Effect of overload of phonological loop in memory performance

Word Count:

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Introduction

There are many models of memory that explain different aspects of it. The one that is mostly

accepted by the psychologist community is the working memory model. This model was

introduced by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) and establishes that short-term memory is not just

composed by single storage but many, each one with a different function and a limited capacity.

These assumptions were done based on the observations they made in their experiment. One of

these storages is the phonological loop, which oversees encoding and processing the auditory

inputs of the environment. It is composed of 2 different parts: the auditory control system, which

holds the information in a verbal form, and the phonological store, which holds auditory memory

traces.

Each storage of the working memory model, as is mentioned before, has a limited capacity,

meaning that the phonological loop can’t process a lot of information at the same time, and if it

does, it affects the performance of people’s phonological memory.

Landry and Bartling in 2011 did a study aiming to see the effect of articulatory suppression task

on memory. To accomplish this aim, the researchers used a sample composed of 34 undergraduate

psychology students and split them randomly into 2 groups. Each member of the group needed to

memorize different sequences compose by the letters F, K, L, M, R, X, and Q one at the time in 2

different conditions: the experimental group needed to memorize the lists of letters in five seconds

while repeating the numbers '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers per second, which was an

articulatory suppression task. The control group was put into the same process but without the

articulatory suppression task. After 5 seconds of waiting, the participants needed to write their

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answers on a white sheet of paper. This was repeated 10 times with 10 different sequences. The

results were that the accurate recall in the control group was of 76% and 45% in the experimental

group.

The aim of our study was to observe the influence of an articulatory suppression task on recall

performances among international high school students. The independent variable is if the sample

had or not an articulatory suppression task, and the dependent variable is the accuracy of the

sample’s prediction.

The results of the study, give us the base to say that when the phonological loop gets overloaded,

the capacity to encode and process new memories into long term memory gets reduced. This

knowledge can be easily applied in the study methods of students by studying without any other

activity involved, and teaching methods of teachers, for them not overload the students with too

much information to process at the same time. These implementations of the knowledge given by

results can improve the quality of education provided by schools and the effectiveness of students’

study.

Hypothesis: Students recalling accuracy in the control group will be higher than in the

experimental group.

Null hypothesis: Students recalling accuracy will not be higher in the control group than in the

experimental group.

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Exploration

My experiment uses an independent measure design, having 1 experimental and a control group.

We choose the independent variable design as the original experiment to make sure that the

practice of the task wouldn’t affect the performance of the sample. In order to build reliability in

the results, the experiment was run 10 times for each condition. A sample of opportunity in the

school was used in order to make sure that the participants were interested and committed to the

experiment. Our sample was made up of students of IB that didn’t take psychology for reducing

the impact of previous knowledge on their performance. Also, they had a decent English fluency

for understanding the instructions, eliminating the possible existence of this confounding variable.

Instead of testing every participant individually, we decided that it was more efficient to do each

condition together for the experiment to run smoother and take as little time as possible from the

participants. We used 10 different sequences of letters composed of F, K, L, M, R, X, and Q

because of the dissimilar sound they have between each other, which prevents that similar sounds

letters impact the memory performance of the participants. These lists were presented to the sample

in a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation was done without any design for the sample not to

get distracted by it, with a proper size of the font for them to be able to see properly and presented

in a dark room that let them see the presentation clearly.

We allocate the students into each condition randomly by picking a paper from a box which had

either letter A or letter B, A being experimental and B being control group. Each group was

informed about what was required from them before the experiment started. Also, the sample had

to sign a consent form(see appendix ii) and they were explained that if they wanted they could

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leave the experiment at any time as well as they could ask for their results not to be used. These

was done in order to avoid any possible ethical consideration. A trial open to questions was run

for being sure that the sample didn’t have any doubts. For the trial and the 10 runs of the experiment

each group was presented for 5 seconds a list of letters, the experimental group while repeating

the numbers “1” ‘2’ at a rate of 2 numbers per second, and the control group without any other

additional task. Then both conditions were asked to wait 5 seconds for then recalling and writing

their answers on a sheet of paper located on their desk for avoiding any recency effect in the

participants.

After each trial, there was a pause of 10 seconds to make sure the sample was ready to continue.

