Zeigarnik Phenomenon

By : Lukman Nul Hakim
I. PROBLEM

Is recall of interrupted task under task oriented condition better than recall of complete task under ego oriented condition?

II. INTRODUCTION

Many research in the field of memory have been conducted, with different perspectives and aims. Some study it in psychological perspective, others from biological perspectives, some want to know whether capability of memory is inherent or is gain from the environment, some others want to see whether environmental conditions or stimulus give impact or not to the recall capability of memory, and the research I am conducting belongs to the last one.
On this experiment I want to see the impact of an uncomfortable stimulus, which is interruption, compare to neutral stimulus, which is without interruption on the recall ability. Beside that I also want to see the recall difference when the task is given under task oriented versus ego oriented condition.
The ego oriented condition means we are going to give an instruction that will aroused the feeling of threat to their self esteem. Meanwhile the subject under task oriented conditions will get instruction that will make him think that his performance is not a threat to his self esteem.
Bartlett (in Husain, 1991) said that several personal factors influence retention. There are three factors which influence the recall of any learned material :
a. Those which operate at the time of learning
b. Those which operate between learning and recall
c. Those which operate at the time of recall
MEMORY
Memory is the ability of an organism to store information from earlier lerning process (experience, retention) and reproduce that information in answer to specific stimuli.
Memory is a function that involving in remembering or re-experiencing past experiences. (Chaplin, C.P. 1993)
The early effort to understand memory was done by Plato and Aristotle, they compared memory to a block of wax that differed in size and hardness for various individuals. Remembering according to this analogy was like stamping an impression into a wax. As long as the image remained in the wax, the memory would remain there. Meanwhile current theories of memory drawn in analogy between human memory by computer.
The fisrt experimental study on memory was conducted by Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885), his experiment was asking the subject to memorize and then recalled hundreds of nonsense syllables.

INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH
Richard Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971) said that human memory consist of three memory stores namely sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory.
Sensory Memory
Short Term Memory
Long Term Memory
Incoming

Information
Attention
Rehearsal

Retrieval
Forgotten Information
Forgotten Information
Forgotten Information






Figure I.1

Incoming information is all stimuli perceived by a person, it could be audio, visual or kinesthetic stimulus. All those stimuli receive by sensory memory (SM), SM last for a brief period from less than 1 second to several seconds, and if the person gives attention to them then they will go to next stage, which is short term memory (STM) which stores them about 20 seconds, but if no attention paid then those information will be forgotten. From STM if the person rehearses the information, then they will be carried to the long term memory (LTM), otherwise in the STM nor LTM the information will be forgotten. LTM can store memory for a life time.
The stages in human memory has been compared to information processing by a computer which involves encoding, storage and retrieval. Encoding is the conversion of information into a form that can be stored in memory. Storage is the retention of information in memory. Retrieval is the recovery of information from memory. And it is also possible for forgetting, the failure to retrieve information from memory.

METHODS TO MEASURE FORGETTING
There are three ways to measure forgetting:
a. Recall
This recall measure of retention requires subject to reproduce information on their own way, without the help of any cues. For example, essay questions and fill in the blanks questions.

b. Recognition
A recognition measure of retention requires subjects to select previously learned information from an array of options. So, subject will have the cues to work with and also the answer. Multiple choice and true or false are the examples of recognition measures.

c. Relearning
This relearning method was introduced by Ebbinghaus. A relearning measure of retention requires a subject to memorize information a second time to determine how much time or effort is saved by having learned it before. For example it takes you 20 minutes to memorize a list the first time and only 5 minutes to memorize it a weak later, than you have saved 15 minutes. It means you have retained 75% and forgotten the remaining 25% of information.

CAUSES OF FORGETTING
Theorist believe that many reason cause forgetting. And they conclude at least 5 causes, namely:
a. Decay Hypothesis
Decay hypothesis say that the main reason for forgetting was disuse of information over a period of time.
b. Interference
Interference factor says that information in memory displaces of blocks out other information. There are 2 kinds of interference:

· Proactive Interference
Something previously learned interferes ability to recall newly learned material. For example, in 10th grade you study biology and on 11th grade you learned psychology, and you get difficulties in understanding psychological concepts because interference from biological concept.

· Retroactive Interference
It refers to difficulty in recall of old information because of later exposure to new different information. So in this case the psychological concept inhibit the knowledge of biology.

c. Repression
Freud suggested that we unconsciously push unacceptable, anxiety provoking thoughts out of awareness so we do not have to confront them directly. He called this process as repression. Repression is also known as motivated forgetting, forgetting because we want to forget it.
Freud proposed that we self-censoring painful information to protect our self-concepts and to minimize anxiety we repress painful memories.

d. Amnesia
Amnesia is a profound memory deficit due to either to the loss of what has been stored or to the inability to form new memories.

e. Others
The following other cause also explain the process of forgetting:
· Retrieval Failure
The retrieval failure hypothesis posits that forgotten information is temporarily inaccessible because of lack in retrieval cue.
· Storage Failure
Forgetting is due to the fact that the information was never stored in the memory. It can because the information may not have been notice or it may have been attended to long enough to be placed in long term memory.
III. METHODS

HYPOTHESIS
a. Recall of interrupted task (uncompleted) is better than non-interrupted task (completed) under task oriented condition.

b. Recall of non-interrupted task (completed) is better than interrupted task (uncompleted) under ego oriented condition.

