Cognitive experiment: Free Recall experiment.

From previous chapters, we had been illustrates about what is Free Recall experiment, and perhaps, by now, we should have the ideas about it. Again, Free Recall experiment is an experiment where the participants are required to report everything they see in the display of items, where usually the items are fixed numbers of random letters. Anderson and Bower (1972) had explained deeper insight on Free Recall experiment where it involves two essential process where (1) retrieval process and (2) cognitive process where the participants need to confirm the item is the to-be-recall item. Five (5) participants were involved in this experiment, where the participants are group members itself, Ruth, Bavani, Shalini, Anusha, and Zuhair. Among the group members, theres only one male participant, Zuhair, and the rest are female. For the experiment itself, five (5) studies consist of different methods and environment we deliberately chose in order to explore cognitive-related differences among our group members. Study 1 This study solely to find out the standard short-term memory and working memory for each member, where each of us only needed to observes ten (10) random letters without using any strategy in memorizing (e.g. chunking), and report the whole letters each of us observed. Study 2 In the second study, the core method is similar with Study 1, but at the same time, the participants asked to subvocalize, which mean we have to talk oneself, during observing the ten letters. We made this method in order to confirm if subvocalize technique can enhance the

working and short-term memory, also if this technique have similar effectiveness when applied at different situation. Study 3 Participants (each of us) were told to chunking the ten letters randomly shows to each of us. This study is made in order to confirm the effectiveness of chunking strategy and to find out if this strategy has similar effectiveness in different situation. Study 4 The purpose of this study is to find out which working memory component is better, either visuospatial sketchpad or phonological loop, where each of participant have to listen ten different letters which randomly said out loud. The result of Study 3 then compares with result Study 1, and analyzes the differences. Study 5 This study a bit difficult, where each participant has to listen the letters (Study 3) but at the same time have to identify the letters location at the computers keyboard. The purpose of this study is to find if there is difference between genders in recognizing the letters pattern location at the keyboard.

Results Study Study 1 Participant Anusha Bavani Ruth Shalini Zuhair % of letters recall 70% 70% 80% 80% 70%

Study 2

Anusha Bavani Ruth Shalini Zuhair

70% 70% 80% 90% 90%

Study 3

Anusha Bavani Ruth Shalini Zuhair

80% 90% 90% 80% 90%

Study 4

Anusha Bavani Ruth Shalini Zuhair

70% 70% 90% 90% 80%

Study 5

Anusha Bavani Ruth Shalini Zuhair

70% 70% 80% 70% 90%

TABLE 1: The percentage of total recall for each participant on five studies in quiet and calm situation.

Discussion. By looking at the result for Study 1, where each participant have to memorize without using any techniques such as chunking and report ten letters they observed, female (Ruth & Shalini) have better recall percentage correctness than the rest. According to them (Ruth & Shalini), they are able to recall better because of emotional factor. They explained that since they both are the first and second person who started this study, so they lacks of feeling nervous or fear to be compares by other participants who among group members itself. This explanation are supported by Ashby, Valentin and Turken, from a book entitled Emotion Cognition: From Brain to Behaviour written by Moore and Oaksford (2002), where from neuropsychological view, emotional state of a person having can influence the ability of central executive in short-term memory. The reason of this phenomenon occurs can be exclusively referred to Cochran, Lee and Chowns (n.d) work, where according to them, with the level of arousal increasing, it will enhance the persons psychomotors functions, which can increase the persons performance. But, that theory can only apply when the arousal occurs moderately, which mean if the arousal is too much for a person to handle, it can directly inhibit motivation as well as concentration,

whereby will reduce a persons performance. Performance in this sense can be referring to both learning and memory. Next is Study 2, where the participant asked to memorize by subvocalizing the observed letters. By referring to the results, for Study 2, the percentage of letters recall are slightly higher than the previous study (Study 1), where the percentage of letters recall for Zuhair increases by 20%, followed by Shalini which is 10%, and for the rest of participants, no change. Roughly, the recall percentages for participants in second study are better compared to Study 1. In order to understand these phenomena, Smith, Wilson, and Reisberg have the explanation. According to them, covert rehearsal (subvocalize) can give advantages on cognitive functions. Its because explicitly, short-term memory of verbal material appears to rely on a phonological loop with two components, where (1) a short-term store that represent the material in the phonological form, and (2) rehearsal process that retains this material, represents it to store longer the material, where the contents are refreshes and preserves continuously. Other than that, subvocalization also plays some role in auditory imagery, where according to Reisberg, Smith, Baxter, and Sonenshine, this role create an effect which makes certain words and phrases to repeated over and over again, that makes the task easily to recall information. Now, for Study 3, generally, the percentages of letters recall for this study are higher than the results of previous studies. This is because according to several articles such as by Sargent, Dopkins, Philbecks and Chichka (n.d), and Gilbert, Boucher, and Jemel (n.d), claimed that any chunking techniques, either goal-oriented chunking, which is deliberate and conscious control of chunking process, or perceptual chunking, where it can be elaborate as automatic and continuous process during perception, both can increase the total recall of humans memory. Plus, according to Gobet, Lane, Croker, Cheng, Jones, Oliver, and Pine (2001), the best result of chunks can be

done when a person integrate both goal-oriented and perception chunking. They claimed it to be effective because the nature of goal-oriented chunking which is can increase the sensitivity and durability of attention since it is deliberately activated, facilitated by the nature of perceptual chunking, which is spontaneous and continuously memorizing, undoubtedly the items will be able to recall easily. From the result table, all participants scored 90% total recall, unless Anusha and Shalini. According to them, the reason they obtained less than the other participants because of the letters that they have to memorize. They elaborated, that the letters that they have to memorize have low degree of proximity and similarity in terms of letters figure, such as (O and Q),( I, L, and T),( F and E), and phonemes, such as C (see), B (bee), T (tee), and D (dee). Plus, Sargent, Dopkins, Philbecks and Chichka (n.d) also supported that spatial degree of letters similarity and proximity can affects the ones ability to form chunk and at the same time, memorizing the items. The next study (Study 4) is concerned about comparison between working memory, which is visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop, in terms of recalls. The results of Study 4 are compared with results from Study 1 since Study 1 resemblance visuospatial sketchpad and Study 4 represent phonological loop, and the task for both studies are similar, which is to memorize the 10 letters.