When all the trials were finished, both groups were debriefed and asked to keep confidentiality of

the experiment

Analysis

With the goal of making the best interpretation of data, the means of how many sequences of letters

were recalled accurately per group were analyzed after being calculated plus its corresponding

standard deviation. These calculations are crucial in order to understand the effect of the

independent variable, which is if there was or not articulatory suppression task, in the dependent

variable, which is the accuracy of recall. For the raw data go to appendix vii. The results are

represented in the next table and graphs:

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Table 1: Descriptive analysis of data

Control

Group Percentage Experimental Group Percentage

Mean 3.4 34% 0.92 9.17%

Standard

deviation 1.96 19.55% 1.73 17.03%

Graph 1: Comparison between both conditions

Mean of recalling accuracy for different

conditions

3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Control Group Experimental Group

Mean

Graph 2: Comparing percentages between both conditions

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 PERCENTAGES
Percentages

34%

9.17%

Control Group Experimental Group

As it can be observed in table 1 and its graphic interpretation in Graphic 1 and Graphic 2, the

control group had a bigger accuracy in terms of sequences of letter recalled; the control group is

3.7 times more accurate than the experimental group. Apart from this, the control group had a

range from 0 to 7 while the experimental group one was from 0 to 6. Even though the range seems

there isn’t a significant difference in the range, which could lead to the wrong conclusion that there

isn’t a significant difference in performance, if it is add to this the difference between means and

the modes, which for control group is 3 and experimental group 0, it can be stated that the students

recalling accuracy will be higher in the control group than in the experimental group if the data is

significant.

For checking that my data is significant, I carried out an unpaired T-test for independent samples.

This test has the goal of determining whenever 2 means are statistically different, meaning that

can be used to confirm if my hypothesis is actually true. For data to be significant the value of p ≤
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0.01. The value of the unpaired T-test for my sample was p < 0.0028. meaning that the null

hypothesis can be rejected. This let me conclude that the recalling accuracy of students is higher

whenever there isn’t an articulatory suppression task.

Exploration

The results of my experiment matches with the original experiment of Landry and Bartling (2011).

There is a significance difference between the percentages of accuracy in both experiments, in the

original experiment the results were 76% of accuracy in recalling for the control group and 45%

for the experimental group, while in mine the accuracy of recalling for the control group is 34%

and for the experimental group of 9.71%. This is probably caused because in the original study the

experiment was done to every single member individually for both conditions, while in mine there

was not division within conditions. There is the possibility that my sample felt the pressure of

being around with other people and couldn’t concentrate as much as they would do alone. This

probably also caused the big difference between how more accurate the control group of my study

and the control group of the original study were. While in my experiment control group was 3.5

times more accurate than the experimental group, in the original study the control group was just

1.32 times more accurate than the experimental group. This may have been caused due to the extra-

overload in the phonological loop in my experiment.

My results, apart from following the same trend as the original study, are supported by the Working

Memory Model. This because it shows the existence of the phonological loop, one of the storages

in the Working Memory Model, and their limited capacity to encode and process information that

if is overload, results in a worst phonological memory performance.

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One of the strengths my experiments has is that is easy replicable. This means that the results can

be replicated in other UWCs to see if they are generalizable to the worldwide community of UWC.

However, if we just focus on my experiment, the range of generalization it has is pretty low, is not

even generalizable to Mostar due to the fact it just included UWC students.

Another strength my experiment has is that a timer was used for human error not playing a role in

how much time every sample possesses ergo not having an effect on the results.

My experiment uses an independent measure design to avoid that repetition affecting performance

in the memory task. But still, there were other factors that could have affected the performance of

the participants apart from the articulatory suppression task. The collective condition testing and

the pressure that participants felt could have affected their performance. If is replicated, I would

recommend testing individually each member of the conditions, as the original study did. Also,

using an independent measure design leads to participant variability, meaning that my results

might not be product of the overloading or not the phonological loop.

Even though memory is something used daily, recalling list of letters isn’t a task involved in

everyday life, which could have influenced the performance and make the results not

representative for real life situations. If I had to replicate it, I would put my sample to do a daily

activity, such as study some definitions, while they sing a song for representing a real-life situation.

