Running head: THE WORD-LENGTH EFFECT

Effect of Abstract and Concrete Words on Memory Marisol Vazquez Lehman College

Abstract

A study on 65 participants, between the ages of 18 to 30, was conducted to verify the effects of abstract and concrete words on memory. Participants were expected to better recall concrete words than abstract words. Subjects were given ample time to recall a variation of abstract and concrete words recited from a 30 word list. Recall did reliably differ for abstract and concrete words. This implied that when certain experimental conditions are considered, such as, frequency of words, length of words, or a range of participants age, concrete words can be better recalled than abstract words.

Introduction Working memory is an area of study that has brought forward many questions on how it functions. Questions such as, is there a time limit to remembering? Is there a preference to what people remember? It was found, in previous studies, that subject do tend to recall certain words over others, known as the concreteness effect. Recall success differs depending on how the stimuli was presented. One of the proposed theories is the Dual-Coding theory. The Dual-Coding theory (Paivio, 1986, 1991) states that information processing and storage is channeled through two different systems, visual and verbal. If the stimuli was received visually, recall tends to be more successful than if the stimuli was presented verbally. Visual stimuli promotes imagery (imagen) and creates a definite identification to the word. Whereas, verbal recall relies on proper identification of the word (logogen). This is connected with the concreteness effect; even when concrete words are presented verbally, such as chair, they will have a better recall because the word is also connected with an image. Chair is connected and activated through two links, logogen and imagen. The theory suggests that because of the double reinforcing activated links, concrete words have an advantage at recall, whereas abstract words, such as hope, have no clear image connected with the word. Therefore, when verbally presented, it depends only on logogen memory for successful recall. Contrary to Paivios findings, Bransford & McCarrell (1974) found that the concreteness effect is not due to two reinforcing processing systems, but it is due the quantitative links a concrete word has over abstract words. The word chair makes easier connections and more semantic links in our memory than and abstract word. Despite the different research hinting

towards the origins of the concreteness effect, both studies indicate that concrete words do have better recall than abstract words. Further studies suggest that age is also a component on recall successful recall of abstract verses concrete words. conjunction with this theory, Baddeley also pointed out the effects of word-length to the phonological loop. Baddeley, Chincotta, Stafford, & Turk (2002) researched the effects of word-length to memory. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of abstract and concrete words on working memory. To achieve this, this experiment also had a controlled age of participant, education level, etc. like in previous research. There were one syllable words and four syllables words with similar frequency use. A confirmation for the concreteness effect was expected. It was anticipated that subjects would recall more concrete words than abstract words. Method Section Participants There was 65 participants for this study, between the ages of 18 to 30. Participants were both female and male, with a minimum of a high school diploma.

Materials/Design Research assistants were asked to select 5 subjects and record their score. Each participant was equipped with a piece of paper, pencil, and a time watch for the researching assistant. A list was created consisting of 30 words. Abstract and concrete words were randomly assigned to eliminate the order effect. An equal number of words in each condition was included, 15 abstract

and 15 concrete. The effect of high frequency and low frequency words was also considered. Additionally, words were kept in 4 to 6 letter range, and recited clearly to the subjects. Presentation rate was 2 seconds per word. The testing room was kept from any distraction that might affect the participant. After presentation, participants were to count from 50 to 0 by 5. Research assistants would tally results and eliminate the first two and last two words of the list to control for the Primacy-Recency effect.

Procedure: Participants were asked to listen to instructions before the commencement of test. They were instructed to listen to the word list carefully and sustain from writing any of the words before the word list was fully recited. They were also told that the order in which they wrote them down did not matter. Throughout this procedure there was no repetition of any of the words. The speaker would pronounce each word clearly at a 2 second interval for each word. Upon completion of word presentation, participants were asked to count from 50 to 0 by 5. Once this task was done they were to begin writing any words they recall from the list. Then, participants were instructed to hand in their list to the speaker, who would then correct each list. The speaker tallied the total number of correct abstract and concrete words, while eliminated the first two and last two words of the word list.

Results

In the two categories, abstract and concrete, the total was fifteen words per category. The average number of correct for abstract was 3.31 and the average for concrete was 4.23, making a total sum average of 7.54. This was a within-subject design and data was analyzed with a paired t-test. The result show that there is a significant effect between concrete words and abstract words t(64)= 2.661, p =.01. Subjects remember concrete words better than abstract words. Discussion

It was expected that students would be able to remember more one syllable words than four syllable words. However, the data is not consistent with the hypothesis because the results are not significantly reliable to support the hypothesis. These results were also inconsistence with the findings of Baddeley (2002). The differences in recall between the longer and shorter words were not big enough to point out a clear effect. These differences could have been influenced by the alternation between syllable counts for each list. It was previously mention by Baddeley (2003) that the word length effect can be controlled if there is a mixture of word lengths, which was the case for this experiment. Also, the differences in results can be attributed to sample size. In order for word-length to be properly observed the sample size may have to be longer than 33 participants. However, this difference does not fully explain the differences in results because the sample size for Baddeley (2002) was of 16 students. Another alternative explanation can be the differences in native language among the participants, just like the findings of Ellis & Hennelly

(1980) of the word-length effect among bilingual students. Students may have been presented with unfamiliar words or failed to recognize certain English words. To improve this experiment, details, such as, sample size or native language of participant should be considered when selecting them for the experiment. It also depends on the population, to which research would be applied to, meaning, if results would be for people who share similar characteristics (e.g. language) or a variation of people (e.g. countries that hold a population with various nationalities).

References Baddeley, A. (2003). Working Memory: Looking Back and Looking Forward. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience,4, 830-833.

Baddeley, Chincotta, Stafford, & Turk (2002). Is the word Effect in STM Entirely Attributed to Output Delay? Evidence from Serial Recognition. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Ellis, N.C & Hennelly R.A (1980). Implications for Intelligence Testing and the Relative Ease of Mental Calculation in Welsh and English. British Journal of Psychology (1980), 71, 43-51.