The influence of different kinds of rest and sound-shape congruence on memory for newly learned words

• Main Author: Syafiqah Samsudin
• Other Authors: Suzy Styles
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology::Experimental psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/77238
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The role of sleep and rest in consolidating memory for newly learned words, and sound symbolism in language-learning has been well-attested in the literature. We investigated whether rest and sound-shape correspondences collectively influence the learning of novel items. 39 adult participants were tasked to learn 16 word-image pairings disguised as viruses in a word-learning paradigm, where participants had to recall at least eight of the stimuli correctly in a series of four-alternative forced-choice (4AFC) questions. Participants were then assigned to either the Restful Waiting (where they rested in a darkened room) or Wakeful Waiting (where they rested in a well-lit room) condition, before engaging in a memory recall task. Based on memory consolidation research, we hypothesised that participants who rested in the darkened room would perform better in the memory recall task than participants who rested in the well-lit room. We further predicted that participants would find it easier to learn congruent word-image pairs than incongruent pairs based on sound symbolism research. Results showed no difference in memory recall between participants who rested in the different conditions, and no interaction was found between rest and congruence. Participants also did not show significant difficulties between learning congruent and incongruent items after resting. Exploratory analyses revealed that performance at the final score before and after resting collectively were influenced by sound-shape congruence: participants were better at identifying congruent viruses than incongruent viruses, consistent with the literature. Implications and limitations of the present study were discussed with recommendations for future research.