Date of Award
5-2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department/Program
Psychology
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Joshua Sandry
Committee Member
Jennifer Pardo
Committee Member
Timothy Ricker
Abstract
Working memory (WM) is involved in temporary processing and maintenance of a limited amount of information. WM serves as an access-way to long-term memory (LTM). Individuals encode information into LTM best when the amount of information processed does not exceed the capacity limit of WM. Different strategies, like processing information in terms of future planning, improve verbal LTM performance, however, it is unclear if this results from increased efficiency in WM. This study aims to investigate how processing instructions manipulated at encoding alter associative memory binding as a function of WM capacity. Participants completed a computerized verbal WM word association task with lists of 3, 6, and 9 words. Processing instructions were manipulated between participants. The WM word association task was followed by a surprise recognition test to measure LTM and then a self-report questionnaire regarding memory strategy use. Results replicated past research and revealed a significant associative binding benefit for the within capacity 3 word list length across conditions. There was no difference as a function of processing instructions; however, the means were in the predicted direction of supporting a benefit of future planning instructions on improving associative memory binding and potentially increased capacity. Evaluation of the questionnaires suggested that participants used different encoding strategies when given incidental instructions (semantic strategies) versus planning instructions (relevance strategies). Most participants reported using semantics and familiarity strategies during the recognition task. Design limitations, potential implications and future directions are discussed.
File Format
Recommended Citation
Winters, Victoria, "The Effect of Future Oriented Tasks vs Incidental Orienting Task on Item-to-Item Associations" (2017). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 660.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/660