Memory interference

Psychology Internal Assessment

NAME: Aldo muhammad hamka

Table of contents

Abstarct .......................................................................................................0
Introduction .................................................................................................1
Method .........................................................................................................1
Design ...............................................................................................1
Participants........................................................................................1
Materials ............................................................................................1
Procedures ..........................................................................................1
Results ...........................................................................................................
Discussion.......................................................................................................
References ....................................................................................................
Appendices.....................................................................................................
Standardized briefing............................................................................
Copy iof inform consent....................................................................
Calculations ...............................................................................................
Copy of materials...........................................................................................

Abstract

Introduction
Memory has been thought of as split into two functions, short term memory and long term
memory, since William James (1890) the one that first made the distinction between primary and
secondary memory. Whilst everyday language treats short term memory as though it contains a
lot of information, perhaps the events of the day, or at least the past few minutes or hours, reality
appears to be much different.
As the name says it short term memory has actually been found to have a very short time
limitation, to be exact is around 2 seconds (Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan, 1975).
Additionally, it has equally limits on its capacity, holding around seven items. Each item is called
a chunk, and it can contain anything from a single letter to an entire phrase. For example, random
letters would take up a chunk of space each, but a name will take up only one chunk, despite
containing a large number of letters.

The standard model of short term memory is very simple and seems unable to explain a lot of
data which has been collected on the area (Nairne, 2002). Because of this, the concept of short
term memory was replaced with that of working memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Baddeley,
1986) which consists of four parts (Baddeley, 2001), the central executive, used for controlling
and organising the other components, the phonological loop for storing speech-based
information, the visuo-spatial sketchpad for storing spatial and visual information, and the
episodic buffer, which holds and integrates information from the long term and working memory
stores (Eysenck & Keane, 2005).
The information goes on after that into the long term memory. Long term memory are a huge
continuing storage of information . This information is largely outside of our awareness, but it
can be called into working memory as the example of the episodic buffer so it can be used when
needed. Some of this information is fairly easy to recall, while other memories are much more
difficult to access. Long-term memory is usually divided into two types a declarative (explicit)
memory and procedural (implicit) memory.
Declarative includes all of the memories that are available in consciousness. Declarative
memory can be further divided into episodic memory (specific events) and semantic memory
(knowledge about the world).Procedural memory involves memories of body movement and
how to use objects in the environment.
Through the process of association and rehearsal, the content of short-term memory can become
long-term memory. While long-term memory is also susceptible to the forgetting process, longterm memories can last for a matter of days to as long as many decades.As it was possible to
someone to forget things that they have permanently placed in the LTM, i was interested with the
idea that even the was known the most valuable storage of our brain can be breached by the
information that are freshly known or learned. Evidence shown that fogetting in LTM are caused
by Interference .The thory assumed that the memory in our LTM can be disturb or interfered
by what the things we are already learned or we will learn in the future This theory believe that
the information in our LTM may become confused or combined with other information during
encoding thus distorting the memory that we already have.

