21/03/2025 1 ATHK1001 Assignment 1 Assignment 1 • Due date: 11:59pm Friday, April 11th (Week

7). Late penalties of 5% per day apply. • Online submission: All submissions are to be

made online via the ATHK1001 Canvas

website. Submissions will be checked for

plagiarism. • Word length: 1000 words across all questions

(exclude Questions 8 and 13). Penalties will

apply to papers that exceed this limit. • Total marks: 60 (20% of total grade for class) 1 2 21/03/2025 2 What do we remember best? • How we best remember things is something we

may ponder, especially when studying for exams.

• One reliable finding is that we tend to be better

at remembering material we generate ourselves

than material given to us (Slamecka & Graf,

1978). • Most demonstrations of this generation effect

use verbal materials, but what about other types

of materials? • In our experiment we tested the generation

effect for numbers. Do we recall more when we can

anticipate being asked to recall? • Students do not like surprise tests,

presumably because they believe we do

better if we can prepare. • Will knowing that your memory is going to

be tested lead to better recall for both

generated materials and nongenerated

materials? • We would expect the answer to be yes. 3 4 21/03/2025 3 Our experiment • Two IVs: Task type and Order of presentation • Independent variable Task type had two levels: • Generation task: Asked questions like – “In square kilometers, the area drained by the river

Nile” – Then filled in a textbox with their answer • Selection Task: Asked questions like – “In 2012 was the total number of homicides in

Germany 662” – Then select “Correct” or “Incorrect” Memory tests • After completing a task (consisting of nine

questions) participants saw the same nine

questions but now asked to recall answers. • Generation Recall Task for each question asked – “Please try to recall the number you previously

gave as the answer for this question”

– Then filled in a textbox with their answer • Selection Recall Task for each question asked – Please try to recall the number you previously saw

as the answer for this question – Then filled in a textbox with the answer they saw 5 6 21/03/2025 4 IV Order of presentation • Every participant did both tasks but one task had

to be first.

• So order condition also determined which task

would be done knowing to expect a memory test. Selection-First orderGeneration-First order Selection taskGeneration task Selection Recall taskGeneration Recall task Instruction to expect to be

asked to recall answers for

next task Instruction to expect to be

asked to recall answers for

next task Generation taskSelection task Generation Recall taskSelection Recall task Participants • 348 students attempted the experiment during

ATHK1001 tutorials. • 101 of these participants did not consent to

have their data used so were removed from the

analysis. • 24 participants did not complete both tasks and

were removed.

• This left 223 participants to analyse – 116 identified as female and 104 as male – Only 4 reported being older than 23 years.

7 8 21/03/2025 5 Results • Data file “Assignment1_dataset.xls” has been put on our

Canvas website. Each line represents a participant. • Four variables, a column for each: – 1. “id” is an arbitrary ID number. – 2. “condition” is either “Generation first” or “Selection first” – 3. “Generation_proportion” is proportion of number of answers

correctly recalled for generation task questions (i.e., number of

correct answers divided by number of answers given).

– 4. “Selection_proportion” is proportion of number of answers

correctly recalled for selection task questions (i.e., number of

correct answers divided by number of answers given).

• To be classed as correct all digits of the recall number

had to match the generated or given number. Hypotheses • Hypothesis 1: Mean recall for generated items will by different to mean recall for

selected items. We predicted that generated items will have a higher recall rate than

selected items.

• Hypothesis 2: There will be a correlation between recall for generated items and

recall for selected items. We predict this correlation will be positive.

• Hypothesis 3: For generated items, mean recall will be different depending on

whether recall was for items participants expected to have to recall verse those they

did not expect to recall. We predicted better memory for answers when the participant

knew they would have to recall them. • Hypothesis 4: For selected items, mean recall will be different depending on whether

recall was for items participants expected to have to recall verse those they did not

expect to recall.

We predicted better memory for answers when the participant knew

they would have to recall them. 9 10 21/03/2025 6 Your task • Use Excel (or similar program) to analyse this data and

determine if the hypotheses have been supported. • There are 13 questions to answer, each worth a

specified number of marks. • Answer these questions with complete sentences

(except where a graph is requested), but do not repeat

the questions themselves. Don’t use tables. • Some questions ask you to give interpretations, just try

to use your judgement and the tools you have been

given in the course to answer as well as you can. – There are not necessarily single correct answers to such

questions. Readings • For the background of this experiment you should

read Slamecka and Graf (1978). • This paper provides some background but you do not have to know it in detail. • It should however be cited in your answer to Q11. 11 12 21/03/2025 7 Formatting recommendations • Our preference is that you use the font “Times

New Roman”, 12-point size, and double-space

all the lines. – Indent the beginning of each paragraph using one

tab space.

• You should use APA style referencing and

citations, but we will accept other styles. 13 51作业君版权所有