Experiment on cued recall & free recall 1

Experiment on cued recall & free recall

Labiba Binte Ferdous

School of Business and Economics, North South University
PSY 101L: Introduction to Psychology Lab

Author Note:

Robert A. Baron. ORCID: [NULL]

Robert A. Barron is Professor of Management at Oklahoma State University's Spears School of

Business.

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Genre: Academic and Professional
ISBN: 9789332586116/9789332569911, 9332569916
Experiment on cued recall & free recall 2

Abstract

The present study examines the semantic memory process that influence the learning,

remembering information and their response time when they are asked. The question of whether

information is acquired by a single process or whether many forms of learning need to be

separated on the basis of their functional differences is a key one in the psychology of learning

and remembering information. In the experiment the participant was given twenty pieces of flash

cards. Those cards contained questions like country’s capital. All the even number question cards

had some cued information like first three letters of that capital’s name and all the odd number

card had no such information. Through this process I as experimenter recorded the participant’s

response time of their free recall & cued recall.

Experiment on cued recall & free recall 3

Learning, which is marked by a growth in knowledge, abilities, or understanding as a result of

stored memories, is a generally long-lasting change in behavior. The end result of this learning

process is a memory, which is a tangible imprint of it in our brain networks. Because memory

and learning are intertwined, they are frequently misunderstood. However, the experts who

research them see them as two separate phenomena. According to these experts, learning is a

process that alters future behavior. On the other side, memory is the capacity to recall the past.

In its most basic form, human memory is associative. If we can link a new piece of information

to previously learned material that is already deeply ingrained in your memory, the person is

more likely to recall it. And the more personally significant the relationship is to you, the more

successfully it will aid in memory. So it might be beneficial in the long term to take the time to

pick a meaningful association.

As we learn new things and we also forget some of those things we learn and this very likely

process is known as “Amnesia”. Neurological amnesia is more common than functional amnesia,

a mental illness. It appears to be brought on by an emotional stress rather than any recognized

brain injury or disease. Typically, this is retrograde amnesia (inability to remember past

information). Sometimes it gets so bad that the person loses track of who they are.

Learning new information remembering them and forgetting them later is common. As we forget

information this could rise problems for in some situation. So for that as an experimenter I will

conduct an experiment which will help us to find out the best technique to learn new information

and remember them for long time.

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Method.

Participant

A participant age: 22 (Male) an undergrad student form North South University responded as a

participant.

Materials/Stimuli:

We used twenty flash cards. The question that was asked on those flash cards was on capitals of

well-known and less-known countries. Chronologically the cards were given to the participant.

All the odd number cards had no cues and the even number cards had cues on them.

Procedures:

The experiment I conducted to see the response time between cued recall and free recall was

done on a living human being with his/her permission. This experiment conducted the testing

phases as well as presenting the materials to the participants for study. To do the test I used

printed flash cards and in those flash cards all the odd numbers question cards had no cues and

all the even number question cards had cues. As I started the test I gave my participant a flash

one by one with no number order error. As soon as he responded with the answer I recorded the

time of response with the help of a stop watch. All the correct answers were noted the right sign
Experiment on cued recall & free recall

and wrongs were marked with cross signs and the question he/she passed with no answer were

symbolized with cross sign. Beside those we recorded time on the same page. 5

Result

As the participant responded with his answer I recorded the time and the marked them. The

highest time the participant took to answer is 4.96 seconds and the lowest time was 1.38 seconds

for all the twenty answers. For the free recall answers the participant’s highest time was 4.96

seconds and lowest time was 1.64 sec. And for the cued recall the participant’s highest time was

2.68 seconds and the lowest time recoded was 1.38 seconds.

2.56+2.49+3.12+3.94+ 3.09+ 1.64+ 4.96+2.87+3.97+3.18

Average time for free recall =¿3.182
10
Experiment on cued recall & free recall

1.85+1.74+1.38+1.43+2.27 +2.06+1.94+1.54 +2.68+2.02

Average time for cued recall = 1.89
10

Discussion

I conducted the experiment to find out the time base performance of human brain in terms on

free recall and cued recall. This result of the experiment on free recall and cued recall is a strong

interaction of our learning and memory encoding system. As I run the test the participant

received the flash cards, the cards which had cues on them were answered fasters than the cards

which had no cues on them. A unique finding in the experiment was in some flash cards there

were some name of neighboring countries which the participant answered in the similar time

frame of cued recall. But in the result the average free recall time is 3.182 and the cued recall

average time is 1.89. This shows that the first few words on the flash cards has an impact on at

least some aspects of cued-recall performance in general. From the analysis it is visible that the

average time of free recall is greater than cued recall. So it can be said as an experimenter of the

experiment that I accept and support the hypothesis.

Experiment on cued recall & free recall

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