This theory have three main kinds the proactive interference (PI ) , retroactive interference
(RI),and output interference (OI). Proactive interference are a difficulty in learning a new
information because of the already existing information, for n example if a person who used
drive with right steer car will get a difficulties if the drive a left steer car .Retroactive
interference are a difficulty of recalling information that have been learned if the new addition
information are learned , for example if you are a learning of how to speak english as time goes it
will be hard to speak your native language .And the last is output interference
There are many experiment and new suggestion about this theory , one of the first experiment of
this theory was conducted by Barnes and Underwood (1959) , they come up with an illusrative
experiment that was modefied from the Briggs (1954) experiment about retroactive interference
(RI) where they used 2 list of eight paired-associates (A-B) ,(A-C) .The participants was divide
into 2 groups ,those two group have to learn the (A-B) list until they have a perfect recall after
that one group take a rest and the other group study the second list (A-C), after that the two
group tried to recall the first list and the second list but the difference in briggs that in briggs
experiment they only tried to recall 1 list . The result shown that the group that study the second
list before recall the first list mix up the first list with the second list ,but some people showing
consistency in their answer .
Retroactive interference theory assumed that a new information can disturb the recall of previous
information, it is said that it was the result of decreased recall of the primary studied functions
due to the learning and recall of succeeding functions ,but as a contrass in the Briggs experiment
if the participant given 24 hours time before recalled the first list the spontaneous recovery
illustration as an account of Ai-Bi items (A-B) competing with Ai-Ci items(A-C).The idea
behind this experiment are the prove that even Long term memory can be disturb and somehow
change , although we cant consider it as forgotten it have the same concern as it. As i said the
idea of this experiment make me interested and somehow excited , although the information are
rarely found this experiment are somehow simple but hard in the process . the aim of this
experiment are to see if the retroactive interference will shown if the second list of eight pairedassociates (A-C) learned before recalling the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B) . The
experiment will be shown not much differences by the original experiment as it was the only

differences would be the way we will do the experiment and the eight paired associates would be
different as it was no list given on the information page that we found .
H 0 Null hypothesis : the effect of learning the second list of word before the recalling the first
list of words will give no significant effect on the participant recalling ability.
H 1 Experiment hypothesis : the effect of learning the second list of words before the recalling
the first list of words will give significant effect on the participant recalling ability.

______________________________________________________________________________

Method
Design

Independent sample design will be taken as technique of experiment. The reason we use the
independent sample design are because it is not possible to use the same participants in 2
experimental conditions as it will conflict with our experiment as they would remember the list
that was given on the first time to the second trial . Independent sample design are also used
because the participants will less likely to guess what is the hypothesis of the study ,althought
this is not the concern of our experiment as we demand the participants to have a perfect recall of
the list and it also to counter participants Naiveness and to avoid order effect .The independent
variables was the second list of words that given to the participant after the first list of word are
learned .And the dependent variable was the number of response correctly recalled and
identified with stimullus and list in the (A-B),(A-C )paradigm . We modify the consent that are
already described and the briefing are carried out the day before the experiment were excecuted
and the de-briefing are carried out afer the experiment was done.

Participants
There will be 20 paticipants consist of IB students vary from age 15-17 that have a mean of 16
years old. The reason behind we used a IB students are because the language from the briefing
until de-breifing are using english language and it required an english speaking student so the
experiment will success and the data will be comperhend. The sampling method that are chosen
are random to avoid subjective reason in the control group and experimental group , we use a
coupon system to make it random so the participant will take a coupon and if he/she got the
coupon were there said 1 he/she will be go to the experimental group and it also the same if
he/she got the 2 . As we interested of how the student tried to remember the list and how they
gonna perform when they tried to recall it and we hope that it will help them to know how they
perform within certain amount of time .

Materials

The materials are the 3 list of words the A list consist of animals name ,the B list consist of house
utensils name ,and the C list consist of cars developers name.The last is the inform consent that
the participant will get before the briefing.

Procedure of experiment
1.) The researchers introduce themselves and explain the objective of the experiment to the
target participants. The inform consent is delivered
2.) The researcher collected data of those are willing to participate in the experiment . The
researchers allocate the participant randomly into the experiment group (the group who
will be given the second list of eight paired- associates (A-C) after learned the first list of
eight paired-associates(A-B) )and the control group (the group who will be given a time
to rest after learned the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B) ) .
3.) On the day of the experiment , the participants were gathered .One class rooms are taken
for the experiment group and the control group. The standardized introduction is read
before the list of eight paired- associates (A-B) is given .The experiment and the control
group will be given time to studied the first list (A-B) until perfect recall.
4.) The control group was given time to rest as the experiment group studied the second
list(A-C) 5,10,15 or 20 times
5.) After the second list studied A paper was given to both of the groups and tested in the
recalling ability of the first list (A-B). After all the participants are finish the De-briefing
was conducted and the researcher told the participants what the experiments are about.