It would be really interesting for future studies to the performance of different storages of memory,

based on Working Memory Model, after being overloaded. Testing it on the visuospatial sketchpad

and episodic buffer could indicate how much it varies from storage to storage and if is a general

rule that apply to all of them. Also, studies related to their interactions and how one being

overflooded could affect the performance of the other. One way of doing this would be asking to

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the sample to draw something (Visuospatial Sketchpad) while they try to memorize the position

of some numbers on the board (episodic buffer) for then to recall the positions of the numbers and

check how accurate the performance is.

But, overall, my experiment aligns with the trend follow by the original study, which means that

an overload in the phonological loop has an effect in the performance of memory.

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Works Cited

 Baddeley, A.D (1983) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London

“Functional aspects of Human Memory”, 311-324

 Landry P., and Bartling C. (2011), “The Phonological Loop and Articulatory Suppresion”,

American Journal of Psychological Research, Vol. 7, 79-86, Retrieved from

https://www.mcneese.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AJPR-11-07-Landry-5-09.pdf

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Appendix i: Internal Assessment Proposal

Psychology – IBDP
IA Proposal Forms

Original Experiment Topic: Landry and Bartling(2011)

Group Members: Tinah, Diego, Level:

Helen

Aim of original Experiment: Aim of your experiment:to

to investigate the effect of
articulatory suppression on
one’s accuracy of recall
Independent Variable of
Original Experiment: presence
of articulatory suppression task
compare the difference/
similarities of effects of
articulatory suppression on
recall accuracy between original
and replicated study
Independent Variable of your
Experiment:same as original

Dependent Variable of Original Dependent Variable of your

Experiment: average Experiment:same as original
percentage of recall accuracy

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Operationalization of variables, Operationalization of variables,
meaning Research Hypothesis meaning Research Hypothesis
of the Original Experiment: the of your Experiment:
accuracy of serial recall would if necessary - adjusted research
be higher in the control group
hypothesis
compared to the experimental
group. The accuracy of serial recall will
be higher in the control group
compared to the experimental
group
Null Hypothesis of Original Null Hypothesis of your
Experiment, if any: Experiment: The accuracy of
serial recall will not be higher in
the control group compared to
the experimental group
Design of the Original Design of your Experiment:
Experiment: independent group same as original
design

Sampling Method of the Sampling Method in your

Original Experiment: Experiment: opportunity
opportunity sampling sampling

Statistical Test used in the Statistical Test used in your

Original Experiment: Experiment:
- do not worry about it for now

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 Approved by:
Name:______________

Signature:_______________

**Important Note** - Only 1 IV can be manipulated & only 1

DV can be measured. A maximum of 2 conditions are allowed.

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Appendix ii: Consent form

CONSENT FORM
The participant will be taking part in a study testing the Working Memory Model and phonological
loop. The process will involve memorizing and writing a list of letters while performing an articulatory
suppression task. The experiment will take approximately 5 minutes for the independent group, and 5
minutes for the control group.

Voluntary Participation: Participation in this study is completely voluntary, and you may withdraw from
the experiment at any time, without facing any consequences or penalties.

Confidentiality: All information obtained from this study will be kept confidential and the results
published will be anonymous. All data will be kept only as proof of having conducted the study.

Risks and Discomforts: There are no risks involved or potential moments of discomfort. No physical,
emotional or psychological damage will be caused.

Findings: You have the right to request the experimenter for a summary of the findings of this study.

Contacts: For any further questions or clarifications, you may contact either of the following
experimenters:

Name: Diego Eduardo Flores Hernández– E-mail: diego.flores@uwcmostar.ba

Name: Shangjun(Helen) Mei – E-mail: shangjun.mei@uwcmostar.ba

You may also contact our supervisor:

Name: Adela Ramovic – E-mail: adela.ramovic@uwcim.uwc.org

__________________________________________________________________________________

CONSENT STATEMENT

I have read the consent form, and am giving my informed consent to participate in this study. I have
been informed about the nature of the study. I understand that I have the choice of withdrawing from
this experiment at any given time. My identity will be kept anonymous and the research will not cause

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any harm. Before the experiment starts, I will be informed about the aim and the conditions in which I
will be put. After the experiment ends, I will receive a debriefing form.

