Memory interference

Retroactive interference
Psychology Internal Assessment

NAME: Aldo muhammad hamka

NUMBER:
SUBJECT: Psychology
Level: HL (Higher Level)
Date of submission: Friday .august.26.2011
Word count : 2000

Table of contents
1

Abstarct ............................................................................................................3
Introduction ......................................................................................................3
Method .............................................................................................................7
Design ............................................................................................7
Participants.....................................................................................7
Materials .......................................................................................8
Procedures ....................................................................................8
Results ...............................................................................................................9
Discussion..........................................................................................................10
References .........................................................................................................12
Appendices.........................................................................................................13
Standardized briefing...................................................................13
Copy of inform consent..............................................................15
Calculations ................................................................................16
Copy of materials..........................................................................17

Abstract
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The experiment of Briggs(1954) has shown us that we can forget something that goes into our
LTM .They prove it by tried the theory of retroactive interfernce, the findings show that there is
a retroactiv interfernce if the participants tried to recalled the first list of words
This experiments was conducted with some modification of Barness and Underwood memory
interference experiment. The aim of this experiment are to investigate whether there is a
retroactive interfernce caused by the second list of words .Measured by the correct answer given
by the participants the independent variable are second list of words and the dependent variable
are the number of response correctly
The sample of this experiments are 20 students from grade ten to twelve . they did the task
individually in a 2 group control and experiment, they were given first list of paired words and
when the control group taking rest the experiment group learned the second paired list of
words.The result shown are not significance enough to prove the hypothesis , so there is not
much difference between the control and the experimental as some participants in the
experimental shown perfect recalled of first list of words

Introduction
Within the process of association and rehearsal, the content of short-term memory can become
long-term memory (LTM). While long-term memory is also susceptible to the forgetting process,
long-term memories can last for a matter of days to as long as many decades.As it was possible
to someone to forget things that they have permanently placed in the LTM, i was interested with
the idea that even the was known the most valuable storage of our brain can be breached by the
information that are freshly known or learned. Evidence shown that fogetting in LTM are caused
by Interference .The thory assumed that the memory in our LTM can be disturb or interfered
by what the things we are already learned or we will learn in the future This theory believe that
the information in our LTM may become confused or combined with other information during
encoding thus distorting the memory that we already have.
This theory have three main kinds the proactive interference (PI ) , retroactive interference
(RI),and output interference (OI). Proactive interference are a difficulty in learning a new
information because of the already existing information . Retroactive interference are a difficulty
of recalling information that have been learned if the new addition information are learned and
the last is output interference

There are many experiment and new suggestion about this theory , one of the first experiment of
this theory was conducted by Briggs (1954) experiment about retroactive interference (RI)
where they used 2 list of eight paired-associates (A-B) ,(A-C) .The participants was divide into 2
groups ,those two group have to learn the (A-B) list until they have a perfect recall after that one
group take a rest and the other group study the second list (A-C), after that the two group tried to
recall the first list. The result shown that the group that study the second list before recall the first
list mix up the first list with the second list ,but some people showing consistency in their answer
.
Retroactive interference theory assumed that a new information can disturb the recall of previous
information, it is said that it was the result of decreased recall of the primary studied functions
due to the learning and recall of succeeding functions ,but as a contrass in the Briggs experiment
if the participant given 24 hours time before recalled the first list the spontaneous recovery
illustration as an account of Ai-Bi items (A-B) competing with Ai-Ci items(A-C).The idea
behind this experiment are the prove that even Long term memory can be disturb and somehow
change , although we cant consider it as forgotten it have the same concern as it. As i said the
idea of this experiment make me interested and somehow excited , although the information are
rarely found this experiment are somehow simple but hard in the process . the aim of this
experiment are to see if the retroactive interference will shown if the second list of eight pairedassociates (A-C) learned before recalling the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B)
H 0 Null hypothesis : the learning of the second list of words will give no effect on the recalling
of the first list of words
H 1 Experiment hypothesis : the : the learning of the second list of words will give effect on the
recalling of the first list of words

______________________________________________________________________________

Method
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Design
Independent sample design will be taken as technique of experiment. The reason we use the
independent sample design are because it is not possible to use the same participants in 2
experimental conditions as it will conflict with our experiment as they would remember the list
that was given on the first time to the second trial . Independent sample design are also used
because the participants will less likely to guess what is the hypothesis of the study ,althought
this is not the concern of our experiment as we demand the participants to have a perfect recall of
the list and it also to counter participants Naiveness and to avoid order effect .The independent
variables was the second list of words that given to the participant after the first list of word are
learned .And the dependent variable was the number of response correctly recalled and
identified with stimullus and list in the (A-B),(A-C )paradigm . We modify the consent that are
already described and the briefing are carried out the day before the experiment were excecuted
and the de-briefing are carried out afer the experiment was done.

