How will Image Production of Concrete Vocabulary Affect their Recall 701944 P1C

Abstract Memory has the ability to encode, store and recall information. Encoding is not yet well understood however processes which improve recall have been widely studied, including the effect of images. Little research (Farjami, 2007) has been conducted on the implications of illustrating images to aid recall therefore the aim of the study was to investigate the effect of drawing on the encoding of concrete nouns. Twenty eight participants took part in the study; half practiced the vocabulary list in the reading only condition and half practiced the same list in the picture production condition. The participants were then subjected to a surprise memory test. The analysis of the results showed that significantly more words were remembered when the participants produced pictures, partly due to the dual-coding hypothesis and the generation effect.

Methods for remembering vocabulary lists have long been researched (Atkinson & Raugh, 1975; Dale & Razik, 1963; Farjami, 2007; Pressley, 1977; Singer, 1977) as the results could have large implications for the methods employed by those wishing to learn a foreign language. The most widely used method currently is simply rehearsal (Farjami, 2007) however this is time consuming and can be ineffective. It has been found that the inclusion of images significantly improves learning from text (Carney & Levin, 2002). Levin and Mayer (1993) propose that this is due to pictures making text more concentrate, compact, concrete, coherent, comprehensible, and correspondent. Peeck (1993) suggests that the reasons for improved learning are as follows: increased motivation, focused attention, depth of processing, clarification of text content, dual-coding theory, distinctive encoding, decreasing interference and decay and serving as a mental /image. The most popular theory that explains this improvement is known as the dual-coding hypothesis (Pavio, 1986). This theory proposes that there are two different systems operating for encoding in human memory, a verbal and a nonverbal system. Information represented symbolically is stored in the verbal structure and information represented visually is stored in the nonverbal structure. These two systems are independent and facilitate better recall once information is coded in both systems. This is because learners are able to create referential connection between two forms of mental representations (Chun & Plass, 1996). Much supporting evidence has been found for the dual-coding hypothesis (Jones, 2004; Kost et al., 1999) making it a widely accepted theory. Several studies have been conducted which display the effectiveness of using pictures and text compared to text only stimulus including one by David (1998) consisting of memory tasks based on pictures being used for news stories. The basic function of the picture was to make the news story more concrete. A recall advantage was found for the text/picture condition relative to the text only condition. Lesgold et al. (1975) found increased story recall by children when they constructed pictures to accompany the story. Rubman and Waters (2000) replicated these results as well as discovering that picture constructing children were better at detecting consistencies after hearing the story for a second time.

It has been established that the use of images improves recall when related directly to text, it is important to investigate when and how images should be used for maximum effectiveness. Levin and Mayer (1993) suggest that four aspects must be taken into consideration when using a picture with text to achieve the anticipated results: desired performance outcome (e.g. comprehension, memory), the nature of the illustrations (e.g. the level they relate to the text), the nature of the text (e.g. text difficulty), and the learner characteristics (e.g. the level of background knowledge the learner possesses). Little research has been done concerning the effect of image production on vocabulary recall. Nikolova (2002) found that when students created instructional materials in multimedia condition, vocabulary was better learnt. Several studies have considered the cognitive and affective advantages of image production, including Bednar et al. (1992) who describes creative experience as the main vehicle of the learning process. Laufer and Hill (2000) also consider the act of authoring significant defining it as a conscious raising strategy, claiming that it promotes the noticing for the words and forms deep memory traces allowing recall. Another line of support for the effectiveness of picture production is the generation effect. The generation effect refers to the effect of self-generated cues compared to others-generated cues (Farjami, 2007). Slameka and Graf (1978) found that target words had a better recall when they were learner-generated. This effect has been shown to transfer across to pictures (Kinjo & Snodgrass, 2000) implicating that learner generated illustrations could improve recall compared to experimenter generated pictures or simply text alone. The explanation for this effect is that the act of generation requires more effort than reading and therefore creates a deeper memory trace. After considering the content of dated and current literature the aim of this study is to find the effect of illustrating concrete nouns on their recall. Twenty-eight participants will be asked to take part and complete a simple task through viewing a slideshow presentation. The presentation with involve sixteen slides with fourteen concrete nouns in total. The nouns were selected at random with only a few guidelines in place, they had to be concrete to allow them to be illustrated easily by participants; it was also required for them to have a high frequency to ensure that

