PSY1016 Research Report: Investigating Memory and Processing Depth

This psychology research report, conducted as part of a PSY1016 module, investigates the impact of processing depth on memory recall. The study employs an experimental design where participants are presented with drawings of objects and asked to identify them based on different criteria (natural/manmade or upright/tilted), representing deep and shallow processing conditions. The methodology section details the selection of undergraduate students as participants, the use of systematic sampling, and a repeated measures design. Stimuli include drawings of various objects, and the procedure involves participants performing tasks related to object identification and a subsequent memory test. The results, based on the data collected, show a correlation between processing depth and recall performance, with deeply processed objects (natural/manmade) being remembered better than shallowly processed objects (upright/tilted). The discussion links these findings to memory development, highlighting the storage of deeply processed information in long-term memory and shallowly processed information in short-term memory. The report concludes by reinforcing the established theories of memory and processing.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY 1
Research Methods and Design in Psychology
Name
Institutional Affliction

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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................
METHODOLOGY..........................................................................................................................................
Participants.......................................................................................................................................................
Design..............................................................................................................................................................
Stimuli and materials.......................................................................................................................................
Procedure.......................................................................................................................................................
Results............................................................................................................................................................
Discussion......................................................................................................................................................
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................................
References......................................................................................................................................................

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INTRODUCTION
Memory is defined as the ability of the brain to grasp, store and retrieve information at a later
stage in life. Memory can be broken into three stages which are encoding, storage and finally retrieval.
By studying memory, a researcher aims at developing an understanding of the characteristics and nature
of memory systems and processes. Memory is of importance in cognitive development. Memory is also
fundamental in our day to day life in terms of remembering information hence helps in mental
experiences. Memory is vital in retrieving past information and giving the possibility of reusing the
present/past experiences. The second goal of studying memory is to develop applications that are useful
to everyday life. This editorial considers two lines of work that represent some of the possibilities for
memory application research to daily life. The two lines of work are; incorporated quizzing to
strengthen learning in an educational setting and selectivity training to facilitate memory in individuals
with difficulties in remembering information or details from their previous experiences. The study of
memory can also be applied in legal issues, where matters that involve the construction of a crime scene
and inaccuracy of the eyewitness’s testimony are of importance (Bouizegarene & Philippe, 2015).
The major factor that influences memory depending on the processing depth during input and the
condition for information retrieval is how the information is organized in the memory. There are two
types of memory organization, that is; conceptual and associative organization. The conceptual
organization adopts a hierarchical structure, where items are grouped according to the taxonomical
system principle, for example, cow-horse (Durso & Johnson, 1979). The associative organization, on the
contrary, is established on direct links among the items in the group, for example, hen-egg. Three
experiments are used to demonstrate that conceptual organization requires more effort to be encoded and
utilized during learning and remembering respectively, as compared to the associative organization. In
the first experiment, a list of 20 words is utilized to be grouped either into 10 associative categories or

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into 10 associative categories of 2 words each. The words were presented as either deep or shallow
encoding states. Extensive depth of encoding lead to extreme conceptual grouping and in turn, had less
effect on the associative grouping. During the initial output of the positions, the same amounts of
conceptual and associative grouping were observed, however, conceptual grouping seemed to have
increased with recall trials. Thus, indicating it might depend on the retrieval schema establishment
(Sangani, Jangi, Ramak & Ahmadi 2019).
In the second experiment, a list of objects is presented to subjects and they are required to
mention if they are manmade or natural. This requires deep processing since the participants are
required to think about what the objects and their meanings for example TREE is a plant and it occurs
naturally hence natural will be the answer; CAR is a transportation vessel which in manufactured hence
it's man-made. In the third experiment, subjects recalled words and identified the objects that were used
in experiment 2 with or without the requirement of carrying out a secondary exercise while recalling,
after memorizing a list of items. The secondary exercise state indicated a stronger associative grouping
than conceptual grouping, with relation to the undistributed recall state. The results supported the idea of
different varieties of memory organization to become remarkable under contrasting attentional
conditions (Lieberwirth, Pan, Liu, Zhang & Wang 2016).
Present findings have added to the extensive amount of literature concerning the depth of
processing theory because they give a confirmation that, processing words or information at a deeper
level results in better recall of the words and information than words/information processed at a shallow
level. Research has also shown that verbal data can be processed in three ways, phonetic, structural and
semantic. These three levels show progress from shallow to deepest level of information storage. In each
level, a person can make sense of the information and relate it to memories from his/her past hence
determine whether the information should be transformed into short-term or long-term memory (Afrooz

