exp #3: memory enhances recall*

Today we did our 3rd memory experiment as a class. Mr. Anthony read out 20 words on 20 separate sheets while letting us see the words as he held it up. The sensory inputs were the sight and sound of the words. At the bottom of each sheet was either letter ‘A’ or ‘B’; we were supposed to count the syllables in the word if we saw an ‘A’ and think about whether it was pleasant or unpleasant when we saw a ‘B’. I remembered a total of 12 words, and remembered 4 ‘A’ words and 8 ‘B’ words.

When we combined the results from the whole class, we found that the highest score was 19, and the lowest score was 6. The mean of the number of ‘A’ words people recalled was 5.09 words, the mean of the number of ‘B’ words people recalled was 7.09 words, and the mean of the total number of words people recalled was 12.27 words. There were 2 people with an equal number of ‘A’ and ‘B’ words, 2 people with more ‘A’s than ‘B’s, and 7 people with more ‘B’s than ‘A’s.

In this particular task, we did effortful processing. The reason most people remembered more ‘B’ words than ‘A’ words is because when we tried to think whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we were giving the words meaning. Meaning enhances recall, and that is why we remembered more ‘B’ words. When we tried to retrieve the words from our long term memory, more ‘B’ words came because it has more ‘power’; we gave meaning to it. Conversely, when we were asked to count the syllables in the ‘A’ words, we were not giving it enough meaning and therefore we did not remember many. The person with the highest score scored very well because he used a mnemonic device to help him recall things easily—he made up his own story using the words. We found that the crazier the story, the more easily we can recall it. Also, we found that those who scored the least either had distractions, misunderstandings, or exhaustion—which are all factors that may affect our ability to encode all the words into our memory.

-- yuki