participants were familiar with them. It was also desirable for the words to be as similar in length as possible to cancel out the word-length effect (Baddeley et al., 1975). The word -length effect describes the ability of the short term memory to recall more short words than long words before decay arises, therefore ensuring that all the words in the current study are of similar length will prevent from certain words being forgotten by the majority of participants due to their length. It was decided that fourteen words would be sufficient for the task based on research by Miller (1955). He proposed that the number of objects that can be held by the working memory is 7 2; this number is very dependent upon other factors including the word length and chunking however it was thought to be good starting point for this study. To guarantee that participants wouldnt find the memory task too easy the magic number seven was doubled to create a list of fourteen concrete nouns for the vocabulary list. The fourteen concrete nouns were each presented on a separate slide in an easy to read large font in black on a white background, each word was shown for a time of ten seconds. During the trial study it was found that ten seconds was a sufficient amount of time for all the words chosen to be drawn. The trial study was conducted upon two participants only allowing it to be quick, efficient and extremely useful for the current study. In particular the trial experiment ensured that the instructions presented on the first and last slide of the PowerPoint were sufficient in explaining the task to the participants. Each slide will be presented to the participant for ten seconds excluding the first and last which require the click of a mouse to continue, it has been setup this way to prevent participants from clicking ahead if they feel they are getting bored or have seen the word for long enough. This will ensure that each participant has seen each word for the same amount of time. Two conditions have been constructed, condition A and condition B, the participants will be distributed evenly between the conditions. In condition A the participants will be asked to view the slideshow but perform no other tasks concurrently, at the end they will be subjected to a surprise memory test for the fourteen words they have just seen. In condition B the participants will be asked to view the

slideshow and draw an illustration for each word they see, they will also undergo a surprise memory test at the end. The words will be presented in the same order for both conditions. Hypothesis: The participants who draw illustrations for the concrete vocabulary will have a better recall than those who only read the words. The hypothesis predicts that those in condition B will remember more words than those in condition A. This hypothesis was founded on the literature presented in earlier part of the introduction.

Method Participants Twenty eight participants took part in this study (16 women and 12 men). The ages of participants varied from 18 to 51 years old. (M = 21.18, SD = 8.73) The participants were recruited to the study by picking family and friends at random. The majority of participants (26) are students with the exception of two who are both pharmacists.

Materials Fourteen concrete nouns were presented to the participants via a PowerPoint slideshow. The slideshow consisted of sixteen slides in total, starting with an introductory slide which instructed the participants on what to do. The PowerPoint ended with another directional slide which asked the participants to then write down as many of the words they could remember as possible. For condition B the participants were also required to use a pen and paper to enable them to illustrate the concrete vocabulary.

Design The design type that has been chosen is a between-subjects study, this is to prevent the practice and carryover effect which is vital as the participants are subjects to a surprise memory test. The independent variable under manipulation is whether the participants must illustrate for the concrete vocabulary or not. These two variables create two conditions, condition A and condition B. Condition A is the control condition and will reveal the number of words participants can remember with no visual or creative aids, these results will then be compared to the results from condition B. Each

condition has undergone a trial with a minimum of two participants. The number of words remembered by the participants is what will be measured as the dependent variable.