Name of Participant:____________________ Signature of Participant: ______________________

Name of Experimenter: Diego Eduardo Flores Hernández

Signature of Experimenter: _____________________

Name of Experimenter: Shangjun(Helen) Mei

Signature of Experimenter: _____________________

Date: ___________________________

Appendix iii: Debriefing form

Debriefing Form
UWC Mostar

Title of the Study: Recall Ability Test

Researcher Name(s): Shangjun(Helen) Mei, Diego Flores

Thank you for participating in this research study. We are conducting this study to see the effect of
articulatory suppression on memory recall performance. Our main research question is whether the
articulatory suppression task will affect one’s serial recall of a list of phonologically dissimilar letters.

While participating in this study, the control group was shown a list of numbers for five seconds, were
told to wait five more seconds and then were instructed to write the correct order of the letters on the
answer sheet as accurately as possible. The control group were given no numbers to recall out loud
during this process meaning there was no articulatory suppression. On the other hand, the experiment
group received instructions to repeat the numbers ‘1, 2’ ‘1,2’ at the rate of two numbers per second
from the beginning of the presentation of the list to when they finished filling in the answer sheet. In the
experimental group, articulatory suppression was present.

We expect to find that the control group, without articulatory suppression, were more likely to recall the
list of numbers presented more accurately in comparison to the experimental group. This is because it is
hypothesized that the short term memory has limited capacity and duration before recollection
becomes difficult especially whilst multitasking.

16
We greatly appreciate your participation in this endeavor, and we ask you not to tell others about the
study. The reason for this is that if potential participants already know what the study is about, this
information will influence their response, and we would obtain misleading information. Therefore, it is
important that you do not talk about this study to friends or other people who may be in the study in the
future, or allow them to read this feedback sheet.

If you are interested in learning more about this study, please feel free to ask us questions in person, or
contact us at shangjun.mei@uwcmostar.ba, diego.flores@uwcmostar.ba
The research was supervised by Adela Ramovic, who can be reached at adela.ramovic@uwcmostar.ba
If you would like to learn more about the Working Memory Model and the phonological loop, we
recommend the following readings:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html#:~:text=The%20working%20memory%20
model%20has,and%20visual%20and%20spatial%20processing
Link to the original study is https://www.student.thinkib.net/psychology/page/28630/landry-and-
bartling-2011

Thank you again for participating!

Appendix iv: Standardized instructions

Standardized Instructions

The participants are invited to join the researchers in front of the Velic building. V1 will be used for the
experimental group and V2 will be used for the control group. We will gather around the Velic bench.

R1: Hello everyone! Thank you for volunteering and coming today as participants of our Psychology IA
study. We will now hand out a consent form to all of you, and you will return it to us after carefully reading
and signing it. Afterwards we will officially start our experiment, alright?

[While R1 talks, R2 gives the consent form to the participants]

R2: Today you will be taking part in a study testing the Working Memory Model and phonological loop.
The process will involve memorizing and writing a list of letters while performing an articulatory
suppression task. The experiment will take approximately 5 minutes for the experimental group, and 5
minutes for the entire control group.

R1: if you are willing to participate in the experiment after reading this consent form, please sign your
names in the section below. Feel free to ask any questions!

[Researchers collect the consent forms. Participants are equally allocated to one of the classrooms after
drawing letters A or B from a box. R1 leads participants into V1 and R2 leads participants into V2. Each
researcher sets up the projector for presentation and hands out answer sheets and pencils. ]

R1 in his/her/their class: The experiment will consist of a recalling task, where you will be presented with
10 lists of 7 different letters. We will show a list for 5 seconds, then you will wait 5 seconds and in the
white sheet I will provide you, you will recall their sequences and write them. You have 20 seconds to
recall each list. From the moment I put the list of words on the projector, you will have to repeat

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rhythmically “1 and 2” at a rate of 2 numbers per second until you put the answers on the white sheets.
This process will be repeated 10 times. Now a trial will be held to clear any doubts.

[R1 turns the projector on and starts the trial]

[Trial is over, R1 checked for any problems and answers to any question related to the experiment]

R1: Now that there isn't any doubt, we will now officially begin the experiment, are you all ready?

