1. Motivation and Memory Processes By James W. Erikson Hanover College

2. Working Memory Encoding-making meaning of information (Myers, 1998) Central Executive-establishes what goes where and how important it is (Baddeley, et al, 1986) Hierarchical Arrangement-more important information is stored first (de Fockert, et al, 1987) Limited storage 30seconds (Peterson & Peterson, 1959), 7 plus or minus 2 items (Hintzman, 1978)

3. Long Term Storage (Memory) Storage-Associative Network model (Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984) Information is stored in nodes Each network is arranged semantically Consolidation (Muller & Pilzecker, 1900) This is the process of making memories relatively permanent This process begins immediately after storage Retrieval-Information recall information is found within long term storage via recall cues the more a connection is recalled, the stronger it becomes

4. Motivation Motivation has been found to affect working memory (Heinrich, 1968) When presented at encoding, motivation can affect memory Motivation can only affect active processes of memory (de Fockert, et al, 2001)

5. Hypothesis Motivation will only affect memory when it is presented at the time of encoding. Motivation presented while consolidation is occurring will have no significant effect.

6. Method Participants 40 participants, 10 per condition 24 females, 16 males Materials 50 words taken from neutral stimulus word lists Belleza, Greenwald, & Banaji (1986); Balota & Lorch (1986) Filler tasks Manipulation check & questionnaire

7. Method cont. General Procedure (Control Condition) Word list presentation Filler task (30 min.) Recall Manipulation checks Payment and/or Debriefing

8. Method cont. Procedure IV #1: when motivation is presented  Encoding  Consolidation (15 min. in)  Recall (30 min. in) IV #2: Red or Black word (within Ss)

9. Results Repeated measures ANOVA More Black words remembered than red F=(1, 36) = 3.89, p<.06 Qualified by interaction between color and condition F=(3, 36) =5.54, p <.01

10. Graph for repeated measures interaction

11. Results One-Way ANOVA proportions Red/Total Correct F(3, 36) = 5.41, p <.01  Encoding Condition

12. Results cont.

13. Discussion Motivation has to be present at encoding to affect memory Motivation has no effect when presented at the time of consolidation processes Extraneous information is disregarded due to the efficiency of the brain Limited storage and capacity Color was not encoded (not deemed important by the central executive) and therefore was never stored into the long term

14. Discussion cont. Future research It would be interesting to find out whether motivation can affect information which has been previously stored. For instance, if color had been encoded into the long term, then could motivation affect the amount of particularly colored words remembered?