Procedure The slideshows were distributed at random between family and friends. The participants had the right to leave the study at any point and were reassured that anonymity would be in place at all times with no names recorded. Informed consent was automatically obtained from all individuals involved through clicking start on the slideshow. The twenty eight participants were randomly assigned a condition ensuring half completed the task in condition A and half completed the task for condition B. The instructions given to participants in condition A were as follows: You are about to be presented with fourteen words, each word will remain on screen for ten seconds. Please click when youre ready to begin the study. The last slide in the PowerPoint presented further instructions which read: When youre ready please close the slideshow and open up the empty word document provided, then without cheating please list all the words you can remember. The instructions for condition B differed slightly from condition A and read as follows: You are about to be presented with fourteen words, each word will remain on screen for ten seconds. As each word appears on screen please use paper and pen/pencil to draw the word displayed. Please ensure you have these ready before clicking to start. The final slide for condition B read: When youre ready please close the slideshow and remove any drawings you have done from sight, then open up the empty word document provided and without cheating please list all the words you can remember. A blank word document was also provided along with the slideshow, participants were simply asked to type the words they could remember and send it back. Each participant was allowed to view the slideshow only once with ten seconds on each word. Only the exact words from the

slideshow were accepted, words spelt incorrectly or wrong words were not accepted. A practice trial was carried out with a minimum of two participants, the results from this were not analysed.

Results Table 1 Table to show the means and standard deviations of the vocabulary scores for both conditions. Scores Mean Standard Deviation Condition A 9.79 1.37 Condition B 11.79 0.89

A t-test calculation was undertaken to compare the scores for condition A and B, due to the between-subjects design of the study an independent t-test was chosen. A one-tailed test was used as the hypothesis stated early on was directional. The following results were obtained: t (26) = -4.58, p<0.05. This shows that there is a significant difference in the mean scores for condition A and B; in particular that condition B had a significantly better recall than condition A. The hypothesis can be accepted (and the null hypothesis rejected).These results demonstrate that the viewing and authoring of pictures enhances the memory for concrete nouns.

Discussion The aim of the experiment was to investigate the effects of illustrating pictures to aid the recall for a list of vocabulary. Previous studies have confirmed the effectiveness of using picture aids to memorise vocabulary however little research has been undertaken on illustrating pictures to aid recall. In accordance with previous literature it was found that the presence of images significantly improved recall. The results from this experiment also showed that authoring images significantly improves the vocabulary scores for participants. These results support the studys hypothesis and reveal some interesting implications for vocabulary learning. Several routes can be taken to explain these findings, not only is it important to consider whether the physical act of drawing enables the better recall or whether it is down to simply seeing a visual image, or perhaps even both. Pavio (1986) proposed the dual-coding theory which explains stimuli is processed via two paths, symbolically and visually. It is said that if information is coded in both systems then the information is remembered better therefore because the stimuli in condition B was presented both symbolically, through the text written words, and visually, through the images drawn by the participants. This indicates that because the words were seen through text and images they couldve become encoded in both the verbal and non-verbal system, enabling them to be better recalled than the read only condition (condition A). The dual-coding hypothesis provides a good explanation as to how the use of images improves recall. Much supporting literature has been conducted (Chun & Plass, 1996) ensuring this theory is reliable and valid. However this is only a partial explanation for the results of this study as the effects of illustrating the images must be taken into consideration. Little research has been conducted on the effects of authoring images to aid recall for vocabulary. One study (Farjami, 2007) used to aid the planning of this experiment does consider the implications. This research concentrated on comparing the effect of providing images versus participant produced images on the memory for concrete vocabulary. Conversely results found by

