The Effect of Affect on Group Memory

Memory typically improves when recollecting in a group the larger the group, the better the memory (McClure 2010; Atkinson 2011). High arousal at the time of encoding also improves memory (Bohannon, Gratz, & Cross 2007; Libkumen, et al., 1999). In this study 342 participants viewed either an emotional or neutral slideshow and then recalled either alone or with a group of three (triad). The participants were tested using both probed and free recall questionnaires. We found that for perceptually central items, the emotional material only helped the individuals, and not the collaborative groups. However, for the perceptually peripheral items, the emotional material aided the memory of the collaborative groups and not the individuals. Effect of Affect on Group Memory 3 INTRODUCTION Collaborative Memory , Investigation into the effects of group remembering has yielded mixed results (Rajarem, 2011; Rajaram & Periera-Pasarin, 2010; Henkel & Rajaram, 2011; Barber, Rajaram, & Aron, 2010). Depending on how memory performance was calculated, collaborative recall was either superior or inferior to isolated recall (Wright & Klumpp, 2004). Weldon, Blair, & Huesbch (2000) argued that instead of average correct recall, the number of unique correct items was the better estimate of memory. Employing that measure, they conducted five different experiments in which participants tried to remember a list of words either individually, and their answers were later grouped when scored (thus creating nominal groups) or in a collaborative group. They found that regardless of strategy (forcing answers, accountability of answers, monetary rewards), the collaborative groups were inferior to the nominal (or individual) groups (Weldon, Blair, & Huebsch, 2000). The authors proposed a variety of theories to account for this effect, ranging from disruption of the individual's retrieval strategies while in a group, group participation producing instances of production blocking as well as social loafing (Weldon, Blair, & Huebsch, 2000). The authors finally concluded that overall amount recalled goes up with group size but fewer unique correct items result, which they called collaborative inhibition (Weldon, Blair & Huebsch, 2000). However, in these studies, the participants that remembered alone were each given their own questionnaire, while the group was simply given one questionnaire for the entire group. Thus, the individials had more opportunities to recall information and thus the collaborative group were handicapped by an artifact of the testing procedure. Effect of Affect on Group Memory 4 Two recent studies (McClure, Atkinson & Bohannon, 2010; Atkinson, Jennings & Bohannon, 2011) examined the Weldon et a1. (2000) measurement assumptions in more detail. In these studies, more than 300 subjects viewed a slideshow presentation and then answered both probed and free recall questionnaires either individually, in a traditional collaborative group, or in a third type of collaborative group in which the individuals contributed individually at first, and then discussed their answers to choose one as a group (the equal chance group) (McClure, Atkinson & Bohannon, 2(10). The nominal group's and the collaborative group's scores were similar to those found in Weldon et a1. (2000). However, for the equal chance group, they showed unique correct scores that were superior to the nominal group, thus showing that the collaborative inhibition effect is an artifact of the measurement procedure (McClure, Atkinson & Bohannon, 2010). The grouped recall effect is due to grouped individuals having idiosyncratic memory details to share in the group recollection. Although the other people in the group failed to recollect that item, the success of one member contributes that item to the grouped performance. Similarly, different unique correct items are contributed by all the other members of the group, thus raising the average of group recall over isolated recall. Similar effects were also found in other previous research (Rajaram & Periera-Pasarin, 2007), however the authors in that study attributed the group superiority to a minimization of retrieval disruption which was thought to be a primary cause of CI. Thus while older studies showed that collaborative groups recalled less than nominal groups, more recent investigations have shown that these results may have been due to a measurement artifact, and not an actual memory effect. This has lead to a theoretical model for how collaborative memory works (Figure 1). In this model, person Effect of Affect on Group Memory 5 1 and person 2 each remember some unique parts of the TBR (to-be-remembered) material. At the same time, there is also some overlap between the two memories that leads to both people remembering some of the same things. Therefore, while some overlap is evident, each person also makes their own individual contributions.