Effect Of Contextual Image On Recall Of A Story

The cognitive approach to behavior is the study of processing information within the human brain. The mental activities that involved thinking and remembering is known as cognition. Within the cognitive memory was the schema theory which claimed that our knowledge regarding the world is organized and classified, thus can influence behavior. Schemas that existed within the brain are called “mental frameworks” where memories were stored in the brain (Piaget 1936). Schemas worked in two different manners, assimilation and accommodation in order to better understand information.

Assimilation made use of existing schemas in order to understand the world, whereas accommodation was the act of adjusting your schema in order to take in new information (Piaget 1936). Although schemas helped to form memories, Cohen (1993) argued that the idea of schemas are simply too vague to understand. The Bransford and Johnson (1972) experiment has been replicated and modified to investigate different results. The initial aim of the study was to explore the role of context (in this study a picture) to understand the recall process of a passage. The story presented to the subjects consisted of regular English construction and vocabulary. Group one received appropriate prerequisite knowledge, in the form of a picture before recited the story to.

On the other hand, group two was given no prerequisite knowledge prior to listening to the story. The findings of the study displayed that participants who received prerequisite knowledge were able to better recall information regarding the passage in comparison to the participants who did not receive prior knowledge. Bransford and Johnson (1972) experiment hypothesis is that participants who were given the picture beforehand would be able to answer more comprehension questions as their schemas activated information specific to the memory of the story. This study illustrated how the presence of contextual information allows for better recall and comprehension of a story. The aim of the experiment is to investigate in a highschool student population whether the presence of contextual information would influence the comprehension and recall of information in the form of a questionnaire.

The schema theory is important to the study as it shows how memory is stored/understood through schemas. It is also important because because it can applied in school to find new teaching methods for more effective studying. The null hypothesis is that there will be no significant difference in mean number of correct answers on the questionnaire when presented with the picture while listening to the story and when only listening to the story. The research hypothesis is that participants who see the picture along with the story will answer more questions correctly on the questionnaire than those participants who listen to the story without the picture. The independent variable is whether or not a picture is depicted to the participants while listening to the story; the dependent variable is the number of accurate responses on the questionnaire. Exploration: This experiment made use of an independent samples design. Each group was given a five question questionnaire that would test comprehension of the story. The participant sample consisted of an IB Theory of Knowledge (TOK) class.

There were 13 participants: 7 participants who received the picture (context) and 6 participants who did not receive the picture (context). Opportunity sampling technique was used in this experiment in order to assure a quick and organized method. Since the TOK class was one of the available classes during the time, it was simplest and convenient to use. Additionally, by using students in the IB program, we were anticipating to have a greater reason for motivation within the participants, allowing them to see the importance of an internal assessment. In order to pre record a story, we first thought about the subject of our story (science, math, history, etc). Then we examined the original study and choose one of the stories and pictures that would connect to our experiment (Bransford and Johnson 1972). We made sure that the story was easy to read and that the picture was easy to analyze. After picking the story and image we had four students read the story and examine the picture in order to ensure it made sense. After making sure the story and image were accurate, we finalized both and recorded the story.

When conducting the experiment, all participants were informed about the nature of the study and were then asked to sign a consent form if they were willing to participate; the consent form ensured that the participants were 16 years or older and had the right to withdraw from the experiment at any given time. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups using an online number generator. Group B was sent outside the testing site to wait while the experiment was being performed on Group A. A story about a balloon popping was narrated to the participants in Group A. During the story, a picture with contextual information was displayed to Group A on a projector as the story was being narrated. The prerecorded story was played for the participants in Group A to listen to. When the story was finished, participants were shown a minute long video as a distractor task. Participants were asked to flip over their paper and complete the questionnaire related to the story within 3 minutes. Once finished answering the questions, Group A was asked to leave the testing site and Group B was asked to come back into the same room. Group B received the same questionnaire as Group A placed face down on their desk. The same pre-recorded story was played for the participants without the picture. When the recording was over, participants were shown the same minute long video as a distractor as Group A. Participants were given 3 minutes to answer the questionnaire. Group A was asked to come back into the testing site. Once the experiment was completed, participants were debriefed of the experiment and informed that they could obtain experiment results from the researchers. AnalysisIn order to provide a richer and more visual interpretation of our data, we collected data from each participant, took the mean value of correct/incorrect data, and the standard deviation. By taking the standard deviation, we were able to represent the variation between each of the participants, creating a clear picture of the dispersion of information.