this study indicate that image production was not as beneficial to recall as pictures provided. This indicates that the act of illustrating plays no importance for recall, and that the results found by this study are simply due to the presence of visual stimuli. However this rules out the generation effect which explains that if material is learner generated is better remembered than regular stimuli. This effect has much support (Kinjo & Snodgrass, 2000; Slameka and Graf, 1978; Jacoby, 1978) suggesting that the study conducted by Farjami (2007) is invalid. Therefore it can be said that the results of this study could be partly due to the generation effect, self-creating is said to create a deeper trace enabling better recall. Other studies which support this idea have also been discussed earlier on. Research by Bednar et al. (1992) and Laufer and Hill (2000) both describe that the act of creating is key for learning as it raises consciousness and promotes the noticing for the words , forming deeper memory traces which allow for better recall. Although the experiment was a success and provided evidence for the hypothesis, shortcomings were still present throughout. As the memory based tasks were sent to participants via email and conducted without the presence of an experimenter, a large amount of trust was given to participants not to cheat. There was also a large variance in the settings in which the experiments took place; participants couldve been in a distracting environment during the activity which may have had a detrimental effect on their memory. It is also important to consider the effect the words chosen to be remembered couldve had on the recall. The words which were most forgotten in condition B were light bulb and television. Excluding the word football, light bulb and television were the longest required to be remembered. This means that the word length effect (Baddeley et al., 1975) could have interfered with recall, meaning these words may have been forgotten more often because they are longer. However the word football which is also long was better remembered. It is also vital that the pictures drawn by the participants are taken into consideration. For example as each picture differed, the complexity of these drawings also differed. The more complex drawings couldve been more difficult to remember; therefore those words which produced complicated pictures couldve been less well remembered.

There are many ways to improve this experiment by overcoming its failings. To retest the memory for the words, a second memory test could be carried out over an extended period of time after the test for example 6hours later. This would increase the validity of the experiment as if the words were still remembered after a period of time it would indicate the effectiveness of the method. Another way to increase reliability would be to carry the experiment out in the presence of an experiment to eliminate the chance of any cheating or distractions. Using a wider participant pool would also be necessary for a future experiment. The question that remains unanswered is: to what extend is each theory responsible for the results of this study? The dual-coding hypothesis and the generation effect. To find the solution to this problem a future experiment could repeat the study conducted by Farjami (2007). Another shortcoming of the study which would need improvement was the negative effect of the words. It would be preferable for the words to be of the same or very similar length. To develop the experiment further the picture of the words could be rated by an independent group of participants on their complexity, this could indicate whether the complexity of the illustrations was playing a role in the recall of the words. To conclude this experiment found that illustrating pictures of concrete nouns significantly improved their recall compared to reading of the words alone. These results can be explained using two theories which both to seem to play a role, the dual-coding hypothesis and the generation effect. Important topics and explanations were explored and the implications of these results were discussed in detail. Ideas for future studies and improvements have been suggested making the study a worthwhile venture.

References Atkinson, R. C., Raugh, M. (1975). An application of the mnemonic keyword method to the acquisition of Russian vocabulary. Journal of Experiment Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2, 126-133. Baddeley, A. D., Thomson, N., and Buchanan, M. (1975). Word length and the structure of short term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 14, 575-589. Bednar, A., Cunngham, D., Duffy, T., and Perry, J. (1992). Theory into practice: How do we link? Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conversation, 1, 17-34. Carney, R. N., and Levin, J. R. (2002). Pictorial illustrations still improve students learning from text. Education Psychology Review, 14, 5-27. Chun, D., and Plass, J. (1996). Effects of multimedia annotations on vocabulary acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 80, 183-198. Dale, E., and Razik, T. (1963). Bibliography of Vocabulary Research. Ohio: Ohio State University. David, P. (1998). New concreteness and visual-verbal association: Do news pictures narrow the recall gap between concrete and abstract news? Human Communication Resources, 25, 180-201. Farjami, H. (2007). Picture production and picture perception: Comparing two modes of practicing concrete vocabulary. Archive of Scientific Information Database, 10, 1-14. Jacoby, L. L. (1978). On interpreting the effects of repetition: Solving a problem versus remembering a solution. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 17, 649-668. Jones, L. (2004). Testing L2 vocabulary recognition and recall using pictorial and written test items. Language, Learning and Technology, 8, 122-143. Kinjo, H., and Snodgrass, J. G. (2000). Does the generation effect occur for pictures? The American Journal of Psychology, 113, 95-121. Kost, C., Foss, P., and Lenzini, J. (1999). Textual and pictorial glosses: Effectiveness on incidental vocabulary growth when reading in a foreign language. Foreign Language Annals, 32, 89113. Laufer, B., and Hill, M. (2000). What lexical information do L2 learners select in a call dictionary and how does it affect word retention? Language, Learning and Technology, 3, 58-76. Levin, J. R., and Mayer, R. E. (1993) Understanding illustration in text. Learning from Textbooks, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 95-113. Lesgold, A. M., Levin, J. R., Shimron, J., and Guttman, J. (1975). Pictures and young childrens learning from oral prose. Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 636-642. Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. Nikolova, O. R. (2002). Effects of students participation in authoring of multimedia materials on

