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Effects of Methods of Cueing on Recall And Recognition Arshia R 1014031 Christ University

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Memory is the process by which we encode, store and retrieve information. The process of remembering or recalling something is guided by what we call cues. Cues are aids that provide us insight during times of recall by guiding us visually, spatially or mentally. This review seeks to look at the various methods used to aid recall and the effectiveness of the same. At the same time, this review seeks to identify the most effective form of cueing and the condition it is given in. It is hypothesized that cueing is most effective when recall is guided by cues for categorical lists or blocked lists as it is easier to recall a larger chunk in spite of durational gaps between presentation and recall. The following five research articles attempt to demonstrate and support the same. In a research article by Graham Davies and Lindsay Brown (1978), the actual and potential memorizing strategies made available to children aged 5 were studied with two conditions of presentation in a 2x2 factorial design. They hypothesized that children at this age suffered more from production deficiency than meditational deficiency showing that the lack of organized memory skills at that age is more of an issue rather than an inability to understand. In another research done by Donna Frick-Horbury (2002), a study was conducted on how hand gestures serve as cues for verbal recall in low SAT score and high SAT score students. This study hypothesized that gestures serve as an auxiliary code or cue for memory retrieval. In another research conducted by David R. Basden and James S. Draper (1972), the study focused on the reasons for initial failure in recall procedures as the absence of high taxonomic frequency, category instances and presentation order. Another research by Elliott, Hoyenga and Hoyenga (1971), hypothesized that a cueing method that introduced a delay in presentation and recall could lead to misleading conclusions and also, Wright scoring method was compared to the all-

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or-none scoring method. A research study conducted by Marion Quinn Lewis (1971) hypothesized that cueing increased recall with blocked but not random presentation. The subjects for Davies and Browns (1978) research were 20 girls and 2 boys between the ages of 4 years 7 months to 5 years 7 months from a middle class primary school. They were allocated to one of 4 groups based on age and sex was balanced throughout the groups. Each group was subjected to 1 of 4 conditions in a recall test of 20 items, representing four instances of 5 concepts. The conditions were (i) unblocked-uncued (UU), (ii) blocked-uncued (BU), (iii) blocked-cued (BC) and (iv) unblocked-cued (UC). The subjects for Frick-Horburys (2002) research study were 36 undergraduate students (12 men and 24 women) who were divided into either high SAT score or low SAT score groups. The experimenter selected a 2x2 factorial design and selected 40 target words on the basis of their imagery, concreteness, and meaningfulness. Group (cued and uncued) was the between subjects variable and SAT score (high and low) was the within subjects variable. In different instances subjects were asked to recall the words from a videotape of them neck down by observing their gestures and the instance of only one screenshot at the beginning of taping being shown. In Basden and Drapers (1972) research study, a 2x2x2x2 factorial design was used with 160 undergraduate psychology students manipulating (a) number of categories (six 15-item categories or fifteen 6-item categories), (b) taxonomic frequency of category instances (high or low), (c) presentation order (blocked or random), and (d) type of final recall test (cued with list instances or uncued). 2 study-test cycles of free recall learning of four 90 word list preceded the final test for the effect of cueing. In Elliott, Hoyenga and Hoyengas (1971) research, the subjects were 54 introductory psychology students divided into 3 groups of 18 each. They were given a list of three, seven list

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items. One group received a verbal cue to write down the last item immediately after being shown the last item (immediate condition), the next group was made to wait 4.8s before receiving a verbal cue to recall the last item (wait condition) and the 3rd group was required to turn over a sheet of paper, unfold another sheet stapled to the back, and read the written cue asking them to recall the last item (turn condition). In Lewiss (1971) study, five 42-word lists were constructed. Each list contained 6 arbitrarily chosen categories. In the Blocked condition, all words from a category were presented contiguously in the list. In the Random condition, items were scattered randomly through the list, except that one word from each category was presented in the first 6 positions. From each 42-word list presented, 6 items were cues; the other 36 items were designated target words. In Davies and Browns (1978) study, the provision of blocked presentation and cued recall (BC) was found to increase recall and organization in the 5 year olds. There were high within group correlations in recall levels and clustering in the conditions of provided aid. It was found that cueing has a positive effect on recall simple because they act as clues, inviting the child to generate a number of responses, few of which are bound to be correct proving that children at the age of 5 suffer more from production deficiency than mediation deficiency. In Frick-Horburys (2002) study, the experiment supported the hypothesis that gestures do aid word retrieval, particularly for people with low verbal skills. It was found that people are not more likely to use hand gestures in a language they are not as comfortable with as their native tongue but more likely to gesticulate while communicating in their native language. In this case, gesture cueing reduced the loss of recall over a 2-week period for both the high and low verbal skill groups across both word types. Moreover, gesture cueing consistently reduced the loss for the low SAT