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& Navimipour, 2017). When the information is processed deeper, it will be easier to retrieve it later.
Structural processing tries to examine the structures of words, that is; the font of the word or the letters
of the word. It processes the appearance of the words to make sense and derive a simple meaning of it.
Therefore, structural processing is a shallow processing level. Phonetic processing assesses the sound
heard from the articulation of a word. This processing is deeper than structural processing since one can
remember the name rather than just the letters. In semantic processing level, one tries to apply the
meaning of the word and relate to other words that have a similar meaning. Hence this level of
processing is deeper since it involves rehearsal and elaborations which is more meaningful to analyze
information (Jenkins, Kendall, Kassel, Patrón, Gowins, Dion, Shankman, Weisenbach, Maki &
Langenecker 2018). This makes the information to be stored in long-term memory since it is associated
with past learned concepts.
The following two hypotheses are expected from the study:
 Deeply processed objects are more remembered than objects processed at a shallow level.
 Shallow processed objects are less remembered compared to objects processed at a deep
level.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
The study participants will be selected from undergraduate students. The students are to be
selected systematically that is in the tenth students in 10 lecture theatres are selected by counting.
systematic sampling enables the researcher to develop an accurate sampling frame. The students
selected must be18-25 years of age. This will enable the researcher to collect accurate data that may be
used to generalize the population. Students who are 18 above can participate in the research willingly
without the researcher necessarily seeking permission from their parents. The undergraduate students

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were selected to be the participants simply because they are readily available at a particular place.
Systematic sampling is a category of probability sampling that is based on drawing inferences from the
sample population. Hence the researcher is more likely to yield a representative sample of the
population. systematic sampling will, therefore, help the researcher to collect accurate data from the
population. The participants will be one hundred in number.
Design
The research will primarily be exploratory; hence it will be based on a qualitative approach. This
approach will facilitate gaining a sound understanding of the underlying opinions, motivations, and
reasons regarding the phenomenon under investigation (Bedard, Bremer, Campbell & Cairney 2018,). It
will also provide a clear insight into the issue, thus facilitating the development of hypotheses and/or
ideas for potential quantitative investigation. It will also encourage the research participants to expand
on their responses while discussing areas that had not been initially considered. The research will be
based on the phenomenological approach where reliance on the participant’s perspectives will provide
intuition into their impulses and outlooks. The experiment will be based on a comparison of two
conditions that is shallow and deep hence, therefore, the experiment will be descriptive. Descriptive
study tries to measure the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. In this case,
the independent variables are the objects being used in the experiment while the dependent variables are
the condition being studied, that is; how shallow or deep the memory. The researcher will also use
repeated measure design, that is; the same participants will take part in every condition of the
independent variable (Schenk M., Eichelmann, Schulze, Rudovich, Pfeiffer, Di Giuseppe, Boeing &

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Aleksandrova 2019). This design gives the researcher an easy time since the participants already know
what the study involves. Therefore, it is time-saving.
Stimuli and materials
• the participants are going to be asked to read out loud the drawing as per the instruction in each
drawing. The data will be collected by noting down the findings from each participant
• the first task will be the identification of whether the objects are manmade or natural. The
participants are presented with drawings of 12 objects.
NATURAL OR MANMADE NATURAL OR MANMADE

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NATURAL OR MANMADE NATURAL OR MANMADE
NATURAL OR MANMADE NATURAL OR MANMADE

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NATURAL OR MANMADE NATURAL OR MANMADE
NATURAL OR MANMADE NATURAL OR MANMADE

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NATURAL OR MANMADE NATURAL OR MANMADE
 The second task is the identification whether the objects are tilted or in their
upright positions. The participants are presented with drawings of 12 objects as follows;

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UPRIGHT OR TILTED UPRIGHT OR TILTED
UPRIGHT OR TILTED UPRIGHT OR TILTED