student acquisition of vocabulary. Language, Learning and Technology, 6, 100-122. Pavio, A. (1986). Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.

Peeck, J. (1993). Increasing picture effects in learning from illustrated text. Learning Instructions, 3, 227-238. Pressley, M. (1977). Childrens use of the keyword method to learn simple Spanish vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology,69, 465-472.

Rubman, C. N., and Water, H. S. (2000). A, B seeing: The role of reconstructive processes in childrens comprehension monitoring. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 503-514. Singer, J. G. (1977). Enjoying vocabulary method in junior high: the keyword method. Canadian Modern Language Review, 34, 80-87. Slameka, N. J., and Graf, F. (1978). The generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4, 592-64.

Appendix 1 - Stimulus Slideshow 1 Slideshow used for condition A

Slideshow 2 Slideshow used for condition B

Appendix 2 Raw Data Table 2 Table to show the number of words remembered by participants Condition A Age Gender 18 Male 19 Male 18 Female 19 Female 19 Female 19 Female 20 Male 18 Male 19 Male 20 Female 19 Female 18 Male 18 Male 18 Female Condition B Age Gender 19 Male 19 Female 19 Female 19 Female 19 Female 52 Male 52 Female 20 Female 18 Female 20 Female 18 Male 19 Male 19 Female 18 Male

Participant No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Score 9 10 8 10 11 12 10 11 10 9 12 8 9 8

Participant No. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Score 13 12 11 12 11 12 13 12 11 12 10 13 12 11

Table 3 Table to display the words remembered by each participant in condition A

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
No. forgotten

Table 4 Table to display the words remembered by each participant in condition B

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
No. forgotten

Appendix 4 Graphs Graph 1 Graph to show the number of times each word was forgotten for condition A and B
10 9 Number of Time Forgotten 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Condition A Condition B Words

Graph 2 Graph to show the number of times each word was forgotten overall
14 Number of Time Forgotten 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Words

Appendix 4 Statistical Calculations: Independent T-Test Calculations 1 Independent T-Test Condition A Scores 9 10 8 10 11 12 10 11 10 9 12 8 9 8 137 Condition B Scores 13 12 11 12 11 12 13 12 11 12 10 13 12 11 165

A2
81 100 64 100 121 144 100 121 100 81 144 64 81 64 1365

B2
169 144 121 144 121 144 169 144 121 144 100 169 144 121 1955

TOTALS

Total A/No. A = 137/14 = 9.79 Total B/No.B = 165/14 = 11.79 11.79 - 9.79 = -2 Total A2/No.A = (137 x 137)/14 = 1340.64 Total B2/No.B = (165 x 165)14 = 1944.64 (Total A2/No.A) - Total A2 = 1340.64 - 1365 = 24.36 (Total B2/No.B) - Total B2 = 1944.64 - 1955 = 10.36 24.36 + 10.36 = 34.71 34.71/(no.A - 1)+(no.B - 1) = 1.34 (1/no.A) + (1/no.B) = 0.14 0.14 x 1.34 = 0.19 0.19 = 0.44 -2/0.44 = -4.58 T = 4.58 Df = (no.A - 1) + (no.B - 1) = 13 + 13 = 26