[R1 waits for participants’ response]

R1: I will now show you the first list of letters. Your time starts now.

[Researchers begin the presentation, showing the first list of letters. The page turns blank after 5 seconds
timed by phones. Researchers sets countdown for another 5 seconds during the blank page. ]

R1: Now begins your waiting time. You may start answering when I skip to the next slide of presentation.

[R1 skips to the next slide where it states answering time. Participants begin writing their answers on the
sheet. R1 repeats the steps for 10 times.]

R2 in his/her/their class: The experiment will consist of a recalling task, where you will be presented with
10 lists of 7 different letters. We will show a list for 5 seconds, then you will wait 5 seconds and in the
white sheet I will provide you, you will recall their sequences and write them. You have 20 seconds to
recall each list. We will now begin the experiment, are you all ready?

[R2 waits for participants’ response]

R2: I will now show you the first list of letters. Your time starts now.

[Researchers begin the presentation, showing the first list of letters. The page turns blank after 5 seconds
timed by phones. Researchers sets countdown for another 5 seconds during the blank page. ]

R2: Now begins your waiting time. You may start answering when I skip to the next slide of presentation.

[R2 skips to the next slide where it states answering time. Participants begin writing their answers on the
sheet. R2 presents another round of the steps above for 10 times.]

R1 & R2: When you have finished answering all the 10 lines. Please turn in the answer sheets to me. This
marks the ending of our experiment. Please follow me outside for our last debriefing session.

[R1 and R2 collect answer sheets and lead researchers out of the classrooms. Participants gather again
outside the Velic building for a debriefing session]

R1: Thank you again for your participation! We are conducting this study to see the effect of articulatory
suppression, which, in our study, is the task of repeating ‘1’ and ‘2’, on memory recall performance. Our

18
main research question is whether the articulatory suppression task will affect one’s serial recall of a list
of phonologically dissimilar letters.

R2: While participating in this study, you were placed either in an experimental group or a control
group. The control group was shown a list of numbers for five seconds, were told to wait five more
seconds and then were instructed to write the correct order of the letters on the answer sheet as
accurately as possible. The control group were given no numbers to recall out loud during this process
meaning there was no articulatory suppression.

R1: On the other hand, the experiment group received instructions to repeat the numbers ‘1, 2’ ‘1,2’ at
the rate of two numbers per second from the beginning of the presentation of the list to when they
finished filling in the answer sheet. In the experimental group, articulatory suppression was present. We
expect to find that the control group, without articulatory suppression, were more likely to recall the list
of numbers presented more accurately in comparison to the experimental group. This is because it is
hypothesized that the short-term memory has limited capacity and duration before recollection
becomes difficult especially whilst multitasking.

R2: We greatly appreciate your participation in this endeavor, and we ask you not to tell others about
the study. The reason for this is that if potential participants already know what the study is about, this
information will influence their response, and we would obtain misleading information. Therefore, it is
important that you do not talk about this study to friends or other people who may be in the study in
the future or allow them to read this feedback sheet.

R1: If you have any questions regarding our experiment or the original study, feel free to ask us any
questions or files! Thank you all for joining today!

Appendix v: Answer sheets

Group A
Number Answer
Trial
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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 Group B
Number Answer
Trial
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Appendix vi: Materials

 Projector

 Whiteboard

 Pens

 Answer sheets

 Power point presentation

 Box with enough papers for the sample

Appendix vii: Raw data and inferential statistics

Control group (n=10) B

Correct
Participant Number of percentage
Number correct trials of recall (%)
1 4 40
2 3 30
3 0 0
5 2 20
6 5 50
7 2 20

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 8 7 70
9 5 50
18 3 30
19 3 30
Mean 3.40 34.00
Standard
Deviation 1.96 19.55

Experimental group (n=12) A

Correct
Participant Number of percentage
Number correct trials of recall (%)
4 1 10
10 0 0
11 0 0
12 0 0
13 0 0
14 0 0
15 2 20
16 1 10
17 1 10
20 6 60
23 0 0
24 0 0
Mean 0.92 9.17
Standard
Deviation 1.73 17.30

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