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The effect of organisation of visual material on subsequent recall

Abstract

Fifteen participants were tested in a repeated measures experiment. They were shown two sheets of visual images, one of which was organised into categories, while the other one was uncategorised. Recall was significantly higher in the categorised condition. This supports the view that organised materials can provides cues, even when they do not appear obvious. The study suggests that cues are also available for visual material, not just verbal material.

Introduction

Memory is a very complex and interesting area of psychology. It can take several different forms and is made up of a variety of different cognitive and social processes. As memory is a regularly occurring phenomenon which an individual will use every day, it is important to carry out research into the different aspects of memory to gain a better understanding of it and to be able to manage and control it. There has been a lot of interest in improving memory through organisation. Miller (1956) showed that one way of improving recall from short-term memory is by ‘chunking’ the information as it comes in. This is the process of breaking a large object, such as a phone number down into several smaller sections to make it easier to remember. There has been more work carried out into recall from long-term memory, where items have recently been presented and/or learned. Mandler (1967, cited in Gross, 1996) used a pack of 52 cards with a word printed on its back and asked participants to organise them into seven columns. Half of the participants were also told to try and remember the words, but the other half weren’t. After five trials, they were tested on their ability to recall the words. Participants instructed to just organise the words were able to recall just as many words as those told to remember them, suggesting that organisation can produce just as much recall as learning alone. Bower, Clark, Lesgold & Winzenz (1969, cited in Gross, 1996) carried out a word-remembering task, where an experimental group were presented with 28 words organised in hierarchical form, while the control group were given 28 randomly-organised words. Out of a total of 112 words presented, the experimental group were able to recall a mean of 73 words, while the control group could only recall a mean of 21 words. Therefore, the organisation of objects can facilitate the retaining of them. The organisation of different materials within memory is key in avoiding forgetting from long-term memory storage. This is where the theory of cue-dependent memory comes from. Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) studied the effect of category cues in a classic study in which the participants had to learn lists of words, organised into categories with their category names provided. Participants were given lists of 12, 24 or 48 words, which contained one, two or four examples of categories, as well as the category name. However, they were only asked to remember the exemplars. Only half were given the category names as a cue; the others could only free-recall by writing the words on a sheet of paper. The group given the category names were able to recall far more words than the other group. When the group who previously were not given the category names were given them later, their recall improved as well. Therefore, available material can be made more accessible by providing cues. It is debateable whether materials which have been organised into categories, but without category names provided, can be better recalled than uncategorised materials. The current study is similar to Tulving and Pearlstone’s, except that it presented participants with items to be recalled which had been categorised but without category names provided. It also presented uncategorised materials. In addition, the items in the current study were visual images, rather than words, to see whether cue dependent effects could be found with visual, rather than verbal material. The present study investigated whether organised material is able to provide its own cues, which can aid in the recall process, and whether the same effect occurs with visual material. If this hypothesis is supported, a higher number of items would be expected to be recalled correctly in the organised materials condition.

Method

Design
A repeated measures experiment was conducted. The independent variable in the study was the level of organisation (whether images shown were organised into categories or were disorganised) and the dependent variable was the number of images recalled. A standardised procedure and instructions were employed. The two conditions were counter-balanced to avoid order effects.

Participants
Fifteen participants took part in the study. They comprised six men and nine women whose ages ranged from 16 to 55+, although the majority were in the 16-24 age range. The participants were a mixture of students at the university and adults in employment. They were selected through an opportunity sample, in which people available in the vicinity were haphazardly asked if they wished to participate. Friends of the researchers were also called and asked if they wanted to participate.

Materials
Each set of 21 images was presented on a sheet of A4 paper in seven lines of three with each image measuring about 3.5 x 2 cms. One of these sheets had the images arranges into categories, (e.g. transportation, animals and drinks.) while the other had a haphazardly selected group of objects that had no relation to each other. (e.g. a pair of skis, a tree, a mobile phone and a bucket.) The images came from the internet. A consent and debrief form to be filled out by participants and an instruction sheet were also provided. Chocolates were used to reward participants when they had completed the procedure.

Procedure
The study was carried out in a quite cubicle room in the Kedleston Road library, which eliminated any outside distractions. When it was their turn each participant was taken into the room, where they were told how the study was carried out and that they had the right to withdraw at any time. They then signed the consent form to show that they agreed to participate. After that, they were shown the slides. Participants with odd numbers were shown the disorganised images first slide for a minute and asked to memorise as many pictures from it as possible. They then had two minutes to write down as many objects from the pictures on the slides that they could remember. They were then shown the organised images and the procedure was repeated. Participants with even numbers were shown the two sheets in the reverse order. After they had finished, all participants were debriefed using the debrief form and rewarded for taking part in the study.

Results

The number of items correctly recalled was higher for the categorised condition (M =18.3; S = 2.4) than the non-categorised condition (M =14.2; S =2.3), although the standard deviations were very similar, suggesting that individual differences in performance were similar in the two conditions. Data for both conditions were not significantly skewed and there was no significant kurtosis so the data were assumed to fit a normal distribution. Since the data were considered to be interval level scores, the means were tested with a related t test.

The effect of categorising material was highly significant, t(14) = 5.69, 2-tailed, p < .001. The alternative hypothesis was therefore supported.

The number of errors made in each condition was too small for analysis but these are discussed below.

Discussion

In the study, the hypothesis tested was that organisation of visual materials into categories can improve memory recall. The findings were that participants were able to recall far more images in the categorised condition than in the uncategorised one. Therefore, the hypothesis was supported. The findings from the present study provide evidence for the theory that memory organisation can improve recall and support the findings of similar studies (e.g. Bower et al, 1969), even though no recall cues were provided contrary to Tulving and Pearlstone’s 1966 study. This suggests that cues don’t have to be overt to help memory and that participants can work them out themselves. As in Bower’s study, there may not need to be cues at all and the objects just need to be organised into categories. During the course of the study, several participants made errors where they guessed items not on the lists, but never more than one error per participant on each trial. Three errors were made on the uncategorised test and six on the categorised one. This could be because the categorised trial was easier, so participants might have been more confident and ambitious and made more guesses. The design appeared to be appropriate, especially with the inclusion of counterbalancing. However, it is possible that counterbalancing may not have been effective, e.g. if there was an asymmetrical order effect. The problem of order effects could be solved by using an independent measures design with large groups of, say, 20 participants in case there were people in the group with either very good or very poor memories.

References

Gross,.D.(1996) Psychology: The science of mind and behaviour. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Miller, G.A. (1956) The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. The Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. Retrieved from: http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/, 31st December 2009.

Tulving,E. and Pearlstone, Z. (1966) Availability versus accessibility of information in memory for words. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 5, 381-391. Retrieved from http://step.psy.cmu.edu/articles/Tulving66.doc 31st December, 2009.