The Effect of Imageability on Memory - Case Study Example

? Effect of Images on Memory al Affiliation: This is a research paper on the effect of images on human memory. The study presents two categories of words (low and high images) that are created in line with specific instructions. The experiment was performed to determine the effect of images on memory. It used a sample of participants from a class (61 members) who were provided with instructions using both high and low image forming words. Questionnaires were used to collect the required data to be used in statistical testing. In addition, a number of word pairs were offered to the participants. T-test distribution is used to show the variability of the results obtained from the software. Thus, the study makes deductions from the computations obtained in from the t-test. 1.0. Introduction Actually, a review of the past literature depicts that there have been a number of controversial results from the precious experiments that were related to the ability of recall in humans. Some studies tested the effect of linguistics abstractness, others tested whether images can be the related to mediating the verbal association of nouns in statements whereas others tested whether the interactive imagery technique can result to superior recall performance. To start with, there was a research which was associated with images as probable mediator of verbal words that are created from the effect of words in learning of nouns. This study was performed by Paivio (1965s). The results of the research was that the group of adjectives and nouns were learnt easily only when the nouns came first rather than being followed by adjective. Thus, from the study’s hypothesis, efficiency of the nouns as stimulus depends on the word’s capacity to elicit imagery that can initiate recall. Another study brought forth by Paivio, Yuille and Madigan (1968) tested the psychological impact of linguistic concreteness, abstractness and its semantic correlations. The test demands created a requirement for the normative data of relevant aspects of the larger number of stimulus nouns. Moreover, concreteness was found to correlate with the performances on free recalls and memory recognition. A study performed by Straub and Granaas (1992) suggested that the participants in the experiment can use various memory strategies to remember or rather to recall the set of words. In addition, a number of previous studies suggested the technique of interactive imagery resulted superior performance of recall when compared to imagery separation. In such studies, participants were asked to fully engage in a specific technique that was based on self-report in recalling several words. The final study to be reviewed is the one which was performed by Browne, Breneiser and Marrison (2005). This research was meant to determine if humans can recall more of bizarre words as compared to common words when asked to form mental images. Thus, the research found out that the type of instructions which are given prior to the real task cannot improve the ability of humans to recall (Einstein & McDaniel, 1987) The chief objective of this study is to find if individuals can comfortably recall many word pairs if they are asked to create low images versus high mental images. As it was in the previous studies, all the participants will be requested to form vivid and interacting images with the pair of words provided. The hypothesis of this study is: The high image-able words are easier to recall than the low image-able words when a series of instructions are provided. This implies that the participants who are asked to create high images will end up recalling more pairs of words compared to those ones who will be asked to create low images. All the images are mentally created. The expected result for this research is that high image-able word pairs are vivid and more interacting than the low image-able words. In addition, high image-able words positively impact recall. Thus, the participants are expected to create more images that are interacting. From the assumption, it is hypothesized that the high image-able words will be very easy to recall. 2.0. Method The study used the low and high imaging words in a two by two mixed design. The variables were the high and low imaging words which were listed in pairs. In addition, one condition comprised of the participants who received the high imaging words and the other comprised of participants who received the instructions in low imaging words. These were the independent variables in the entire experiment (word pairs). Every participant was shown the pairs or words which were either low imaging or high imaging. The dependent variable for this research was the number of the correct or right recalled pairs of words. 2.1. Participants The individuals who took part in this study were sixty one (61) students. All the participants were from a single class, all from one ethnic background. All the subjects came were students attending a psychology course. 2.2. Materials Prior to the study, a sheet of word pairs was created in order to determine high imagery and low imagery of probable pairs. Forty word pairs (40) were selected for the experiment. The top five (5) and bottom five (5) pairs were termed as ‘filler’ which are not scored. 15 pairs are rated as the words which are easy to form images in memory whereas the remaining 15 pairs are words which are difficult to create images. For the study to come up with the participant’s ability to recall (imagery), the study used a VVIQ. The scale which was used to rate image-able words in the experiment was from one to seven. The extreme end, from the left hand side, of the scale marked the low image-able words. This was represented by number one (1). The other end, on the right hand side, of the scale marked the high image-able words; represented by number seven (7). Thus, the words that are expected to create imagery are given a rating of seven whereas the ones that are less likely to form imagery are given a rating of one. The words that fall in between low and high image forming are referred to as intermediate words whose rating is between the two extreme ends of the scale (Paivio et al. 1968). 