Intro (900 words)
We are interested in what effect motivation had on face memory performance.
• Motivation and Memory
o Cognitive neuroscience studies indicate that when a visual image is incentivized (i.e. has a reward attached to it), there are changes in brain functioning AND performance
? fMRI evidence – Adcock et al., (2006) Reward-motivated Learning: Mesolimbic Activation Precedes Memory Formation. Neuron, 50, 507-517
? ERP evidence – Marini et al., (2011)
• Incentives & Memory
o Neural evidence of increased brain activity inmemory sensitive areas
o Also behaviouralevidence that people are better able to recall seeing a visual image when there is an incentive associated with that image.
However…
o There is behavioural evidence that external rewards can have a null or even detrimental effect on performance and learning (see Deci et al., 1999).
? i.e. Meta-analysis by Deci et al., 1999 indicated extrinsic rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation and self- reported interest.
? Deci et al., 1999 long paper, just skim through it
• Test motivation and the CFMT
o Report evidences of relationship between motivation and memory
o Answer qn: Does this mean that higher motivation could be related to performance on our face memory test?How to increase motivation?
? Duckworth et al’s (2011) meta-analysis focused on studies using material incentives to motivate better performance on cognitive measures (i.e. intelligence measures).
• Prediction
o My prediction, as individuals under competition condition would be more motivated would therefore perform better on the CFMT
? Hypothesis/predictions derived from theories ? include aim of research and hypothesis. Must be in past tense. Must link the relevant information to the hypothesis and aim so as to form an argument
Must I add slides 26 to 30 in introduction???
Methods (400 words)
3 main sections in past tense and in full sentence
• Participants
o number of participants recruited, some basic demographic details (e.g., age range, average age, number of males and females), and the way in which the participants were recruited.
o Other descriptive characteristics of the sample relevant to the research should also be included.
• Materials
o Equipment used
• Procedure
o Step by step account on research conducted
o No irrelevant jus impt issues
Participants
Two hundred and fifty two undergraduate students at the University of Western Australia took part in the study as a part of their course requirement. 119 of the students were in the no-competition group from the sample of 252 while 133 students, were in the competition group. 74 male and 178 females participated in the study. The age of the participants was accounted for (M = 21.08, SD = 5.78).
Materials
Procedure
Participants completed the Word Memory Task (Ellis, H.C., 1979)that measures the ability of an individual to recall words. 40 English nouns that were rated high for imagery and of medium frequency from the Toronto Noun Pool were selected. The list of 40 words was presented on a screen at the front of the classroom. The participants were given 3 minutes to study and learn the words. After 3 minutes, the list of 40 words was removed from the screen. The participants were given 2 minutes and 30 seconds to recall as many words from the list of 40 words. After the 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the participants were told to swap their answer sheet with the person sitting next to them. The list of 40 words was again reflected on the screen in front of the class and told to mark. They were told to give a score out of 40.
The second test was theFace Memory Task (Duchaine& Nakayama, 2006) that measures the ability of an individual to remember faces. It involves the learning to recognise unfamiliar faces from three different views and then testing recognition of these faces in a three-alternative forced choice task.
Results (138/200 words)
An independent sample T-test was conducted to test the hypothesis, if individuals in the competition condition would achieve a higher score on the CMFT than those in the non-competition condition, t (250) =. 88, p = .38. The null hypothesis of significant differences between bother groups was rejected. There was no significant different between the No Competition Group (M = 69.89/102, SD = 10.91) and the Competition Group (M = 71.13/102, SD = 11.28).
An Independent sample T-test was conducted to test whether motivation affected word memory, t(250) = 1.05, p=.30, suggesting there was no significant difference between the No Competition Group (M = 22.18/40, SD = 6.47) and the Competition Group (M = 23.05/40, SD = 6.64). This shows people in the competition condition were generally not significantly more motivated to perform well on the memory task.
• Begin by Include which is the dependant and independent variable
• Begin by reminding the reader what your dependent variable measures and how it was calculated (in our case, this may just be “total number correct out of a possible score of [x]“).
• Describe the pattern you see in the data, either giving the means and SDs or directing the reader to the table or figure where they can be found (“there was a clear positive linear trend in the data”/”participants in the blue condition ate more than those in the red condition”/”there was little difference between the two classes”/etc).
• Introduce your analysis with an explanation of why you are doing it (“to examine these differences, we ran a one-way ANOVA”/”a pearson correlation was used to examine the relationship between orange sweetness and number of of seeds”/etc).
• And then give the values produced by the analysis, in proper APA format and with a little summary of what they mean (“x was found to be significantly larger than y, t(99) = 99.99, p = .009″/”there was no significant correlation between x and y, r(99) = .09, p = .99″/etc).
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Discussion (500 words)
What this means
• Fate of hypotheses
• Implications for theories
• Implications for field with limitation and extension
ScholarMatic: Explanation & Answer
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