Result
Table
No

Experimental group
Participants number

Recalled data list

Control group
Participants list

Recalled data list

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Mean
Range
Standard
deviation
U value

6
4
7
8
7
6
8
8
8
7
6.9
2
1.22

11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

27

7
8
8
8
7
8
8
8
8
8
7.8
1
0.4
73

Graph
9
8
7
6
5

experimental group

control group

3
2
1
0
1

10

The table above shows how many (A-B) pair that the participants recalled correctly it measured
by the correct pair. The mean number of the control group are 7.8 and 6.9 for the experimental
group. We also counted the range to know the difference between the two extreme points on the
distribution curve, where the value of the function falls to zero and standard deviation for

measurement of variability or diversity which resulted for range 2 for experimental group and 1
for control group , as for the standard deviation it resulted 1.22 for experimental group and 0.4
for control group. All the data above shown that there is more diversity in value on the
experimental group other than control group.
To test the significance of the result `

Discussion
Refferences
http://simplypsychology.org/forgetting.html
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html
http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Interference_theory#Span_Performance
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~sschmidt/Cognitive/Forgetting.pdf

appendices

Psychology IA
Name:

Group:

Class:

Answer sheet

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Psychology IA
List of words

--

Cat

furnance

Dog

table

Lion

chair

Bear

lamp

Panda

wardrobe

Whale

mirror

Penquin

laptop

Horse

printer

Psychology IA
List of words

--

Cat

Honda

Dog

Toyota

Lion

Ferrari

Bear

Aston Martin

Panda

Ford

Whale

General motor

Penquin
Horse

Dear parents/guardian,

Chevrolet
Porche

We are from grade 12 students, we are doing a psychology research about

Your son/ daughter will take part as a contributor of our investigation

We ensure that there will be no physical damage or psychological

Your son/ daughter have their own right to withdraw or leave the
research

We are responsible for confidentiality (privacy) for the outcome

Your son/daughter will be debriefed at the end and have a opportunity to find out the
results

We need your collaboration and support by giving your son/ daughter

Tange
rang, August ,11,2011

)
(
)

Students
name
name

Parents

Standardized Briefing
Preliminary:
Good afternoon senior high students
Today were from grade 12 want to ask for your help to become our
participants at psychology experiment to complete our IA . the paper that i
already distributed beforehand are the inform consent that should be shown
and sign by your parents and yourself .It is important that your parents know
about this .
The experiment will be held on Tuesday , August 16 , 2011 . it will be
conducted after school at the audio visual room. We expect you to come on
time and tell us beforehand if you cant come as it would be better for us
all .We really need your participation . Thank you for your attention . Do you
guys have any question ?
Introduction:
Good afternoon guys
Thank you for coming . Today we will conduct our experiment . Its about
memory interference . Our aim is investigate the effect of a pressence of
interference during the recall the memory . You have the right to withdraw
from the research . And now we are about to start , please be seated
according to your group , group one in the front and group 2 at the back and
make some space . Thank you
Experiment :
We will give you a paper. All you need to do are memorize the list of words in
pair so it is A-B not all A and all B .we will gove you time to memorize as
much as you need .
If you guys already finish we would like the group 2 to leave the room to rest

For the group 1 we would like you to corporate with us even further and tried
to memorize the second list of words that are paired A-C same as before we
will give you time 5 minutes to memorize it.
For group 1 and 2 we would like you to recall what you have memorize in this
sheet of paper that already given and tried to recall as many as possible in
pair.

Closing :
Thank you for your cooperation . And know we will reveal our intention for
doing this experiment. As you guys know that we are investigating the
memory interference we would like to know that the pressence of the A-C list
of words that was given to the 1 group will affect their answer of recalling the
A-B list of words. Do not worry because we will keep the confidentialy of your
result and we will let you know of our experiment result and we will give the
copy of it if you need it . sorry for taking your time . Thank you