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Summary Grant et al. (1998) - study on the effect of silent or noisy study and exam environments
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Grant et al. (1998): Study on the effect of silent or noisy study andexam environments
Background
Context dependent memory – improved recall of specific episodes of information
when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. We are more likely
to remember something in the same environment we learn it in.
Grant et al were interested in determining whether environmental context
dependency effects would be found with the type of material and test typically
encountered in schools. Their focus was more on studying conditions rather than
testing conditions because students tend to have more control over where and how
they study compared to where and how they are tested.
Previous research and observations showed that many students study material in
settings that are very different to the test conditions. This often included study
background noise from family, friends, TV and music whereas test settings tend to be
silent.
Aim
To test the effect of noise as a source of context on the studying and retrieval of
meaningful material in an academic context.
A focus on changing the learning context was important as students can choose
where to study, but not where they are tested.
Participants
8 members of a psychology laboratory class served as experimenters.
Each experimenter recruited 5 acquaintances to serve as participants.
There were 39 participants aged 17-56. 17 females, 23 males.
Method and Design
Laboratory experiment using independent measures design.
IVs – whether the participant read a two-page article under silent or noisy conditions
(study context), whether the participant was tested under matching or mismatching
conditions to the study (test context). The independent variables of the study
context and test context were manipulated in an independent measures design
producing a total of 4 conditions:
Matching Study context: silent Study context: noisy
Test context: silent Test context: noisy
Mismatching Study context: noisy Study context: silent
Test context: silent Test context: noisy
DV – the participants’ performance on a short answer recall test and a multiple-
choice test
Each experimenter ran one participant for each of the 4 conditions, and an
additional participant for one of the conditions as assigned by the instructor.
Experimenters randomly assigned their participants to their 5 conditions.
Materials
Each experimenter provided his/her own cassette tape player and headphones. The
8 cassettes were exact copies made from a master tape of background noise during
lunchtime in a university cafeteria. It was made sure that complete sentences were
not audible; the background noise consisted of occasional distinct words or phrases
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