Essay: The System of Memory and its effects in Education

In the experiments conducted by Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner, the system of memory which includes encoding, storage, and retrieval is tested to determine whether or not individuals now utilize computers as an external memory storage. They hypothesize that people have developed a transactive memory with computers that performs the cognitive processes in memory collectively with technology and when individuals are primed by unknown information, they look to computers. (Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011). The group conducted four experiments in total, 2 of which are of great interest. The first experiment tests whether an individual will automatically respond to not knowing an answer to a question by searching for the information on the internet, while the third experiment evaluates people’s ability to recall the location of the information rather than the information itself.
The first experiment was a two within-subject, counter-balanced block design experiment. Participants were given 16 easy questions and 16 hard questions (independent variable). All of the questions, regardless of difficulty, were answered with either yes or no. Following each block of 16 questions, participants completed a modified Stroop Task (independent variable). In the modified Stroop task, words relating to either computers and search engines (target words) or other general terms were given either a blue or red color. The target words were inserted to prime the participants to the thought of search engines and computers. An increased reaction time (dependent variable) in naming the color of the word would signal experimenters to the presence of priming from the previous questions and evidence that those participants where thinking about computers and search engines when they did not know the answer. The results show that there was a significant difference between the reaction times between computers and general words (Sparrow et al., 2011).
For the experimenters, this demonstrated that when individuals do not know information, they automatically think about searching for it through computers and search engines. However, their experiment measured the correctness level of each block of questions and compared it to the results of the modified Stroop Task. The correlation between not knowing information and seeking to search for the answer on a computer would have been stronger if they provided a third option, “Do not know”. If this was included into their study, participants would be able to explicitly share to the experimenters that they did not know the information instead of simply guessing and possibly getting the right answer.
The third experiment explores an individual’s capability in recalling the information and remembering where the material specifically came from. The participants were asked to type statements into the computer. Three within-subject conditions were created by the computer showing either that the statement was erased, saved in general, or saved in one of the 6 specific folders (independent variable). Then they completed a 3-question recognition exercise. These questions assessed the participant’s memory for the original statement, whether he/she could recall if the statement was saved or erased, and the specific location of the information (dependent variables). The results of the experiment were that participants who believed that their statements were erased had the best memory of the actual information, subjects who believed that the information was saved best recalled the statements that were saved, and participants could not consistently recall the location of the information which had been saved into a specific folder (Sparrow et al., 2011).
The results of the experiment show that there is a difference in recall between thinking that you will have later access to information and that you will not have access, but the experimental design was not without flaws. One weakness was the unregulated amount of time each individual had in typing the statements into the computer. Because of varying typing speeds, some participants could have had increased exposure to the statement. This could have had positive benefits on their recall but negative effects on the data for the question “Was this statement exactly what you read?”. Another flaw is in the differences in cognitive load between remembering a statement and recalling the folder names. Participants had to remember 6 folder names compared to 30 complex statements. The experiment should have included more folder names to compensate for the greater number of statements in order to make a connection between the location of the information and the information itself.
Overall, the experiments make a strong claim for transactive memory with computers as well as supports the hypothesis that the belief of not having access to information in the future increases memory retention for the information. However, the experiments focused on a short term study rather than a long term. In another set of experiments, Averell and Heathcote measured memory degradation over a one-month period, where they administered stem-cued recall (explicit memory) and a stem completion test (implicit memory) on a collection of words. The purpose was to determine whether memories completely dissipated over time. Their results showed that memory retention was variable and some memories persisted while others disappeared. Factors such as cued recall and priming could in fact influence the retention of memories (Averell, & Heathcote, 2009). In light of this study, my experiment focuses on memory retention over a longer period of time and how the belief of either having access to material in the future or not having access influences that memory.
My experimental proposal involves a between-subject experiment with a counter-balanced block design over a one-week period. Subjects will be told that they will read a collection of short and long narratives and after one week will be tested on the material through “yes/no/don’t know” questions. The purpose of utilizing narratives is to increase the cognitive load and the complexity of the information being encoded. Because of the extended time between the initial information and the questions, Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve is important to acknowledge. The curve predicts that within one week, individuals lose about 75% of the encoded information (Murre, & Dros, 2015). Therefore, a one-week wait period would allow a sufficient amount of information to be absorbed as well as lost. I hypothesize that there will not be a significant difference between these two groups and therefore having access or not having access to information in the future is negligible in memory retention over a longer-period of time.
A total number of 60 participants will be collected and split into two groups. One group will be told that they will have access to the material before the yes/no/don’t know trivia questions, while the other group will be told that they will not have access (independent variable). Participants in each group will read one block of 6 short stories and one block of 6 long stories. The order of the blocks will be alternated between subjects. To control the amount of time a participant has to the information or stimulus, participants will have 3 minutes to read each short story and 6 minutes to read each long story. After one week, the participants will be called back into the experiment room. Each group will not have the opportunity to read the narratives again. The participants will receive a set of “yes/no/don’t know” questions, which includes information from 2 of the 6 short narratives and 2 of the 6 long narratives. The test will have 40 questions in total with 10 questions from each narrative. The points for the assessment are as follows: 1 point for a correct answer, -1 for a wrong answer, 0 for “don’t know” answer. The scores for each group will be averaged and compared between the two groups.
The results will yield an outcome contrary to the findings in the study by Sparrow et al. Because of the longevity of this experiment, participants will be prone to a higher variability in forgetting. The 75% memory loss, previously stated, is an estimate (Murre, & Dros, 2015). The variation in forgetting combined with the thought of the information being accessible in the future or not being accessible will cause an experimental outcome that shows that there is not a significant difference between each group. Therefore, the belief of having access or not having access does not influence memory retention over a longer period of time.
Many of the variables are controlled such as the time constraint and cognitive loading; however, the variance in narratives is of concern and is a limitation in my experiment. Although each narrative will undergo a substantial amount of critical inspection for features such as structure and reading level, the content of some narratives compared to others may be easier or more difficult. Thereby, affecting the participants’ ability to recall information and answer the “yes/no/don’t question”.
Although the experiment by Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner did support the conclusion that humans have formed a transactive memory with computers (Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011), their study did not extend for more than a day for each participant and therefore does not include factors such as memory degradation and long-term recall. The results from my experiment could be applied to how professors provide resources to their students. For example, there are some professors that do not post their lectures or other materials online in order to prime their students’ attention in the classroom. My experiment shows that believing that you will have access to the information in the future versus believing that you will not have access yield the same results in memory retention and recall over a long period of time. Therefore, classes would benefit by providing all the materials online for students to utilize to enhance their classroom performance.