Research Form

Name(s): Ted Li, Nicholas Meyer

Topic: Effectiveness of elaborative rehearsal
Experimental Research: What has been done similar? And how will it impact your
experiment? (Cite the works you get ideas from)
Three influential figures in psychology who have done research and experiments on the
effectiveness of elaborative rehearsal are Fergus I. M. Craik, Robert S. Lockhart, and Endel
Tulving; the said research and experiments were done in the 70s. The research that Craik and
Lockhart did in 1972 was partly for addressing criticism of the multi-store model. They proposed
that memory wasnt really broken up into different structures (like short term and long term
memory), and was just really a by-product of the depth of processing of information. Depth
here was defined as "the meaningfulness extracted from the stimulus rather than in terms of the
number of analyses performed upon it (like how maintenance rehearsal differs from elaborative
rehearsal).
Later, Craik set out with Tulving to perform a study based the previously-stated ideas
Craik had proposed with Lockhart about the nature of memory. The study investigated how
deep and shallow processing affects memory recall. It involved participants having to memorize
lists of words based on either structural and phonemic processing (visual/auditory processing)
or semantic processing (processing of meaning of language). Essentially the study showed that
those who had been assigned to use semantic processing for memorization (i.e. deep
processing) performed better than those who had only visually or auditorily processed the words
(i.e. structural and phonemic processing) by thinking only about rhymes of the words and letter
case (i.e. whether letters are lowercase or uppercase).
We have set out to further validate the effectiveness of deep processing (a.k.a.
elaborative rehearsal) in increasing memory performance. But instead of comparing
maintenance and elaborative rehearsal (a.k.a. shallow vs. deep processing) in memory
performance, we will be comparing the effects of the presence and absence of elaborative
rehearsal.
Webpages used for info:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/levelsofprocessing.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levels-of-processing_effect
http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=20
Experiment Procedure and Materials: What are the steps you will take? Who/what will be
involved? What things/materials will you need?
1. Create at least 4 lists of words based on rules #2-4 as defined in Experiment
Variables: What ambiguous terms will. Designate a person to read the lists for the
experiment, and another person to record the data.
2. Invite a high school student to participate in a study of memory. Ask the student
the following: You will be taking part in an experiment today that involves the study of
human memory functions. You will be answering questions strictly related to lists of
word which will be read to you. You will not be allowed to write anything down while

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participating. The experiment will take about 5 minutes, and your participation and
privacy will be strictly confidential. You will not be allowed to discussed the content of
this experiment with other participants. Do you agree to participate in this study?
3. If the student agrees to the request, proceed; otherwise repeat step #2
4. Have the list reader and participant sit across from each other at a reasonable
distance, while the data recorder sits next to the list reader with a timer in hand.
5. Tell the participant the following: I will now proceed to read a list of words to you.
After I have finished reading, you will repeat the first letter of each word in the list in
order. You will have 45 seconds to attempt to repeat all the letters. Do you understand
the instructions? Once the participant understands the instructions, proceed.
6. The list reader reads one of the lists of words created in step #1 at about a rate
of 1 word per second. As soon as the the list reader finishes reading, have the data
recorder start the timer from a 45 second countdown.
7. As the participant attempts to repeat all of the letters, the data recorder notes
how many the participant gets correct before the participant makes the first mistake; stop
the participant when the 45 second countdown ends.
8. Tell the participant the following: You will now attempt to repeat the task which
youve just completed. Before proceeding, Id like you to know that the when in listed
order, the first letters of each word in a list actually create simple phrases. For example,
a list for the phrase talked to it could be Table, Attractive, Look, Kangaroo, Edible, etc.
Do you understand the instructions? Once the participant understands the instructions,
proceed.
9. repeat steps #6-7, except with a different list of words.
10. Thank the participant for taking part in the study before letting the participant go.
11. Repeat steps #2-10 at least 5 more times for good data
Ethical Concerns: What possible ethical issues will your experiment deal with? How will
you eliminate those concerns?
Theres really not that many ethical issues that our experiment deals with but one might
deal with lowering self esteem. The reason for this is if participants doesnt perform well in the
study, they might feel bad about themselves. Nonetheless, we have stated that we will tell the
participant that their privacy is protected, so hopefully self-esteem isnt an issue here.
Experiment Variables: What ambiguous terms will be defined? How will you control
variables to attempt to reach a valid result?
1. The subjects should be high school students only.
2. Each list of words should be unique and consist only of ten non-repeating words.
3. The words for the lists should be selected from Level 1 and Level 2 words on
vocabulary learning online program Membean. The goal is to have the words in each list
be similar in terms of familiarity to the participants.
4. When in listed order, the first letters of each word in each list should make simple
fragments (e.g. talked to it, when the list is Table, Attractive, Look, Kangaroo, Edible,
etc.)
5. Each trial should take place in a quiet and air-conditioned indoor environment,
with both the subject and experimenter seated comfortably and facing each other.

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6. The experimenter takes about 1 second to read each word while reading the
lists; the participant waits until the experimenter has finished reading before responding,
and should complete the response in no more than 45 seconds.