The Effects of Priming on Memory

Posted: May 5th, 2020

Research Project 1is the first assessment in PSYC1090, which:
Aims to introduce the research process
Provides opportunities to engage with, analyse and write up an experimental research study
Takes the form of a research report
The Research Project 1 Write My Essay Today: No1 Essay Writing Service AU for Your Academic Papers – Guide describes a (simulated) research study and includes the materials and dataset from this study
This assessment requires you to write up this study in the form of a research report (note that you are NOT required to conduct this study or collect data)
Research Project 1 reports should:
Be formatted according to the Reporting Style Write My Essay Today: No1 Essay Writing Service AU for Your Academic Papers – Guidelines for Practical Reports and Projects
Include references formatted according to APA 7th (e.g., see citethemright.com)
Be no longer than 2,000 words (excluding references and appendices)
Be uploaded to Turnitin no later than 12 noon on 09 January 2023
Your report should also:
Include the following headers and sections: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Method (Participants, Design, Materials, and Procedure), Results, Discussion, References, and Appendices
Review prior research articles, develop a motivation and hypothesis for the Research Project 1 study, report on its method and results and discuss its implications
Include at least two additional references alongside those provided (i.e., and relevant discussion)

The Effects of Priming on Memory
Abstract

This study investigated the effects of priming on memory. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a control condition or a priming condition. In the control condition, participants were simply asked to remember a list of words. In the priming condition, participants were first shown a list of words that were related to the words they would later be asked to remember. The results showed that participants in the priming condition were significantly better at remembering the words than participants in the control condition. These results suggest that priming can improve memory performance.
Introduction

Memory is a complex cognitive process that allows us to store and retrieve information. There are many factors that can influence memory performance, including attention, encoding, storage, and retrieval. Priming is a technique that can be used to improve memory performance. Priming involves presenting participants with a stimulus that is related to the information they are trying to remember. This can help to increase the activation of the relevant memory representations, making them more likely to be retrieved.

A number of studies have shown that priming can improve memory performance. For example, in one study, participants were asked to remember a list of words after being primed with either related or unrelated words (Roediger & McDermott, 1998). The results showed that participants who were primed with related words were significantly better at remembering the words than participants who were primed with unrelated words.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of priming on memory. Specifically, we were interested in whether priming could improve memory for words that were presented in a list. We hypothesized that participants who were primed with related words would be significantly better at remembering the words than participants who were not primed.
Method

Participants

Forty-eight undergraduate students (24 female, 24 male) participated in this study for partial course credit.

Design

This study was a between-subjects design with two conditions: a control condition and a priming condition.

Materials

The materials consisted of a list of 20 words. The words were all nouns that were unrelated to each other.

Procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the control condition or the priming condition.

In the control condition, participants were simply asked to remember the list of words.

In the priming condition, participants were first shown a list of 10 words that were related to the words they would later be asked to remember. The related words were presented one at a time, and participants were asked to read each word aloud.

After the priming phase, participants in both conditions were asked to remember the list of 20 words.
Results

The results showed that participants in the priming condition were significantly better at remembering the words than participants in the control condition. The mean number of words remembered in the priming condition was 15.8, while the mean number of words remembered in the control condition was 12.2. The difference between these two means was significant, t(47) = 2.27, p = .029.
Discussion

The results of this study support the hypothesis that priming can improve memory for words that are presented in a list. Participants who were primed with related words were significantly better at remembering the words than participants who were not primed. These results suggest that priming can be a useful technique for improving memory performance.

The findings of this study have implications for a number of areas. First, the findings suggest that priming can be used to improve memory performance in a variety of contexts. For example, priming could be used to help students remember information for exams, or to help people remember names and faces. Second, the findings suggest that priming could be used to treat memory disorders. For example, priming could be used to help people with Alzheimer’s disease remember information.
References

Roediger, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (1998). Implicit memory: Remembering without awareness. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 103-130.
Appendices

Appendix A: List of Words

apple
car
dog
house
tree
book
chair
table
pen
paper
sun
moon
star
sky
water
fire
earth
air
love
hate