1. The Effects of Stress on Memory Final Project Research Design and Analysis Melissa VanToever Lauren McCreight

2. Introduction n Stress is inevitable in human life n Stress can have an extreme influence on the health of one’s body and mind n Biologically proven that stress can impact the ability of memory retrieval and recall n Found in extreme cases of memory loss such as child abuse.

3. Introduction cont... n Also found in acute stressful situations n Several studies have shown that people subjected to stressful conditions subsequently perform less effectively on tasks when they are stressed. n The aim of this study is to find whether or not stress plays an important role on memory recall.

4. Introduction cont... n The hypothesis we are using for this study is, stress has an impact on memory retrieval. n The null hypothesis is that stress does not affect one’s ability for memory retrieval.

5. Methods n Participants –40 in total, 20 in the control group, 20 in the experimental group. –Convenience sampling will be used –Acadia University library as a source of participants

6. Methods con’t... n Materials –very loud and obvious timer (to be used as a stressor). –a piece of paper, one side will have a short passage on it, the other side will have 15 questions. –A pencil

7. Methods con’t... n Stress for the purposes of this experiment is induced by a loudly ticking timer and vocal reminders of time at 30 seconds left, 15 seconds left and 5 seconds left.

8. Methods con’t... n Procedure –D.V. = how many of the answers to the questions on the previously read paragraph are correct. –I.V. = whether or not stress is introduced to the group. –Group A (the control group) will receive the first level of the IV which is no stress. –Group B (the experimental group) will receive the second level of the IV which is stress

9. Procedure cont... n Convenience sampling –Acadia University students working in the library will be used because of their close proximity of the students to the experimenters mass numbers –went cubicle to cubicle on first and third floors

10. Procedure cont... n Once participants agree to the experiment –consent form is thoroughly read and then signed. –Instructions on how to complete the experiment. –After completion participants will be given a debriefing.

11. Results n In the condition where the participants were under no stress the mean was in fact higher (M =11.4000, SD = 3.1855) n In the condition where participants were under stress the mean proved to be lower (M = 9.7000, SD = 2.7357)

13. Results con’t... n We used a one way ANOVA to test for significance, and found that our results were not significant at the Type I Error rate of.05. n (F = 1.480, p<.284) n The probabitity that our results could have happened by chance is.284 which is far to high.

14. Discussion n We did not find significance therefore our hypothesis that stress has an impact on memory was not proved. n Factors that may have influenced the findings are...

15. Discussion con’t... n peoples reading abilities –their ability to encode what they read after only one reading –for some people the time limit only allowed them to read the passage once while others who can read quickly may have gotten through it several times. –Some people do not feel stress from time limits, so the ticking clock would not have bothered them. –Also because there were no consequences to how well they did they may have not felt stressed to complete the passage, or to concentrate on it.

16. Discussion con’t... –Of course as always there may have been problems with using a convenient sample, and with the sample size. n To improve this study... –match participants on their reading abilities One way to do this would be timing each participant, while they read another passage then matching each participant in the control group with a participant in the experimental group with similar reading abilities.

17. Discussion con’t... n Also a random sample most often helps, with significance, and an increased sample may also have helped n We originally planned to use 30 in each group but because of students work loads we could only find 20 for each group to participate.

18. Thank you The End