Technology

Question 1

NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE EFFECTS ON COGNITIVE PROCESSES

Answer 1

Study 1: Muller and Oppenheimer

• Hypothesis: Handwriting notes improves learning more than typing because it requires processing and summarizing information.
  -109 UCLA undergrads (27 males).
• conditions: writing or typing / study (10 minute study time) or no study (immediate test)
• Watched 4 video lectures on bats, bread, vaccines, respiration.
• Wore headphones to minimize distractions.
• 40 questions total (10 per lecture).
• Questions categorized as factual or conceptual.

Results:
- No-study condition: Poor factual recall, similar conceptual performance across both groups.
- Study condition: Handwritten note-takers performed significantly better than laptop users.

Study 2: Sparrow et al
- digital amnesia, google effect - information is harder to remember because it easily accessible online, information that is not readily available will be remembered more easily
- 40 trivia facts, 60 participants
- asked to type the trivia facts that were presented and press space
- conditions: asked to remember or not / spacebar erases info or spacebar saves info

Results:
-Being told to remember had no significant effect.
-Belief that info was saved led to worse recall.
-Participants remembered less when they thought they could retrieve info later.

!!Important for evaluation - replication was unsuccessful, also low ecological validity and generalisability