VARIABLES & CONTROLLING SECONDARY VARIABLES
a. Independent Variables (IV)
The Interruption. An Interruption that will be given to the subject when is doing the 20 tasks.

b. Dependent Variables (DV)
The memory. The number of task recalled by subject.

c. Secondary Variables (SV)
Content variables
To anticipate the probability of content factor, experimenter give tasks with the same difficulty level to both condition. The only differences will be the instruction.

Environmental variables : Illumination & Temperature
To anticipate the situation differences, the experiment on both condition will be conducted in the same room, so that we can assure that subject will get the same illumination, and temperature of the room (by functioning the same amount of fan) on both condition.
PRELIMINARIES
a. Subjects Preliminaries
Name : Yunita Ramadhani
Gender : Female
Age : 23 years old
Educational background : MA (Prev)English Department
Jamia Millia Islamia
Nationality : Indonesian

b. Preliminary Set Up
All 20 tasks were ready and having information about which tasks are interrupted. The task organized in the order of the presentation.

APPARATUS, MATERIALS AND TASKS
No
Apparatus and Materials
Tasks
1
4 sets of alphabetical cards.
Arranging four sets of cards alphabetically from four sets of small cards, each of them carried a letter from A to Z typed on them.
2
Pins, clips and small balls.
Sorting pins, clips and small balls from a small box
3
Paper & pencil
Triangle making (different sizes)
4
Instruction
Counting backward (from 50 to 1)
5
1 set of number card.
Arranging scattered numbers from 1 to 100
6
Disorganized sentences
Sentence building
7
Disorganized letter
Word construction
8
10 Non-sense syllables
Memorizing non-sense syllables
9
Ball toy
Ball arrangement
10
1 paragraph news taken from newspaper
Vowel cancellation
11
Match box.
Match box –unloading-count-reloading-
12
Paper & pencil
Left hand writing (name of 10 persons)
13
1 paragraph news taken from newspaper
Copy out a passage
14
Letters from A to Z and its codes.
Level of aspiration coding list
15
Sentences with blank
Filling up the blanks with appropriate words
16
Figures
Coloring the given figures
17
Paper & pencil
Reverse writing : days & months
18
Written alphabets on a paper
Numbering alphabets serially
19
Paper & scissors
Paper cutting in special size
20
Paper
Making paper boats


ACTUAL PROCEDURE
a. Rapport formation, a brief conversation was held with subject to make subject feel comfortable with the experimental situation.
b. Give the instruction.
c. Give the tasks one by one, until 20 tasks.
d. After the experiment was over the subject is requested to recall the names of the tasks they performed.
e. Asking bio-data.
f. Thanking the subject


INSTRUCTIONS
The ego oriented and the task oriented conditions get different instruction.
a. Ego Oriented Conditions
“Please listen to me. I am going to give you a number of tasks one by one to complete, which will show your efficacy of work. By your performance I shall be able to know your ability of doing anything in your life. By your performance your future career will also be predicted. Your performance here, will also show your intellectual capability. And I shall be able know your intelligence, as it is also a type of intelligence test. So you have to do this work to your best to show your ability. Please do this tasks as quickly as possible. Please also note that you will not say anything to your friends in connection with this test because if they will come to know about the test, your performance as well as result will become inferior and I shall be unable to provide you a reliable results”.

b. Task Oriented Conditions
“Please listen to me. I am going to standardize a method of study in psychology, for this I am required to collect some data from different people. On the basis of the analysis of the data I shall be able to standardize a method. In this regard I seek you help and cooperation. I shall give you a number of tasks one by one, some of which will be manual and others mental. You are requested to perform these tasks as quickly as possible. None of the tasks is beyond your capacity. The purpose of these tasks is not to measure your intelligence or your ability but simply to find how much of these tasks people are generally able to perform within a prescribed time limit. Now I am presenting you the tasks. Please do it as quickly as possible. But please note it that you will not say anything to your friends about these tasks and work for my sake otherwise I shall fail in my mission”.


