1. What is the best environment to study in?

2. Write down the list of your classmates in year 6
Memory task!
Write down the list of your classmates in year 6

3. Context dependent memory effect occurs when the memory of the to-be remembered information is better when tested in the same context in which the material was learned

4. Recall and recognition are different things
What is the easier question
1. How many people are in the sample for experiment w of Loftus and Palmer?
2. How many people are in the sample for experiment 2 of Loftus and Palmer 50
100
150
Which is testing recall and which is testing recognition?
Why is reading the textbook a bad revision strategy?

5. Context dependent memory
The context-dependent memory effect occurs when the memory of the to-be-remembered information is better when tested in the same context in which the material was learned (the matching condition) than when tested in a different context (the mismatching condition) Where would be the best place to revise? However context dependency memory doesn’t always occur…..

6. “Do you recognise xxx from this list…”
“can you remember…?”
Context dependency
Context cues
Recall!
“Do you recognise xxx from this list…”
Context cues
Recognition!
Outshining hypothesis

7. Salience = meaningfulness
Context dependency
words
Recall!
Context cues
Non words No
context dependency
No recall!
Context cues

8. Grant et al

9. Aim
To investigate context dependent memory effects on both recall and recognition

10. Method
Controls IV
Lab experiment
Independent group design

11. Why were both of these included?
Method
The independent variables (IVs) were: (i) whether the participant read the two page article under silent or noisy conditions (ii) whether the participant was tested under matching or mismatching conditions
Matching
Silent study
Silent study
Noisy study
Noisy study
Why were both of these included?
Non - Matching
Silent study
Noisy study
Noisy study
Silent study

12. Which is measuring recall and which recognition?
Dependent variable
The dependent variable (DV) was the participants performance on:
(a) a short-answer test of 10 Qs
(b) a multiple-choice recall test of 16 Qs.
Which is measuring recall and which recognition?

13. Sample 39 participants aged 17 to 56 years (M = 23.4)
17 females 23 males (1 participant’s results were omitted from the analyses.)
An opportunity sample recruited by eight psychology students who served as experimenters. Each experimenter recruited five acquaintances who would be participants
Randomly allocated to conditions

14. Procedure Think! Controls?
Standardized instructions were given and emphasised that their participation was voluntary
Ppts were asked to read the article once, highlighting and underlining if they want.
All ppts wore headphones while they read.
Silent condition: told they wouldn't hear anything. Noisy condition: told they'd hear moderately loud background noise, but to ignore it.
Reading times were recorded by the experimenters.
They had a 2 min break
The short-answer test was given, followed by the multiple-choice test, (either in silent or noisy conditions depending on which condition ppts were in). Always in this order
Participants were debriefed
The entire procedure lasted about 30 minutes
Think! Controls?

15. Materials
Think! Controls?
Cassette player and headphones. Cassettes were of background noise recorded during lunchtime in a university cafeteria. It included general conversational hum, occasional distinct words/phrases movement of chairs and dishes, played at a moderately loud level.
The to-be-remembered material: a two-page article on psychoimmunology, unfamiliar to ppts
16 multiple-choice questions (four alternatives)
10 short-answer questions producing single word or phrase answers.
Salience?

16. Controls
What were the controls?

17. 1. In your words describe the results
Participants in all groups spent roughly equal amounts of time reading the material.

18. 2. What could you conclude? Refer to your aims
Results
2. What could you conclude? Refer to your aims

19. Conclusion
There are context-dependency effects for newly learned meaningful material - Studying and testing in the same environment leads to enhanced performance.
There was no overall effect of noise on performance.
However students are likely to perform better in exams if they study in a quiet environment because the evidence for context-dependency suggests they are better off studying without background noise as it will not be present during actual testing.

20. Hummm Why the difference to previous research?
There is other research to back this up (Martin and Aggleton see page 60)
Dalton: work for unfamiliar faces but not familiar
Maybe only works for newly learned material