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score participants so that they performed similarly to the cued-high group and were significantly different from the uncued-low group. In Basden and Drapers (1972) study, it was found that taxonomic frequency has an effect on both categorical and instance recall, presentation order had an effect only on instance recall. As for the interaction between number of categories, taxonomic frequency, and cueing condition indicates, both many categories and high TF instances are required if list member cueing is to be facilitory. In Elliott, Hoyenga and Hoyengas (1971) research, a lack of recency was detected due to the nature of the cueing method used. The delay imposed by the cueing methods is sufficient to reduce the recall of the last item to the retention level of earlier list items. The scoring methods for the same (Wrights method and the common all or none method) was also found to be similar. In Lewiss (1971) study, found that there was no facilitation with category items for free recall when the items were presented randomly. Also, the findings indicated higher recall with category items as free recall cues with blocked category presentation. A retrieval cue, as discussed earlier, is a stimulus that allows us to recall more easily information that is located in long-term memory. (Tulving & Thompson, 1973; Ratcliff & McKoon, 1989). They are particularly important when we are making an attempt to recall information. In recall, a specific piece of information must be retrieved whereas recognition occurs when people are presented with a stimulus and asked whether they have been exposed to it previously, or are asked to identify it from a list of given alternatives. The above reviewed research studies show the various kinds of recall cues administered in different situations in order to test effectiveness and productiveness of the same. In the 1st study reviewed, it was found that 5 year old children tended to recall more when the information was presented in a blocked or

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categorized manner aided with cues rather than in the case of purely instance recall. In the 2nd study, it was found by Frick-Horbury (2002) that gestures tended to make up for lexical deficiencies in the case of high and especially low SAT score groups as the gestures were found to be an added cue aiding in recall when the videotape of the gestures made when asked to explain the meaning of each word on the list was easier than when it wasnt. The 3rd study also supports the hypothesis that cueing apparent in high taxonomic frequencies and blocked presentation order were found to be more effective. Lewiss (1971) study also supported the hypothesis since more words were recalled in the blocked order than when the words were presented at random. The organizational skills of the mind automatically organizes data encoded in the short term memory into chunks, which are meaningful groupings of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short term memory (Feldman, sixth edition, 2004) When abstract data is presented, retrieval cues and organizational techniques help in recall as they stimulate our iconic (memory of information from our visual system) and echoic (memory of auditory information coming from the ears) memories. Hence, the review of the articles studied are supportive of the hypothesis stated at the beginning of the review saying that cueing is most effective when recall is guided by cues for categorical lists or blocked lists as it is easier to recall a larger chunk in spite of durational gaps between presentation and recall.

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References David R Basden & James S Draper (1972). Effect of Cueing with List Members in Free Recall as a Function of Number Of Categories, Taxonomic Frequency & Presentation Order. California State University Donna Frick-Horbury (2002). The Effects of Hand Gestures on Verbal Recall as a Function of High- and Low-Verbal-Skill Levels. The Journal of General Psychology, 2002, 129(2), 137147 Graham Davies and Lindsay Brown (1978). Recall and Organization in Five Year Old Children Br. J. Psychol. (1978), 69, 343-349, Printed in Great Britain Marion Quinn Lewis (1971) Categorized Lists and Cued Recall Journal of Experimental Psychology 1971, Vol. 87, No. 1, 129-131 Maxwell C. Elliott, Katharine Blick Hoyenga & Kermit T. Hoyenga (1971) Cueing and Scoring Procedures in Short Term Memory Journal of Experimental Psychology; 1971, Vol. 88, No. 3, 437-438