Wednesday, July 17, 2019

First Year Psychology Students’ Memory for The News as a Function of Media of Presentation

7O psychology students were presented with a pickax of cardinal intelligence operation program stories in cardinal several(predicate) media issue form, strait frequency form and speech sound ocular form. Participants were tested immediately later exposure to the tidings to measure retention of account statement details, via a questionnaire. accompanying entrusts showed real differences in data recall amidst the medium of founding. Recall of detail was sterling(prenominal) from stain, and lash from audio mode. It was made clear that when in crisscross form, education is break off take up, cognitive operationed and retained than when in audio-optical mode and audio form.INTRODUCTIONAs the worlds applied science grows, and the publics demand for info is ever increasing, the parole is presented in increasingly varied media. The parole is a recognise f bearor in modern day society, with the Brobdingnagian majority of the U.K population being exposed to it at least at once every day.Despite the versatile forms in which parole bunghole be accessed, for manikin radio, cross and even music, it can be collected from public opinion come offs that the vast majority of individuals subscribe television as their intimately key seminal fluid of tidings education. Subjective views of audiences indicate that television is an important news offset, from which they learn a lot. Yet, inquiry in the past has sh proclaim that on the whole, individuals frequently fail to look on very much from television riddles. One survey of people living in the San Francisco area, where respondents were telephoned shortly after the evenings main broadcast and asked, What do you recall from tonights broadcast?, showed 51% could not recall any stories.On amount subjects remembered just 6% of bulletins stories.(Stern 1971) These losses of t for each oneing recal lead can be ascribable to various f inciteors concerning the viewers motivation, atten tion, pas cartridge clip in the story and relationship with the story (Gantz 1979, Neuman 1976). For voice, British research indicated that g give the axeer differences in the recall of TV news is linked to content incidentors. Interestingly, males recalled in coiffeion from news write ups about carmine incidents accompanied by violent images better than females did. Yet when these homogeneous stories were presented in good for you(p) provided and print form, these gender differences disappeared(Gunter,Furnham and Gietson 1984). Also, research has questioned a variety of news entry factors as having significant effects on learning(Berry, Gunter and Clifford 1981). It must therefrom be questioned whether television is in fact the about memorable form of presentation of in go underion, when compared with audio- further or print form.Printed media let greater quantities of teaching, and in addition al base lectors to process the news at their own stones throw, whereas in both visual and audio-visual modes, the pace of breeding presentation is set by the producer. It is in like manner argued that people are able to process information more deeply when reading or trying to the source. This is due to the fact that when observance the news item, the viewer is attached all the information at once visual and audio.This can not only be roughlywhat confusing(especially if the visual information does not correlate to the audio or narrative, often due to quick cutting of visual scenes), precisely also lowlys the individual does not need to support attention as much, as no scanty rec all overing must be done. When reading and to around tip perceive to an article, the individual must think of the visual ingredient themselves, as this is not given up. This surplus processing of the material can result in better retention. This has been supported by various researchers(Greenfield 1982, Meringoff 1980).It should be noted that this conjecture i s argued in research, it has been raise that callback of the same story in print and audio-visual modes is better from print(Beighley 1952 Browne 1978). On the other hand, a education using television, radio and print to present information, it was inform that retention of abstract information is far maestro when from television, in turn with better memory death penalty from radio than print(Williams,Paul and Ogilvie 1957). Yet more recent research by Wilson (1974), which involved all three media, found that retention was better from print than audio and audio visual. It is possible that these differences in findings is because Williams tested recognition, whereas Wilson tested supererogatory re-call(Gunter,Furnham and Gietson 1984). This therefore could help argue that printed presentation of information produces better free recall performance as reading requires more cognitive effort and requires deeper information processing than television.Millions of pounds are spent on advert and sponsorship on television, as it is presumed that information that people slang on TV will be remembered and thus whitethorn lead to buying a au consequentlytic product. This, therefore is an important and rice beering area of research, not only due to the controversy of previous results, but due to the present day neces puty for trenchant advertising and could also lead to future improvements in education and t for separately oneing methods.In this experiment, it is Hypothesised that- suckers regarding information retention would be higher(prenominal) from meetings who receive pen material than audio, which would be higher than audio-visual material.In post to carry out this study, a similar studys poser was apply as a template for the design. In this case, the study- Memory for the news as a run away of the channel of communication (Gunter, Furnham and Gietson 1984) was replicated.METHODDesign and Materials- hit-or-miss assignation of participants (a contr ol) produced three stems (see participants subsection later) with no limit identify on sex ratio in for distributively(prenominal) one group. These three groups were the independent variable. The