IV. RESULT

THE TASKS UNDER EGO ORIENTED CONDITIONS
No
Tasks
Completed
1
Arranging four sets of cards
Ö
2
Sorting pins, clips and small balls from a small box
Ö
3
Triangle making (different sizes)
Ö
4
Counting backward (from 50 to 1)
Ö
5
Arranging scattered numbers from 1 to 100
Ö


Uncompleted
6
Match box –unloading-count-reloading-
Ö
7
Left hand writing (name of 10 persons)

8
Copy out a passage
Ö
9
Level of aspiration coding list
Ö
10
Filling up the blanks with appropriate words
Ö


THE TASKS UNDER TASK ORIENTED CONDITIONS
No
Tasks
Completed
11
Sentence building
Ö
12
Word construction

13
Preparing non-sense syllables

14
Ball arrangement
Ö
15
Vowel cancellation
Ö


Uncompleted
16
Coloring the given figures
Ö
17
Reverse writing : days & months
Ö
18
Numbering alphabets serially
Ö
19
Paper cutting in special size

20
Making paper boats
Ö

SUMMARY
CONDITIONS

UNCOMPLETE RESPONSE
COMPLETE RESPONSE
EGO ORIENTED

4
5
TASK ORIENTED

4
3


CALCULATION
EGO ORIENTED

RU = 4 = 0.8
RC 5
TASK ORIENTED

RU = 4 = 1.33
RC 3

INTROSPECTIVE REPORT
When the experiment was completed, experimenter asked subject about her opinion and feeling of this experiment. Subject said “It’s fun, I like it, please tell me about the result of this experiment…”


CONCLUSION

The first hypothesis of this experiment stating that Recall of interrupted task (response uncompleted) is better than non-interrupted task (response completed) under task oriented condition. And the experiment shows that the score of uncompleted response under task oriented condition is higher than the completed response condition. This finding support the hypothesis.
The second hypothesis was that Recall of non-interrupted task (response completed) is better than interrupted task (response uncompleted) under ego oriented condition. And the score of completed response is higher than the score of uncompleted response. This finding is also support the hypothesis.
According to the result, thus we can clearly say that both hypothesis of this experiment are accepted.


V. DISCUSSION

It is clear that both hypothesis are accepted. The experiment shows that the score of uncompleted response under task oriented condition is 4, meanwhile the completed response is 3, so the zeirganik ratio is 1.33. meanwhile under ego oriented condition the score of uncompleted response is 4, it is lower than the score of completed response, 5, so the zeirganik ratio is 0.8.
Marrow (in Husain, 1991) aroused a feeling of competition among his subjects and found that the subjects who worked under the instruction of competition (ego oriented) recalled completed tasks better. Rosenzweig (in Husain, 1991) found that the subjects working under informal condition (task orientation) recalled unfinished tasks better due to undischarged tension but the subjects under formal condition (ego orientation) recalled completed tasks better due to repression. Smock’s (in Husain, 1991) findings showed an overall recall difference under task and ego oriented conditions. His subject recalled greater number of completed tasks under ego oriented and greater number of interrupted tasks under task oriented conditions. Green (in Husain, 1991) too found that his subjects recalled greater number of completed tasks under ego oriented condition and greater number of interrupted tasks under task oriented condition. Erickson (in Husain,1991) also found that the subjects under ego oriented condition recalled greater number of completed tasks and the controlled subjects showed a superiority of unfinished tasks although this difference was insignificant.
This finding thus support Lewin’s idea, he said that tension system is a factor that influence the recall of completed or interrupted tasks by an individual. And on the other side, the result of this experiment contradict the finding of Rosenweig that such tasks (interrupted) are repressed.
This experiment is a very simple experiment from its number of subject, since it is only meant to exercise the experimental atmosphere as one of the topic in syllabus on Psychology Department of Jamia Millia Islamia University.
For more comprehensive information about this interruption phenomenon I suggest to refer to the book of M.G. Husain (1991), for its detail findings of this topic.
Many experiments to study the recall of interrupted and completed tasks in relation with other variables have been done, such as (as taken from Husain, 1991) ‘Tension system’ (Marrow, 1938; Ovsiankina, 1928; Pachoury, 1935), ‘Repression’ (Rosenweig, 1933; Rosenweig and Mason, 1934; Rosenweig, 1943) ‘Ego and task orientation’ (Rosenweig, 1943; Marrow, 1938; Lewis and Franklin, 1944), ‘Age of the subject’ (Rosenweig and mason, 1934), ‘Time taken in the experiment’ (Pachouri, 1935), ‘Physical condition of the subject’ (Zeirganik, 1927; Kofka, 1932), ‘Personality variables’ (Alper, 1948; Atkinson, 1943; Atkinson and Raphelson, 1956; Rand, 1963; Davidson and martin, 1964; Husain, 1987) and ‘creativity’ (Husain, 1980; Husain, khan and Joshi, 1988)
For further experiment I suggest to combine between this interrupted and completed task with mnemonic. Mnemonic is the art of memorizing or also said the tricks of the memory trade. Mnemonic is known as a way to increase memory with certain unique way, in it is experimentally proven that mnemonic do increase retention. By combining mnemonic with interrupted or completed task we will see whether the memory will increase even more or even declining. There are several kinds of mnemonic like, method of loci, keyword method, chunking, acronym and link method.