The Effect of Impactfulness Events on Memories
By Jedsada Thavornfung
University of Texas at Austin
PSY 420M Psychological Methods and Statistics.
February 2021 - May 2021
Advisor: Dr. Patrick Carroll
Program:
Excel - Organizing data
Jamovi - Data analysis and visualization
Qualtrics - Survey service
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate if more impactful events could affect the memories recalling. The hypothesis is that samples could retrieve more details of memories from the more impactful events than the less impactful events. Sixty-seven samples were randomly separated into two groups. Each group was assigned to watch one out of two videos, which have a different level of impactfulness: more impactful and less impactful videos. Once samples had watched the video, they were first assigned to solve the mathematical questions. Then, they were assigned to answer 10 questions that related to the details from the video. Once the data had been collected, researchers conducted an independent sample t-test with a set of alpha levels of 0.05. As a result, the samples in the impactful group (n = 32, M = 5.50) were able to retrieve less memories from the video than the samples in the non-impactful group (n = 35, M = 6.49). According to the result, we rejected our hypothesis because the samples from non-impactful events, in fact, retrieve more details from the assigned video. There was a chance that the more impactful video was not impactful enough to make a significant impact on memories recalling. Or, the more impactful video was distracting the samples from memorizing other details in the video, which resulted in underperformance overall.
Introduction
The impactful levels of the events influence how well the information can be recalled. Impactful event was the event that had a significant or powerful effect on individuals. In this study, the researchers are investigating how well the participants can recall their memories based on different types of impactful events. Emotionality is heavily influencing how much people can retrieve information, both positive and negative information, which means that “emotion improved memory” (Burke et al., 1992). For example, people who survive a car crash would remember about the event better than people who fell from the bike. Thus, the impactful events “enhanced feeling of remembering” (Sharot et al., 2004). Also, people tend to not forget any impactful event in their childhood: bullying, even though they are now adults because “emotion slows forgetting” (Reisberg & Heuer, 1992). The impactful events could slow forgetfulness.
The hypothesis of this study is the participants would retrieve memories from the more impactful events. However, the negative emotion can result in retrieving the false information because there is “the possibility that false memories meet self-image and social needs” (Newman & Lindsay, 2009). Although people who survived car crashes can describe precise details from the events, those details can be false while working to prevent individuals from suffering. The information retrieved from the negative emotion “stimulate high levels of false memory” (Brainerd, et al., 2008). The purpose of this study was investigating if the impactful events could essentially improve the memories retrieving by presenting participants the event with different impactful levels, then tested to see how much participants could recall details from the events. There were two types of manipulation: impactful and non-impactful videos. Participants were randomly assigned to each manipulation. Again, the hypothesis is the participants would retrieve more memories from the impactful video than the non-impactful video.
Method
Participants
The expected participants were approximately 67 samples (n = 67). The genders or ethnicity of the participants were not superficially collected in this research. However, the participants were mostly students at the University of Texas at Austin, both males and females, ranging in age from 18 – 24 years old. Participants were mixed in gender, ethnicity, and background.
Materials
Participants were watching a video for around 1 minute, when asked to answer the questions related to the materials in the video. This research was the between-subject design where each participant will only watch one video during the research. There will be two videos: less and more impactful video conditions. After participants finished watching the video, they will ask to complete five math questions, which are purposely to distract them and prevent the ceiling effects. The scores from mathematical questions will not count toward the result of this research. Then, the participants will be asked to answer the questions about the details on video once they finished those mathematical questions. The questions will be asking about the details in the video that they watched, which could indicate how well participants could recall the information or details from the video. The researchers want to know if the participants will recall or retrieve more details from which videos better between less impactful and more impactful videos.
Mathematics Questions:
2(5) + 7
2(20-5) +12
(5x4) + 5
(10x2) + 11
2(3+5)
Non-Impactful video: The video will contain the normal conditions, nothing extraordinary. For example, people walked their dogs, played on the field, etc. The video was designed to not be particularly interesting.
Impactful video: The first half of this video will be the same as the non-impactful video. However, the second half (after the 0.11 seconds) will be different where the guy was hit by the ball in the last scene, which was considered an impactful event on this research.
