RESEARCH METHODS Experimental Design Primary and Recency Effect

RESEARCH METHODS Experimental Design Primary and Recency Effect Research to conduct at Home

WMM FEEDBACK Key points to include: • Active nature of the slave systems (how the components work together to complete tasks/how we find it hard to complete two tasks simultaneously if they both involve the same slave system) • Use correct psychological terminology and expand • Make sure to include a description of the model then evaluate • Use paragraphs to structure your essay • Make sure that you appropriately signpost your points • No need to include an introduction/conclusion

STARTER • Participants in a study were given a list of 20 random words to recall. One group learned the words and recalled them in the same room and one group learned in one room and recalled outside. Same context Different context • Results Mean number of 9 words recalled 4

QUESTIONS • This is an example of an independent groups design study. • Explain how this study could be modified to be a matched pairs design. (4)

MODEL ANSWER • Matched pairs design is when each participant in one condition is matched with a participant in the other condition. They are often matched on characteristics such as age, gender and occupation. In this study the researchers could select characteristics such as age, occupation and IQ. They could do this by giving the participants a questionnaire to complete and also an IQ test to establish their score. They could then match each person in the ‘same context’ condition with a person with the same characteristics in the ‘different context’ condition. These characteristics would be useful as they could influence the natural memory skills of the person. By matching on these characteristics, participant variables become less of a problem as each participants in one condition shares very similar characteristics to a participant in the secondition.

CONSENT • I am conducting research into memory for lists of words and the research will take about ten minutes to complete. You will asked to listen to material and then asked to recall as many words from the list. You will do this twice. • Please be aware that all the data from this study is confidential and your name will not be included in the study. The research is for a class project and will not be used for any other purpose. If you wish, you can withdraw from the research at any time and even ask for your data not to be used if you wish. • Do you have any questions.

THE PRIMACY AND RECENCY EFFECT Standardised Instructions Thanks you for taking part in my research. I will shortly read out a list of 20 concrete nouns and you will listen to these and then I will ask you to recall as many as you can in any order. Do you have any questions.

RESULTS • In your booklets you need to draw a graph based on the results. • Think about what should be on the X and Y axis and how you will show the two conditions. • Also answer the following questions: • 1. What experimental design is used in this study? • 2. Give a strength and weakness of this experimental design in this study. • Challenge • 3. This is often used to support the MSM. Why does it support the MSM

DEBRIEF • Thank you for taking part in my research. I was studying a phenomena known as the primacy and recency effect which is something that is seen when participants are attempting to recall information. This theory states that participants are more likely to remember the first few and last few items on a list that exceeds the capacity of the STM. This is because the first few items have been transferred to the LTM and the last few items are still in the STM, but the middle items are lost. When a distracter task is given the STM memory is disrupted which means the recency effect is lost. However the primacy effect (first few items) are left intact. This shows that the STM and the LTM are indeed separate stores.

TASK • Write up what you can see from the graph and conclude by explaining how it supports the MSM.