Participants
There will be 20 paticipants consist of IB students vary from age 15-17 that have a mean of 16
years old. The reason behind we used a IB students are because the language from the briefing
until de-breifing are using english language and it required an english speaking student so the
experiment will success and the data will be comperhend. The sampling method that are chosen
are random to avoid subjective reason in the control group and experimental group , we use a
coupon system to make it random so the participant will take a coupon and if he/she got the
coupon were there said 1 he/she will be go to the experimental group and it also the same if
he/she got the 2 . As we interested of how the student tried to remember the list and how they
gonna perform when they tried to recall it and we hope that it will help them to know how they
perform within certain amount of time . The target of populations f this experiments are

Materials

The materials are the 3 list of words the A list consist of animals name ,the B list consist of house
utensils name ,and the C list consist of cars developers name.The last is the inform consent that
the participant will get before the briefing.

Procedure of experiment
1.) The researchers introduce themselves and explain the objective of the experiment to the
target participants. The inform consent is delivered
2.) The researcher collected data of those are willing to participate in the experiment . The
researchers allocate the participant randomly into the experiment group (the group who
will be given the second list of eight paired- associates (A-C) after learned the first list of
eight paired-associates(A-B) )and the control group (the group who will be given a time
to rest after learned the first list of eight paired-associates(A-B) ) .
3.) On the day of the experiment , the participants were gathered .One class rooms are taken
for the experiment group and the control group. The standardized introduction is read
before the list of eight paired- associates (A-B) is given .The experiment and the control
group will be given time to studied the first list (A-B) until perfect recall.
4.) The control group was given time to rest as the experiment group studied the second
list(A-C) 5,10,15 or 20 times
5.) After the second list studied A paper was given to both of the groups and tested in the
recalling ability of the first list (A-B). After all the participants are finish the De-briefing
was conducted and the researcher told the participants what the experiments are about.

Result
Table
No

Experimental group
Participants number

Recalled data list

(A-B)

Control group
Participants list
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Recalled data list

(A-B)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

10

20

Mean

6.9

7.8

Range

Standard deviation

1.22

0.4

U value

27

73

Graph
The number of correct answer by participants from control group and experiment group
9
8
7
6

experiment

Linear (experiment)

number of correct answer 4

control

Linear (control)

2
1
0
0 2 4 6 8 1012
participants

The table above shows how many (A-B) pair that the participants recalled correctly it measured
by the correct pair. The mean number of the control group are 7.8 and 6.9 for the experimental
group. We also counted the range to know the difference between the two extreme points on the
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distribution curve, where the value of the function falls to zero and standard deviation for
measurement of variability or diversity which resulted for range 4 for experimental group and 1
for control group , as for the standard deviation it resulted 1.22 for experimental group and 0.4
for control group. All the data above shown that there is more diversity in value on the
experimental group other than control group.
To test the significance of the result , the Mann Whitney U test are used because the data are
ordinal in an independent samples design. As the result shown on the table the U for
experimental group are 27 and 73 for the control group it means th smallest U will be used and
matched with the table and cause for the 10,10 participants are 23 so it means we have to accept
the null hypothesis.

Discussion
the result of the experiment show that the null hypothesis must be retained as the Mann Whitney
U test resulted in that way . although there is some differences between the experimental group
and control group when they tried to recalled the pair of words correctly , the diiference are not
significance enough to prove that the memory of the experimental group was interference by the
second list as some of the participants gained a perfect score which means that the people that
get lower score are somehow just cant recalled it correctly .
There is some other factors that influence the outcome of this experiment such as , the time for
the participants to learn about the second list of paired words are short and it may causes the
second list to go into the STM not LTM and when they try to recalled it will not cause much
interference as the second list of words are may have been forgotten. Another thing that the
confidentiality of the answer , for some participants it may occurs for them to cheat the answer
by seeing others paper or even trade answer, even though we are watching them very closely we
cant know what the participants doing all the time .
So based on the factors that influence our outcome we suggest that for conducting a better future
experiments and to try to overcome the two limitations that we got is to , first make the time for
the experimental group to learn the second paired list of words longer to create more interference
to the LTM and try to make the participants as individual as possible , in this term individual it is
not by chance to test the participants one by one cause it can have two outcome that they will do
better cause there will be no interference from outside or they will not perform well bacause if
the participants are alone they will not have a sense of competition for others although this sense
of competitions are the one that may cause the participants to cheat their answer.
The conclusion is that the data that our got are not significance enough to prove that the effect of
the second list of words will make an retroactive interference to the participants memory as some
maybe affected but others are not. Shown by the Mann Whitney U test our hypothesis are wrong
and we have to retained the null hypothesis.
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Refferences
http://simplypsychology.org/forgetting.html
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html
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http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Interference_theory#Span_Performance
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~sschmidt/Cognitive/Forgetting.pdf
http://web.anglia.ac.uk/numbers/biostatistics/mann_whitn
ey/local_folder/chapter_07_mann-whitney.xls
http://www.saburchill.com/IBbiology/downloads/002.pdf
http://easycalculation.com/statistics/standarddeviation.php
Psychology course companion

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