Both videos will contain the same settings, people, and objects. The only difference between both videos were the actions of people in the videos. The questions will be about the situation in the video. The lists of questions were:
Survey Questions:
What color was the sash of the graduate student?
What dog breed was the girl walking?
What kind of ball was thrown?
How many men were standing by the statue?
What color was the t-shirt of the girl walking the dog?
What was the main sound being played in the background of the video?
What was the statue of?
What color was the hat of the guy standing by the statue?
How many bags were by the stairs?
How many people were throwing the ball?
Procedure
Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two video conditions using Qualtrics. The independent variables were the impactful of the videos. There were 2 levels of manipulation: non-impactful condition and impactful condition. The experiment was between-subject design with random assignments. The dependent variable was how accurately participants could answer the questions related to the details of the video. The dependent variable was measured by how many questions participants could correctly answer after watching the video, then comparing the score of both independent variables.
Result
In order to determine if the memory of samples were affected by events, each group of the participants would watch different levels of impactful video: non-impactful and impactful video, researchers conducted an independent samples t-test with a set of alpha level of 0.05. As shown in Table 1, the analysis revealed a significant difference in memory retrieving (rate by correct score on the survey scale from 0 – 10 where maximum was 10: minimum was 0) between the participants who watched non-impactful video (M = 6.49, SD = 1.82), and those participants who watched impactful video (M = 5.50, SD = 1.65), t(65) = -2.32, p = 0.024. Furthermore, the 95% confidence interval is between -1.84 and -0.316. The t-critical value is 2.00. As expected, there is a significant difference in memory retrieval between two sample groups; those participants who watched non-impactful and impactful video. There is a significance between two levels of independence because the t(65) = -2.32 is less than the t-critical value at 2.00, and zero is not included in the 95% confidence interval. Both indications are used to reject the null hypothesis. Participants who watched the non-impactful video could answer more questions correctly than those who watched the impactful video (see Figure 1). In addition, the effect size Cohen’s d of -0.567 was a medium effect size, which indicated that the two means were 0.567 standard deviation apart. This relationship has a p-value of 0.024, which means that their relationship or difference is statistically significant because it is less than 0.05.
Table 1. Independent Sample T-Test
Table 2. Group Descriptive
Figure 1. Graph Illustrating the Difference Between Two Independent Valuables
Discussion
The hypothesis is that the participants who watched the impactful video would retrieve more information from their memory than the participants who watched the non-impactful video. The researchers separated the participants into two groups: control and treatment groups. Each group would watch a different video, which differed by the different impact of the event. After participants have watched the video, they were asked to answer the questions regarding the events that happened in the video they just watched. The questions in both conditions remain the same. The non-impactful video contains the normal conditions, nothing extraordinary. For example, people walking their dogs, playing on the field, etc. The impactful event video contains the same first half of the video as the non-impactful video; however, the second half will be different where the guy was hit by the ball in the last scene. The limitation or possible error of this research was that all participants took the survey online where they can go back and re-watch the video again. Although researchers highly encourage participants to not go back and watch the video again, they could still go back to the video while filling out the survey. Future researchers should collect the data where the survey was set in a program where participants could not go back to watch the video for a better measurement. Also, the videos or events that were presented to participants could be more impactful by provoking the emotion of participants. However, the events that could provoke the emotion of participants could also provoke the trauma of individuals. Thus, the researchers must consider how emotions could be harmful to participants psychologically. The initial hypothesis where researchers were expecting to see the difference between two conditions, but participants who watched impactful video would have a higher score than those participants who watched non-impactful video. However, the collected data indicate that we have sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that participants have a better memory retrieving from non-impactful video, which was the opposite of the hypothesis or any previous research. Because the null hypothesis was rejected, there was a chance of Type I error. There is a chance that impactful video would have more distraction than the non-impactful video, which influences participants who watched impactful video to perform worse than participant who watched non-impactful video. The questionnaires in the survey were benefiting on one condition more than another condition. Also, the impactful video was not as impactful as researchers expected, which was not resulting as expected. To make more impactful videos/events in the future, researchers could add more interesting details on the impactful video such as details that participants were not expected to see in the normal video to improve the impactful level of events. In conclusion, the participants who watched the non-impactful video retrieved more details or memory from the video than those participants who watched the impactful video.
