1.
Based on the title of the article, what type of claim do you think the researchers are making (i.e., causal, association, or frequency). Explain your answer.

The title of the article is “Brief Sleep After Learning Keeps Emotional Memories Alive for Years” which predicts a causal claim. I believe the researchers are making a causal claim because the title does not use verb phrases that are linked with association claims such as prefers, predict, or tied to. The title also does not use descriptive statistics to describe one variable, which would lead to a frequency claim. The title also infers the use two variables where one is a manipulated independent variable.

2.
What hypothesis or hypotheses did the study attempt to test?

The study attempted to test the effect of brief sleep or lack of sleep after learning new material and its’ affect on how well emotional memories are remembered.

3.
What was/were the primary independent variable(s) of the study?

The primary independent variable was the amount of sleep the participants received.

4.
How was/were the independent variable(s) operationalized?

The independent variable was operationalized in two levels where one level was a 3-hour interval of wakefulness and the other was a 3-hour interval of sleep after learning. Sleep was measured and monitored …show more content…
Sleep after learning specifically enhanced long-term retention of emotional texts as confirmed statistically in the hierarchical loglinear analysis. Retention for neutral texts had no significant difference between sleep and wake conditions while emotional text memories were enhanced more after sleeping compared with those who remained awake. Recognition performance significantly exceeded chance level per se after 4 years only when subjects had learned emotional texts and slept