THE IMPACT OF DISTRACTION ON SHORT-TERM MEMORY Inga Chivitchian California State University, Northridge.

THE IMPACT OF DISTRACTION ON SHORT-TERM MEMORY

Inga ChivitchianCalifornia State University, Northridge

PREVIOUS RESEARCH:

Recall seven digits either in silence, irrelevant speech, vocal music, or instrumental music.

Participants were able to recall more digits when recalling in silence, than in any other condition

Alley & Greene, 2008

PREVIOUS RESEARCH

University undergraduates studied twenty lists in backgrounds of similar onset words, rhyming words, dissimilar words or in silence

No significant difference between any of the conditions, other than the silence condition, in which students recalled the most amount of words

Baddeley, & Salame, 1982

HYPOTHESIS

Distraction decreases short-term memory.

DEMOGRAPHICS

40%

10%10%

40%

Ethnicity

Hispanic WhiteAsian-American Other

DEMOGRAPHICS

Male Female0

5

10

15

20

20 CSUN students in PSYCH 321- Lab 2 course(4 Males and 16 Females)

DEMOGRAPHICS

Participants were between the ages of 20 and 26

M= 22.20

SD= 1.795

MATERIALS

PowerPoint

12 random words •-Computer, Sweater, Building, Protein, Snowflake, Alcohol, Telephone, Change, Sleep, Paper, Arm, Gold.

A sheet of paper for the demographics

(age, gender, ethnicity) and the

recalled words.

MATERIALS

Image by Salvador Dali called “Persistence of Memory”

MATERIALS

A song, by a band Hella called “Brown Metal”

http://youtu.be/ujofwGp2B9E

PROCEDURE

Participants randomly assigned to two groups.

• Control Group: 12 words presented on PowerPoint in silence.

• Experimental Group: 12 words presented with visual distraction (image in the background) and auditory distraction (song playing on speakers).

RESULTS

Experimental Group (Distractions) -M = 5.50 -SD = 1.43 Control Group (No Distractions) -M = 3.9 -SD = 1.10

RESULTS

t(18) = 2.799, p = .174.

The results failed to support our hypothesis and are not in agreement with previous research.

LIMITATIONS

Order and choice of words

Image choice

Song choice

The order of groups

FUTURE DIRECTION

Better choice of words

Better destruction methods

More words

Larger N