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UPRIGHT OR TILTED UPRIGHT OR TILTED
UPRIGHT OR TILTED UPRIGHT OR TILTED

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UPRIGHT OR TILTED UPRIGHT OR TILTED
UPRIGHT OR TILTED UPRIGHT OR TILTED
 The last experiment is to test memory for the objects. This test is known as the
test sheet. The participants are presented by a has half of the objects that were already shown and
half not shown on an A4 sheet of paper. That total up to 48 objects as follows;

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For example:
Figure 1. example of an object shown in deep condition within the experiment

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 The participants are required to select either Y(yes) or N(no) according to recall on the objects
that were shown.
Procedure
The participants were divided into a group of 10 and each group was tested separately. Each test
took at most 20 minutes. The participants viewed the objects for five minutes and the readout loud the
answer which they thought was appropriate. For the first experiment, the participants were presented
with drawings of 12 objects and were required to identify them whether manmade or natural. for the
second experiment, the participants were presented with another 12 objects and they were to identify
them whether tilted or upright. The drawings were written on charts and given to the participants. Each
group was further presented with a memory score sheet that had the objects; which entailed 48 objects
(24 new and 24 studied). The participants were to recall the objects that were studied in the experiment
by selecting Y (yes) if they had seen the object before from the study and select N (no) if the object was
new to them. Each group was subjected to the same tests for the same time. There was no bias towards
any group to enable accurate data collection.
Results
From the data collected, three groups identified 23 studied objects and 25 new objects. Five
groups identified 12 studied objects and 36 new objects. The remaining two groups identified 24 studied
objects and 24 new objects. Hence there were 59Y and 85N. For the identification of weather, the
objects are manmade or natural all the groups identified objects as 4 manmade and 8 objects as natural.
10 objects were identified as tilted and 2 objects as upright by all the 10 groups.

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Discussion
From the above result, it is noticeable that the objects identified as to whether man manmade or
natural were recalled in the memory score sheet than objects that were identified as to whether tilted or
upright. This is because the objects to be identified as to whether manmade or natural required deep
processing. In that, the participants had to think about what the were and the meaning of the object to
identify the object correctly (Hartshorne & Makovski, 2019). On the other hand, the objects that were
identified as to whether upright or tilted were recalled less. this is because the objects required shallow
processing. The participants were required to look at the positions of the object and identify whether
upright or tilted. No thinking or derivation of the objects meaning was involved. This can be linked to
the memory development of a person. The deeply processed information is more likely to be stored as
long-term memory while shallowed processed information is likely to be stored as short-term memory.
It is for this reason that most of the group only recalled 12 items on the memory score sheet and forgot
about the rest of the items. The participants thought about what the objects were and derived their
meaning (Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982). For instance, a “cupboard”, the object is used to store cups, it
is made by humans hence does not exist naturally. Therefore, the object is manmade. Another
illustration is “cat”, it is an animal, it is born, cannot be made by man, hence it is natural. For a tilted or
upright object such as a “broom”, the participants just observed the position and noticed it is not straight
and recoded tilted as the answer.
According to (Craik and Lockhart, 1972) the level of processing is based on the processing depth
involved in memory and predicts the deeper information processed, the memory will last longer and
easily traced. Craik explain the meaning of depth as “the extraction of a relevant information from the
stimulus as opposed to in terms of numerical analysis performed upon it.” The memory works on the

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idea of how the information is processed, either deep or shallow. As shown in the results shallow
processing of the objects entail physical entities that is the structural entities for example, the position in
which the objects are seated. Deep processing on the other hand, the meaning of the objects is encoded
and related to similar objects. Deep processing involved elaboration such as thinking, imaging and
association of objects/ information which results to a better remembrance. Therefore, level of
processing: the ideology of how information is encoded influence how well a person recalls the
information. The deeper the processing of the information, the easier the recall of the information
(Crespo & Fernández-Lansac, 2016).
Conclusion
In this study, we can there conclude that deeply processed items are remembered better than
items processed at a shallow level. Therefore, deeply processed items are stored in long-term memory
whereas shallow processed items are stored in short-term memory. We can also conclude that memory is
vital in our daily life and in everything we do.

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