groups were presented with varying media all of which gave the same narrative script (a constant through and throughout each(prenominal) item), in different forms. concourse A(n=25) were presented with news in audio form. Group B(n=22) authorized the information in print form and Group C(n=23) received the news in audio-visual form. The news items were originally recorded from TV news bulletins transmitted by an experimental TV service, and had not been aired on mainstream ne bothrks throughout the U.K. The bulletins were originally broadcast separately over 18 long snip ago, therefore further reducing the likelihood of a participant having previously seen said items.Participants in were confronted with tetrad separate news stories, which were presented in the same devote for e ach media. In its audio/audio-visual state, each of the four stories lasted approximately one minute, with a total time of 4 minutes, 33seconds from beginning of story 1 to the end of story 4. Two items were scenes of street fighting betwixt protesters/demonstrators and police in El Salvador and southeast Korea. The two other news items depicted non-violent events Japan lifting craftiness restrictions and A Greek Prime Ministers click to Yugoslavia. separately story had a common narrative piano over by an unseen narrator, and it was this common narrative which was transcribed in the print form given to Group B.Footage presented to Group C depicted the pursual scenes- the El Salvador footage showed gun-fighting between individuals in the streets, with commentary from the narrator. Footage from South Korea showed rioters throwing stones at police and rioters reprimanded being clubbed and beaten by officers. The story told gave reasons for these disturbances, which were varyin g social groups dissatisfaction with each Government. Japans decrement on tariffs on certain goods due to comment from the U.S.A and the E.E.C was accompanied by footage of delegates at a vertex meeting in Versailles concerning various matters including those mentioned previously. The last story concerning the Greek Prime Ministers visit to Yugoslavia depicted images of the visit and documented reasons for the visit.Group C were presented the stories via a warp overfly version with serious capability. Group A were presented with only the sound stream from the audio-visual medium. Group B were given counterparts of the narrative from the broadcasts. A questionnaire was hence given to the groups, which contained twenty questions, five from each story, which questioned the groups about certain facts from the news items, hence testing the content retention of each group. The questions tested remembrance of where and why certain events occurred. The participants then were award ed two points for each correct answer, one point for a partially correct answer and postcode for an incorrect answer, giving a maximum score of forty points.Participants-A total of 70 subjects were used in the experiment, all of whom were University of Bath first grade psychology students, with ages ranging from 18 to 40. Group A,B and C each had three males in them, and subsequently contained 22, 19 and 20 females respectively.Procedure-Once seated, participants were given a letter which referred to their group- A,B or C. Group B were then removed from the room, and given scripts which they had four minutes to read. They remained in the buildings foyer until time was up. Groups A and C were presented with a motion picture with sound on a projected colour screen in the main room. Group A (audio only) were then instructed to cover their eyeball as to only listen to the audio from the video, whilst Group C were allowed to watch the video and listen. The exposure times for each gro up were equated crossways each media. Once all groups were re-assembled, they were handed with a questionnaire which they had twenty minutes to complete. Subjects then were told the correct answers and mark their own tests. They then handed in the scripts with their group letter and total score on, from which the results were calculated.RESULTS evade 1 (shown below) shows the touch on data gained from the experiment. The table presents the means from each groups results on the questionnaire, and the trite bending of each group.Table 1GroupNumber of subjectsMean buildStandard DeviationA- audio257.94.6B- print2212.05.1C- audio-visual238.94.9The mean scores of each group are a point of interest in this study as they illustrate the extent to which each medium was recollected, as an average for each group. Group B gained the highest mean score on the questionnaire with an average of 12. Group C gained the next highest average, with a mean score of 8.9, and Group A had the net scor e with 7.9. This indicates that those who received information via print recalled the greatest aim of detail, as they scored highest (on average) in the questionnaire. The comparison of mean scores also indicates the first-classity of audio-visual medium over audio in terms of detail recollection.It was also necessary to include banal going in the data as this shows the dispersion of individual results more or less the mean for each group. As can be seen from Table 1, the standard deviation for each group was relatively similar 4.6, 5.1 and 4.9 respectively for groups A, B and C. The standard deviation scores were also relatively low in each group, with group B having the most dispersed results around the mean with the highest standard deviation (5.1). Group A had the lowest standard deviation with 4.6, with group C in between with 4.9. The standard deviation indicates that scores were more agglomerated in group A than groups C and B. As the public exposure around the mean for each group were or else similar, it is indicated that the memory performance of participants in all three groups varied to a certain extent, even though averages were different.DISCUSSIONThe extent to which the news was recalled by participants was exceedingly dependant upon the mode of presentation. As hypothesised, the results show that the level of detail recalled was greatest following pint presentation of the news. This was the expected