SHORT-TERM MEMORY

The Effects of Pictures and Words on

Short-term Memory
Hailey Johnson, Emma Johnson, Nathaly Rojas, and Maddie Brue

Illinois State University

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Methods

Participants

The study examined the effects of pictures and words on short-term memory in a

population of college students. We used a sample of students in a Psychology Research Methods

class who were required to complete the survey to earn course credit. This sample may not be

fully representative of the college student population because participants are more likely to have

a greater interest in Psychology. This could result in potential differences in memory based on

the different fields of study, and how they approach visual and written information.

A total of N=19 participants completed the experiment, with only N=15 of them

providing useful data due to some failing the manipulation check. The participants were divided

into two groups: one group was shown pictures, while the other group was presented with

corresponding words. Group 1 consisted of N=8 participants, and group 2 consisted of N=7

participants.

Materials

Participants in this study were given two different types of stimuli. The stimuli presented

to the Experimental Group, group 1, were pictures. These pictures represented many common

objects or places (e.g., “beach,” “cat,” “guitar”). The images used were sourced from Google

Images. (https://google.com). The Control Group, group two, was presented with words that

corresponded to the images. For instance, if someone in the Experimental Group was presented

with the image of a cat, the Control Group would be presented with the word “cat.” The Word
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stimuli were constructed by the experimenters conducting this experiment. The Stimuli can be

found in Appendix A.

To measure memory recall, participants were asked a series of ten yes/no questions.

These questions are included in Appendix B. The use of the questions was to examine how much

the participants could recall by the end of the survey. Our study was like a study done by Oates

and Reder (11-2010), which explored memory recall using visual and verbal stimuli. We focused

on the psychological phenomenon, which is remembered better, words or pictures. In the Oates

and Reder study, they thought pictures would be remembered better, but our experiment was the

opposite. We hypothesized that words are remembered better than pictures. We similarly

followed this study but chose our own words for the stimuli.

In Appendix B, survey items can be viewed. These questions, being yes/no, were scored

based on accuracy. If correct, participants would receive a score of 1, while being incorrect

would result in a score of 0. Participants scores were summed resulting in a final possible score

of 0, being the lowest possible, and 10 being the highest possible score, summed scores could

also fall between these two extremes. This allowed us to accurately measure scores, providing a

clear analysis of the data.

Procedures

For this experiment our group had investigated the effect of different types of stimuli on

memory recall, we used the question If People are shown pictures, they will have a higher recall

than that of the people who are shown words? To find the answer to our question we used

Variables. Our first is the Independent Variables, the first Independent Variable is the use of

words. The control variable was the use of pictures. We gave half of the participants a survey
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with pictures and the other half a survey with words, we then asked if the participants could

recall what they had been introduced to, this leads us to our dependent variable. Our dependent

variable was how many items the participants recalled. We asked all the participants at the end of

the survey if they had or had not seen particular words and we used these results to check the

participants' recall.

Participants got to our survey through a Psychology Research Methods class where

participants were given a link to the memory survey. There the participants took the survey, and

their answers were recorded. This survey had few restrictions, due to the nature of it being a

survey it could have been taken anywhere where you could get access to a computer and internet

which limited the restrictions this survey imposed. The survey itself only took a few minutes, so

it did not impose a time restriction either, other than that of completing it during lab. At the

beginning of the survey, we told the participants that we were interested in memory. In the

instructions we explained that each participant would respectively be shown either a set of words

or a set of pictures, they were then told they would be asked several questions about what they

were shown, they were asked to answer these questions honestly. The exact instructions are

reproduced in Appendix C. The Survey was done in two parts, the first, each participant was

shown ten pictures or words consecutively. Second, each participant was then asked several

questions about what was shown. Data collection did not take extremely long, each participant

took a few minutes to take the survey and then the responses were collected and turned into data,

between taking the survey and the collection of the data everything took a few minutes per

participant.

For our manipulation check we asked each participant at the end of the survey how many

questions they were asked; this allowed us to check the reliability of each participant. Responses
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that got this question correct were kept in the data set, responses that fell outside of this correct

answer were disposed. People who got this question correct showed us that the participant was

paying attention during the survey, people who did not get this question correct were seen as

unreliable participants, they were considered to have failed the manipulation check and were

expelled from the set.

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Appendix A

Stimuli

Experimental Group Stimuli (Pictures)

Control Group Stimuli (Words)

· Cat

· Forrest

· Lamp

· Guitar

· Beach

· Dog

· Baby
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· Soccer

· Camera
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Appendix B

Survey Items

1. Do you recall seeing “Castle”?

a. Yes

b. No

2. Do you recall seeing “Lamp”?

a. Yes

b. No

3. Do you recall seeing “Floor”?

a. Yes

b. No

4. Do you recall seeing “Mail”?

a. Yes
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b. No

5. Do you recall seeing “Piano”?

a. Yes

b. No

6. Do you recall seeing “Guitar”?

a. Yes

b. No

7. Do you recall seeing “Baby”?

a. Yes

b. No

8. Do you recall seeing “Garden”

a. Yes

b. No

9. Do you recall seeing “Photo”?

a. Yes

b. No
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10. Do you recall seeing “Forrest”?

a. Yes

b. No

Appendix C
Instructions

First, you are going to be presented with either 10 pictures or words. Please pay close

attention because afterward you will be presented with a group of questions about what you have

seen. Please answer these questions honestly.