and 6.9 for the experimental group. We also counted the range to know the difference between the two extreme points on the distribution curve, where the value of the function falls to zero and standard deviation for measurement of variability or diversity which resulted for range 2 for experimental group and 1 for control group , as for the standard deviation it resulted 1.22 for experimental group and 0.4 for control group. All the data above shown that there is more diversity in value on the experimental group other than control group.

To test the significance of the result `

Discussion

Refferences

http://simplypsychology.org/forgetting.html

http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html

http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Interference_theory#Span_Performance

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~sschmidt/Cognitive/Forgetting.pdf

appendices

Psychology IA

Name: Group:

Class:

Answer sheet

A -- B

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

__________________________ _________________________

Psychology IA

List of words

A -- B

Cat furnance

Dog table

Lion chair

Bear lamp

Panda wardrobe

Whale mirror

Penquin laptop

Horse printer

Psychology IA

List of words

A -- C

Cat Honda

Dog Toyota

Lion Ferrari

Bear Aston Martin

Panda Ford

Whale General motor

Penquin Chevrolet

Horse Porche

Dear parents/guardian,

We are from grade 12 students, we are doing a psychology research about memory interference and we need a help from your son/ daughters contribution for our IB psychology Internal Assessment achievement.

We would like you to sign this letter as an agreement that your son/ daughter will take part in our examination and understand that:

Your son/ daughter will take part as a contributor of our investigation

We ensure that there will be no physical damage or psychological injury

Your son/ daughter have their own right to withdraw or leave the research

We are responsible for confidentiality (privacy) for the outcome

Your son/daughter will be debriefed at the end and have a opportunity to find out the results

We need your collaboration and support by giving your son/ daughter permission to take part in our research. Thank you

Tangerang, August ,11,2011

( ) ( )

Students name Parents name

Standardized Briefing

Preliminary:

Good afternoon senior high students

Today were from grade 12 want to ask for your help to become our participants at psychology experiment to complete our IA . the paper that i already distributed beforehand are the inform consent that should be shown and sign by your parents and yourself .It is important that your parents know about this .

The experiment will be held on Tuesday , August 16 , 2011 . it will be conducted after school at the audio visual room. We expect you to come on time and tell us beforehand if you cant come as it would be better for us all .We really need your participation . Thank you for your attention . Do you guys have any question ?

Introduction:

Good afternoon guys

Thank you for coming . Today we will conduct our experiment . Its about memory interference . Our aim is investigate the effect of a pressence of interference during the recall the memory . You have the right to withdraw from the research . And now we are about to start , please be seated according to your group , group one in the front and group 2 at the back and make some space . Thank you

Experiment :

We will give you a paper. All you need to do are memorize the list of words in pair so it is A-B not all A and all B .we will gove you time to memorize as much as you need .

If you guys already finish we would like the group 2 to leave the room to rest

For the group 1 we would like you to corporate with us even further and tried to memorize the second list of words that are paired A-C same as before we will give you time 5 minutes to memorize it.

For group 1 and 2 we would like you to recall what you have memorize in this sheet of paper that already given and tried to recall as many as possible in pair.

Closing :

Thank you for your cooperation . And know we will reveal our intention for doing this experiment. As you guys know that we are investigating the memory interference we would like to know that the pressence of the A-C list of words that was given to the 1 group will affect their answer of recalling the A-B list of words. Do not worry because we will keep the confidentialy of your result and we will let you know of our experiment result and we will give the copy of it if you need it . sorry for taking your time . Thank you

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