Nickerson & Adams (1979): Long-Term Memory for a Common Object

Concern
The broad research study question that is being asked in this experiment is, "How precisely and entirely do people acknowledge common objects?" The particular research study question that is being asked in Experiment I is, "How properly can the subject recreate a penny without assisted recall?" The particular research question that is being asked in Experiment II is, "How accurately can the subject locate the functions on the penny when offered a list of the 8 functions of interest?" The specific research concern that is being asked in Experiment III is, "How properly can the subject choose whether the provided function is on the cent and how much self-confidence do they have in their response?" The particular research study concern being asked in Experiment IV is, "How accurately can the subject decide whether the picture revealed is a proper recreation of a penny and if not, say what is incorrect?" The particular research question being asked in Experiment V is, "How properly can the subject choose the correct recreation of a cent out of fifteen images?" Alternatives

One of the alternatives that are being thought about is that individuals can not recognize or remember a few of the particular details of a cent from memory since of meaningfulness and disturbance.

A few of the aspects of a penny have no significance to the topics, thus the absence of recall when trying to bear in mind them.

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Interference likewise prevents individuals from remembering specific details of the penny because they may be getting puzzled with older designs of the penny or other coins entirely.

The other option that is being considered is that people can remember or acknowledge some information of the cent because of meaningfulness and cue redundancy. Specific aspects, such as the date and Lincoln's head, are very important in distinguishing that it is a cent. Hint redundancy likewise helps individuals compare images they have and have not seen before. Reasoning

The reasoning of the experiments is described through the results of the alternatives. If alternative 1 is proper, then no matter if the subject is given two blank circles or a sheet with fifteen images and they only have to identify the right one, the subject will still not have the ability to reproduce the penny entirely and properly. However, if alternative 2 is correct, then the subjects will be able to recall more details of the penny when given more materials to further enhance their memory. Methods

The participants in the experiment were twenty different adult U.S. citizens for Experiments I, II, and III. The participants in Experiment IV were 127 U.S. citizens in a Psychology I lecture at Brown University. The participants in Experiment V were 36 female U.S. citizens from Lesley College. The materials used in the experiments were two empty circles, lists of features on and not on the penny, one correct or wrong drawing of the penny and fifteen different drawings of the penny. The procedure used was to have people recall the image of a penny, correctly place the features on the penny, decide from a list what was on or not on the penny, point out the wrong features on a given image of a penny, and choose the correct image from fifteen different images of the penny. The independent variable in this experiment was the amount of materials the subject was given in order to determine the image of a penny. The dependent variable in this experiment was how accurately the subjects could distinguish the correct image of a penny. Results

The results of the experiment show that people have a difficult time recalling the image of a penny. It shows that people have an inaccurate and incomplete image of the penny in their memories. No matter the different methods used to produce a more detailed image of the penny, the subjects still had an incomplete image. For example, the probability in Experiment I that the subject would mislocate a feature of the penny was .42 , whereas, it was .68 in Experiment II. These are similar numbers, showing that the results do not vary much when the procedure differs. Inferences

The inference that can be drawn supports the alternative that people cannot recognize or recall some of the specific details of a penny from memory because of meaningfulness and interference. The results prove this theory, shown through the low numbers of subjects being able to accurately reproduce a visual image of the penny from memory. This answers the research question
that people cannot recognize common objects accurately and completely.