Godden & Baddeley
Aim: To investigate the effects of context cues on recall. To see whether words learned in the same environment they are recalled in are recalled better than in a different environment to learning. To see if this applies in a natural setting, words learned and recalled either on land or under water.
Procedure: 18 diving club pp’s took part in a repeated measures design consisting of 4 conditions – learning words on land and recalling on land, learning words on land, recalling under water; learning under water recalling under water, learning under water, recall on land. In the underwater condition this was at 20ft below surface.
They had to learn 38 unrelated words which they heard twice during the learning stage. This was played through a diving communication device and the words were presented in blocks, with a 4 second interval in between to ensure the noise of the breathing apparatus did not affect hearing. As a distraction they then had to listen to and write down 15 numbers. There were 24 hours between conditions and the study conducted over 4 days. PP’s were tested in pairs.
Findings: Around 50% better recall when learning and recall are the same, 40% more words were forgotten when the condition changed. Recall for learning on land and recall on land was 13.5 compared to 8.6 when they learned the words on land and had to recall under water.
Conclusion: environmental cues do improve recall and supports cue dependent theory
Evaluation:
Generalisability: The sample of divers is representative only for other divers. The findings cannot be generalised to all cases of context cues. 18 pp’s is a small sample size to generalise from, and the divers had different diving ability, so it may not represent the target population fully.
Reliability: They controlled times of learning and recall and intervals between conditions. All pp’s experienced the same controls therefore it is reliable as it can be replicated. However, not everything was controlled fully such as weather conditions or fitness of the divers. Although it is unlikely, there is also the possibility that the divers cheated. Also when changing environment there may have been more opportunity to rehearse...or greater interference. This may make the findings unreliable. Also a high number of words were still not recalled even when in the same learning environment. This suggests there must be other explanations for forgetting other than cues.
Application to real life: As it shows recall is increased when in the same environment, this is useful for police collecting information as it suggests taking witnesses back to the scene of the crime could help them recall more information.
Validity: PP’s were divers so this was a natural environment for them so it has ecological validity. However Learning/recalling words under water is an unrealistic task which means it lacks ecological validity due to the nature of the task.
Aim: To investigate the effects of context cues on recall. To see whether words learned in the same environment they are recalled in are recalled better than in a different environment to learning. To see if this applies in a natural setting, words learned and recalled either on land or under water.
Procedure: 18 diving club pp’s took part in a repeated measures design consisting of 4 conditions – learning words on land and recalling on land, learning words on land, recalling under water; learning under water recalling under water, learning under water, recall on land. In the underwater condition this was at 20ft below surface.
They had to learn 38 unrelated words which they heard twice during the learning stage. This was played through a diving communication device and the words were presented in blocks, with a 4 second interval in between to ensure the noise of the breathing apparatus did not affect hearing. As a distraction they then had to listen to and write down 15 numbers. There were 24 hours between conditions and the study conducted over 4 days. PP’s were tested in pairs.
Findings: Around 50% better recall when learning and recall are the same, 40% more words were forgotten when the condition changed. Recall for learning on land and recall on land was 13.5 compared to 8.6 when they learned the words on land and had to recall under water.
Conclusion: environmental cues do improve recall and supports cue dependent theory
Evaluation:
Generalisability: The sample of divers is representative only for other divers. The findings cannot be generalised to all cases of context cues. 18 pp’s is a small sample size to generalise from, and the divers had different diving ability, so it may not represent the target population fully.
Reliability: They controlled times of learning and recall and intervals between conditions. All pp’s experienced the same controls therefore it is reliable as it can be replicated. However, not everything was controlled fully such as weather conditions or fitness of the divers. Although it is unlikely, there is also the possibility that the divers cheated. Also when changing environment there may have been more opportunity to rehearse...or greater interference. This may make the findings unreliable. Also a high number of words were still not recalled even when in the same learning environment. This suggests there must be other explanations for forgetting other than cues.
Application to real life: As it shows recall is increased when in the same environment, this is useful for police collecting information as it suggests taking witnesses back to the scene of the crime could help them recall more information.
Validity: PP’s were divers so this was a natural environment for them so it has ecological validity. However Learning/recalling words under water is an unrealistic task which means it lacks ecological validity due to the nature of the task.