Comparison of the mean number of the correct answers in both conditionsAs the data presents above, Group A who was presented with the contextual image answered the questions 0. 86 times more correctly than Group B who was not given the contextual image. Despite the difference in the number of times each group answered the questions correctly, there were some questions in which participants of both groups answered incorrectly and correctly. For example, question number 3 asking whether buildings tend to be well insulated was answered correctly by most participants in both groups because it is not an aspect that was present in the contextual picture. This question regarding insulation of buildings is common knowledge known to most individuals. In contrast, question 1 which asked about what caused sound in the story was answered mostly incorrect by Group B in comparison to Group A because it was something that was evident only in the picture. The standard deviation of Group A was 1. 48 while the standard deviation of Group B was 1. 07; this shows greater variability of mean answers in Group A. An F- test for the significance of the difference between the variability between two sample groups indicated that there was no significant difference as the p value is less than 0. 01. Consequently, a T- test was used for same sample group. The T-test also showed no significant difference between as the p value was greater than 0. 0001. This suggests that the null hypothesis can be accepted; the presence of a contextual image does not increase the number of correct answers on the questionnaire in comparison to absence of a contextual image.

Evaluation

As can be deduced from the results stated above, we were unable to support the findings of Bransford and Johnson (1972). They found a greater increase in the number of participants who answered the questions on the questionnaire. This could be due to the fact that participants in our study were younger than the participants in the original study. It could also be due to attention span of the participants: it is likely that the participants did not pay close attention to the story or to the image.

These results are partially supported by the theory of schemas. Assimilation was used in this study: participants used memory from pre existing schemas of the real world in order to answer the questions on the questionnaire. One of the strengths of our study was that we controlled variables, allowing us to gain reliable data; the constant conditions confined the independent variable (presence or absence of story while listening to the story). The dependent variable (number of correct responses to the questions on the questionnaire) was controlled as it was measured through the use of the same questionnaire for both Group A and Group B. Additionally, in order to eliminate differences in tone of the human voice when reading the story, we recorded the story and played it for both groups. This controlled human error and guarantee that there was no variation in terms of explaining and carrying out the experiment between the two groups. Another strength of our study was that we had an organized method for displaying the contextual image and playing the distractor video. This allowed us to ensure that the image was depicted at the right time, and that the time between listening to the story and watching the distractor video was the same. A limitation of the study is that we used an independent measures design. Our differences can be due to the variability among participants. It would be more efficient and beneficial to replicate this study through a repeated measures design, with different stories listened with the presence or absence of a contextual image. This can assist in eliminating any differences between the participants skill of recall and remembering, since all participants would be compared to each other and themselves in each of the conditions prevalent in the study. Another limitation is that it lacks ecological validity. It is difficult to generalize the our findings as the sample consisted of purely highschool students. High School students may be less reflective and have a shorter attention span than the average population. Also, high school students are required to test their memory of a story or an aspect more frequently than the general population. This may increase their rates of recall and remembering than the average person. For future research and in order to increase the applicability of the study, the study can be modified by utilizing a story that is more pertinent real life situations. This will allow for more accurate results when testing whether a contextual image plays a role in the number of questions remembered and recalled by the participants. This will allow us to further test the validity of recall, memory, and schemas when exploring presence and absence of contextual information. Additionally, the ecological validity of the study can further be strengthened by changing the form of the questionnaire. By changing the paper questionnaire into a more verbal questionnaire (multiple choice) will give us more insight into the amount of information recalled by the participants. The comprehension of information is most effectively tested and gained with free responses as free recall is tested. Our results are not supported by our hypothesis that participants who see the picture along with the story will answer more questions correctly on the questionnaire than those participants who listen to the story without the picture. The presence of contextual information does not necessarily allow for better recall of a story.