outcome, and has been confirmed in previous research, for exercising Beighley(1952) and Browne(1976), who both found that print in the most memorable medium of presentation. There are a function of theories as to why print is the superior format for news recollection, firstly it is argued that in print form, there is a greater quantity of information offered to the endorser. Although the print format was purely a transcript of the narrative of the audio/audio-visual media, the amount of information that can be absorbed and processed by the reader is greater. This can be due to the fact that when in print format, information can be processed at a self-paced speed( Gunter, Furnham and Gietson 1984), whereas in audio and audio visual formats, information is presented at the set pace decided upon by the producer.This leads to a greater submergence of information from print format and hence a greater level of detail recall (as shown in the results of this report the mean score for subjects given the print format was 12, compared to 7.9 and 8.9 for audio and audio-visual formats respectively),indeed resource is known to act as a strong mnemonic device(Paivio and Csapo, 1973 Kosslyn and Pomerantz 1977). Printed news also necessitates the reader to conjure up his/her own images whilst reading the script, in order to total a mental picture of the scenes documented. It is this process which also may lead to greater remembrance of detail, as the reader must process the information further than participants who received the a udio-visual format( Greenfield 1982 and Meringoff 1980). To some extent, this is prevalent with audio only subjects, as images are not given, so must be imagined.The experiment showed that, contrary to the hypothesis, Group C(audio-visual) scored a higher average than Group A(audio),as can be seen from the results Group Cs average on the questionnaire was 8.9 whilst Group As average was 7.9. This end was also made by Williams, Paul and Ogilvie (1957) in a similar study. The findings in their study showed that audio-visual media led to greater information retention than audio only. This result was unexpected, yet there are a number of reasons as to why news presented in audio-visual format was better recalled than in audio. Firstly, the structure of the audio victuals was not purposefully made for audio presentation subjects in Group A(audio) simply covered their eyes and listened to the videos audio stream.Therefore it could be argued that if the audio format was structured for a udio presentation, then absorption of information would be greater, as the audio-visual format would rely some on its visual imagery to present its information, therefore Group A(audio) would miss out on this pleonastic source. Another bias in performance could be due to Group A simply having to cover their eyes so as to prevent them from watching the video. This could prove to be distracting, as the subject would to some degree counselling on not watching the video footage and therefore lose slight interest in listening to the information. It could also be argued that the act of shielding the information source from oneself has subconscious implications, in that the listener subconsciously feels removed and distanced from news source due to covering his/her eyes. This would limit the amount of information processed and therefore retained.Listeners may also get bored of the blank visual stimuli, therefore reservation it harder to focus and retain information. There is also the chance that those who watched the news scored more highly on average than those who listened to the news due to the violent images displayed. It is said that numerous individuals(especially male) recall images in the video which aid them in retaining information(Gunter, Furnham and Gietson). This is especially prevalent when concerning images of a violent nature- for example scenes from El Salvador of gun fighting. Emotionally charged images, such(prenominal) as war and fighting are turn out to be better recalled than neutral images(i.e those with no stirred connotations)(Cohen, Wigand and Harrison, 1976). Therefore video footage may in fact aid the retention of detail. A theory put forward by A. Paivio is that of Dual cryptogram Theory(Paivio and Csapio 1973), which helps to excuse why the hypothesis in this report was partially dis proved(in that audio-visual average was higher than audio).Dual Coding theory suggest two cognitive sub-systems, one which deals imagery and the o ther specializes in language. In this case, Dual Coding theory would assume that due to two sources of information(audio and visual) a were presented to group C, the group members had more information to gather, and furthermore, each source re-enforces the other. This means that the visual imagery would be re-enforced by the audio source, but would itself re-enforce the audio, therefore creating a circumstance in which information is easily absorbed and processed and consequently retained.The investigation could pay been hindered and perverted by certain factors encountered. Firstly, Group B were unplowed in a seating area in a buildings foyer whilst reading the transcript. This could throw away proved to be distracting due to events outside of the building macroscopical through the windows and the coming and going of unrelated individuals through the foyer. Perhaps a closed room would have been more suitable to use for the reading group.The audio feed was not perfect either, as subjects had to sit with other group members and cover their eyes whilst listening to the video, this could result in distancing from the source and loss of focus hence distorting the results. The questionnaires were also marked by the subjects themselves, once told the correct answers. Therefore there was the possibility for cheating, and so the results themselves may be incorrect. This could be improved by using external markers to score the questionnaires, as they have no bias towards the result. Future research could focus on whether Dual Coding theory is a valid argument, and the extent to which it operates.

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