The Power of Positive Words on the Short-Term Memory
Gunner Metzer and Brandon Messing
Saginaw Valley State University
Dr. Louis Cohen
April 2018
Presented at Psychology Poster Session (Saginaw, MI.)
Abstract
For the purpose of this experiment, what is being looked at is how positive or negative words affect short-term memory. Our hypothesis was that these students would remember more positive words than negative words. 32 participants were examined with no restrictions. Those participants who are being examined are college students at Saginaw Valley State University. The participants were given a randomized list of words with a positive or negative connotation in each. We then gave them 30 seconds to remember as many as possible and after that, handed them a sheet with the positive or negative side blanked out. On average, students with the positive word sheet remembered 1.617 words from the fill-in-the-blank list (FIB) and 7.071 from the circled word list (CW). Students with the negative word sheet remembered 2.000 words from the FIB list and 6.071 from the CW list. Overall, our results were insignificant and we had to reject the null hypothesis.
Introduction
The purpose of this experiment is to look at and measure the effect of positive or negative emotional words on short-term memory. Past research has looked at recall in terms of remembering a list of randomized words. One study looked at the effect of remembering the first and last items of a list the most while forgetting the words in the middle. This, in turn, was called the “Serial-position effect.” (Aschenbrenner, 2017) In our experiment, we wanted to see whether or not the emotional connotation of a word had an effect on a person's ability to recall the given words in the short term. This topic has been heavily influential in modern news outlets and social media websites to create “clickbait” articles based on word choice. (Hurst, 2016) In our list of words, we presented 20 different words with two different styles. The first list contained positive words and neutral words, while the other list contained negative words with neutral words. Our hypothesis was that our subjects would be able to recall more positive emotional words than those who were given the list with the negative words.
Method
Participants:
In our study, we used 32 total participants. To minimize any doubt, we attempted to create equal amounts of people in each group for our word lists. All of the participants were college students ages 18-24. We initially were going to have a comparison of males to females as well, but decided against it, seeing as the number of participants who showed up to participate varied drastically. As researchers, we did not give out any type of reward or credit for participating in this experiment, but the professors may have given some extrinsic motivation to show up. This may have included a grade or extra-credit opportunity, which could have had some effect on the effort given during the test.
Materials:
- Timer
- Lists of words (positive or negative)
- Writing utensil (pen or pencil)
Procedure
For the experiment, we had one student participate at a time in a 15-minute time slot using a between-subjects design. The independent variable was the list of words. Level 1 contained the positive with a neutral word list, and level 2 contained the negative with a neutral word list. The dependent variable that we wanted to measure was the number of words remembered in 30 seconds, either on the positive or negative lists. To begin, we had students enter a closed-off room and explained to them what we were looking for. We asked them to recall as many words as possible from a list of 20 total words in 30 seconds. When we told them to begin, we hit start on the timer and left them alone to look at the list. After the 30 seconds were up, we took away the list of words and handed them a new list of words face-down and explained to them that this new list had some words missing from it. The objective of this new list was to fill in the blanks with words from the first list. In this new list, however, we completely removed the entire left side, which contained either the positive or negative adjectives we were looking to measure. When we said to start, they again were given 30 seconds to fill in the blanks with all the words that they could remember. If they were able to get the word correct, along with getting it in the right spot, they were given one point. If they were able to get the word correct, but not in the right spot, they were given half a point. After these 30 seconds were up, the list was taken, and we handed them one final list with around 20 words in random order. We then asked them to remember back to the first list and to circle any words they recognized from it. Once again, we gave them 30 seconds to circle as many words as they could remember. If they circled a word from the first list, they were given a point. However, if they circled a word that was not present on the first list, they lost a point. After this final test was administered, we asked if they had any additional questions. If not, they were free to leave. The experiment, overall, took around 10 minutes to run through in its entirety.
Results
In the test, we ended up with a relatively close amount of people in each group (positive and negative.) On average, students with the fill-in-the-blank positive list got around 1.6176 correct out of 10, while those with the negative fill-in-the-blank list got 2.000 correct out of 10. This resulted in a -.3824 for our estimated positive list hypothesis. For the second half of our examination, students in the positive circling list averaged around 7.071 out of 10, while those with the negative circling list averaged about 6.071 out of 10. This resulted in a +1.000 for our estimated positive list hypothesis. Our findings overall were insignificant so we have rejected the null hypothesis.
Discussion
As stated previously, the results found were insignificant so the null hypothesis had to be rejected. Possible limitations that presented themselves were the lack of participants made available for the experiment. The minimum target number that we wanted to achieve was 32 people and we met that goal but did not exceed it. Another limitation was the lack of questions being asked by participants if the instructions were not clear to them. A few of the individuals tested lost numerous seconds because they were unclear on what they were supposed to do. As researchers, myself and Brandon were both present for questions before, during, and after the examination took place. One last limitation that now presents itself is the fact that the time of day can play a role in how much a student remembers. Since the study had no set time, some of the students may have stayed up too late the night before the study, and their tiredness could have skewed some of the results. This is a topic that needs more in-depth research and planning to fail to reject the null hypothesis. The only recommendation for future research in this specific area is to take into account the limitations presented above and reduce them as much as possible.
References
- Aschenbrenner, A. J., Balota, D. A., Weigand, A. J., Scaltritti, M., & Besner, D. (2017). The first letter position effect in visual word recognition: The role of spatial attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 43(4), 700-718.
- Dudukovic N.M. (2017) Serial Recall. In: Kreutzer J., DeLuca J., Caplan B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham
- Hurst, Nathan. "Https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/56080." To clickbait or not to clickbait? An examination of clickbait headline effects on source credibility. (2016)