2.3. Procedure The entire study used an extremely simple procedure which was not that demanding to the participants. All the participants were provided with similar sheets which had forty pairs of words. Prior to the task, instructions were to the subjects, followed by examples and clarifications. In order to eliminate the possible errors in the experiment, the words from the provided list was read to the participants randomly and spelt just before the major task began. Thereafter, the participants were requested to go through the list of words as they pay attention to the two different categories; high image-able and low image-able words. Finally, in the major task, the participants were requested to take as much time as possible to recall the words in the two categories. The results were filled a table distinguishing low image-able words recalled and high image-able words recalled in different columns. 3.0. Results The t-test was conducted on the independent sample so as to assess if there were significant variation between the questionnaire scores for the two groups of words. For the paired sample size, N=61, High image-able word recalled had a mean, M=6.82, standard deviation, SD=3.423 whereas the low image-able words recalled had a mean, M=2.18, standard deviation, SD=2.149. The Pearson correlation for the paired sample, r=0.535 and significance, p=0.000. The score varied between the two groups of words. Moreover, for the paired sample test gave the following results: (M=4.639, SD=2.910), t (60) =12.452, p=0.000, r=0.534, 95% CI[3.894,5.385]. For the group statistics, that is words with imagery and words with no imagery, words with imagery, N=32 had a mean, M=8.5625 and a standard deviation, SD=4.7307. On the However, the major effect of the group of instructions was not significant F (1, 58) = 0.708, p=0.404. There existed a difference in the number of pairs recalled for the instructions to create a common mental imagery. In addition, there is a significant interaction between the instructions group and the pairs recalled. In the two categories of word pairs, the rate of recall did not differ significantly. 4.0. Discussion From the experiment, the recalled number of high image-able words was more than the recalled number of low image-able words as shown on the graph on Fig.1. Thus, the hypothesis of this study (The high image-able words are easier to recall than the low image-able words when a series of instructions are provided) is supported by the results. The results obtained suggest that the instructions requiring one to use imagery on easy and hard words to recall have a significant difference. In line with the study’s hypothesis, the idea of asking the participants to create or rather form images from either high image-able words or low image-able words has a significant influence on the overall number of words that were recalled in the experiment. Furthermore, the participants varied greatly in recalling words from the two categories of the list pairs provided. The findings of this study are inconsistent with the previous researches. For instance, in previous studies, bizarreness had no clear impact on the number of recalled words. Thus, the possibility of creating any interacting image is deemed to be the sole factor that is influencing the number of words participants can recall. Thus, the effect of bizarre has no any significant advantage on the ability to recall. Bizarre images were considered to be more likely for the participants to recall since the instructions appeared different from the normal or rather common occurrences. Thus, bizarre words being more interactive contributes to the greater rate of recalling bizarre images (Wollen, Weber & Lowry,1972).Yet, bizarre images might be much interactive as compared to the common imagery; common image might be more salient since they are made up of images an individual can come across on daily basis. Therefore, this research did not replicate the other studies which were performed to test effect of images of memory. This is simply because this study used different variables from those ones used in previous studies. The study on the effect of images on memory is extremely crucial since it has a significant implication on the human memory. However, the researches that deal with the effect of images are becoming continuously controversial. This study discusses the notion of various researches which support the idea of images facilitating the ability to recall whereas other studies offer opposite opinions. However, the possible drawbacks for the study was that it only used high and low image creating words rather than using all types of words and sentences. This paper reveals the brittleness of the impact of high image-able words. There are a number of conflicting results emerging from previous researches that tend to examine the effect of images on memory. Thus, this calls for more studies and researches on this aspect. By a continuous study on imagery and bizarre, a better comprehension of the way this aspect affects the memory will be gained. The future studies should investigate whether low and high image-able words have similar impact on the human memory. 5.0. References Browne, B. L., Breneiser, J. E. & Marrison, K.M. (2005). The Effect of Imagery Instruction on Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol.13, p.152-155 Einstein, G. O., & McDaniel, M. A. (1987). Distinctiveness and the mnemonic benefits of bizarre imagery. In M. A. McDaniel & M. Pressley (Eds.), Imagery and related mnemonic processes: Theories, individual differences, and applications (pp. 78-102). New York: Springer Verlag Paivio, A., Yuille, J. & Madigan, S. (1968). Concreteness, Imageability, and Meaningfulness values for 925 nouns. Journal of Experimental Psychology Monograph Supplement, vol. 76, p.1-25. Paivio, A. (1965). Abstractness, imagery and Meaningfulness in Paired-Associate Learning. Journal of Verbal learning and Verbal behavior, vol.4, p.32-38. Straub, H. S., & Granaas, M. M. (1992). Interaction of instructions with the recall strategy actually used in a paired-associates learning task. Psychological Reports, vol.71, p.987-993. Wollen, K. A., Weber, A., & Lowry, D. H. (1972). Bizarreness versus interaction of mental images as determinants of learning. Cognitive Psychology, 3(3),518-523. Fig. 1. Effect of Images on Memory Read More