Verbal Learning Research Paper Essay Research Paper

Verbal Learning Research Paper Essay, Research Paper

Verbal Learning 1

Running head: Comparison of High and Low Similarity Verbal

Comparison of High and Low Similarity Verbal Learning

Retention in College Students

Jenny A. Rosario

Hunter College in

City University of New York

Verbal Learning 2

Method

Participants

The participants were 1 white male and 1 black female ages 21 and 26, respectively. The male participant, who was tested with the High Similarity (HS) condition, knew four languages (Russian, Polish, French and English). The female participant, tested with the Low Similarity (LS) condition, knew two languages (English and French). Although both participants were college students, they varied in the number of years they had been in school, the male was an undergraduate junior and the female was working on her second bachelors. Both participants were honor students.

The final results for this experiment were all of the data pooled from the students in my experimental class. Each student contributed two additional participants to the experiment. These participants were 13 males and 13 females ranging in ages from 15 to 44 years olds (M = 25). Education ranged from 12 years to 23 years of school (M = 15.2). Half of these participants were given the HS task and the other half were given the LS task. As it turns out, the group given the HS task were older (M =27) and more educated (M =16.28) than the group that was given the LS task (M =23 years old and M =14.14 years of education).

Apparatus

Before the experiment, I prepared 11stimuli cards with one of the following nonsense syllable in each: FAP, ZET, KIB, XEL, ROF, GEV, LOZ, BEX, NAJ, WEM and PIV in that order. I prepared a second set of 11 cards I would later use only with the

Verbal Learning 3

participant doing the HS condition. These were paired words where on one side I wrote the pair of words and on the other side I only wrote the first stimuli word. The words were paired in the following manner: DOG-GAK, TAN-XOM, CAR-VUR, BAT-SEJ, WAR-DEH, BUN-KAL, NET-TEG, HOG-XEN, FIN-YEC, GUN-LOF, and PAD-BIW. All syllable words were hand printed on 3×5in index cards, 22 cards in all were used. I also prepared, on regular lined paper, instructions and places where each participant could write down any necessary answers, or use as scrap paper for the LS condition. Aside from that, the only other item used was a watch with a second hand to keep track of time.

Procedure

To begin the experiment, I met with each participant (at separate times) in a quiet room where the participant could sit comfortably and concentrate for the experiment. Before we began, I asked each subject to sign an informed consent. Both subjects agreed to the conditions and signed the form. I then sat across from the participant at a table (about 3ft away), asked the subject if they were ready, and began showing them the first list of words. In my HS and LS condition, I displayed each card for 4 sec once and asked the participant to anticipate what the next card would be before I presented it. I manually recorded each of the responses the participant gave me. I continued to repeat the list until the participant successfully predicted the list once.

To my HS participant, I proceeded to show the second list with the paired word-nonsense word. After presenting the list once, I turned the cards over, showed the participant the stimulus word and asked the participant to tell me what the paired word was. In this part

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of the experiment, however, there was a 15min time limit, regardless of whether the participant could memorize the list. Once the 15mins were up, I gave my participant a sheet and asked him to list all the words that he could remember from the original list. As it happened, my participant was able to correctly recall all 11 words, had he been unsuccessful, I would have had to re-teach him the list and record how many trials it took him to relearn it.

To my LS participant, I asked her to list all prime number from 1-100. Because she finished this exercise before the 15min were up, I had her do various addition and division problems using the prime numbers. When the time was up, I handed her a piece of paper and asked her to write down as many words as she could recall from the list she had memorized. Once that was done, and because she successfully recalled all 11 words, I thanked her and informed her that the experiment was over.

Results

The results that follow are based on the information gathered from the whole class. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. With that in mind, I found there was no significant difference in the number of trials it took for the HS (M=9.71, SD=4.2) and LS (M=10.43, SD=3.75) groups to learn the words, t (26) = -0.456, p = 0.651, two-tail. Also, there wasn’t any significant difference in the number of items recalled after the distraction period for the HS (M= 9.36, SD=1.67) and LS (M= 9.71, SD=1.28); t (26) = -0.61, p = 0.546, two-tailed. In addition, there also was no significant difference between the HS (M=2.21, SD=1.03) and LS (M=1.93, SD=1.61) in the number of trials it took for them to

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re-learn the original list: t (26) = 0

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