The Role of Explicit Memory and Attention in Attitude Change - Literature review Example

Analyzing Paradigmatic Influences in Research Student’s name: Institution: Instructor: Subject: Analyzing Paradigmatic Influences in Research Introduction Research involves systematically investigating an issue in relation to the new or existing knowledge with the aim of developing a new theory, support an existing theory, solve an existing or new problem, reaffirm or confirm results previously got or even to confirm or establish the fact (Weber, 1949, p. 17). Due to the sensitivity of the kind the findings that are got from these research, it is critical that the entire process involved in the research be carried with high level of integrity and accuracy. This way, the findings would be trust worth and acceptable. One of the major element of ensuring the integrity and trustworthy of research is through ensuring that the paradigm used trust worth. Paradigm is a research model that is generally accepted (Coll, & Chapman, 2000, p. 12). For this model to be accepted, it should bring out an acceptable relationship between the ideas and form a conceptual framework within the field that the research is carried out. Therefore, the choice of paradigm should be able to bring out the relevant facts of the research that are directly related to the aim or objective of the research. This analysis seeks to identify the role played by paradigm in carrying out the research on the article “The role of Explicit Memory and attention in Attitude Change.” Free choice paradigm In this article, free choice paradigm was used. A free choice paradigm is one which is one which neither the action nor the conditions of the carried research are specified by someone or anything else other than the person that is doing the research (Healy & Perry, 2000, p. 123). In this case, the researcher develops the methodology that is going to be used in carrying out the research. Moreover, the research has the free will of choosing the kind of data that is going to be taken, how it shall be analyzed and how conclusions are going to be made out of this data. However, though the researcher is at will to do all this, the entire process that he or she designs should be convincing enough to bring out the required conclusions (Mezirow, 1981, p. 123). Creswell (1994, p. 234) observes that with respect to the action of free choice paradigm, the unique thing about it when compared to other paradigms is that it is impossible to parameterize. This makes the processes of data collection, analysis and coming up with conclusion distinctive. It is this uniqueness that makes the research method difficult to be employed in another area of research. The aspect of conditions being choice of the researcher makes it possible to manipulate and amend them in order to suit the kind of findings that the researcher wants out of the research. In this case, the environment can be improvised, tasks altered or procedure changed when specific details of the research are required by the researcher. However, these changes are made in such a way that it is possible to make valid conclusion from the entire research. Analysis of the article The aim of the research article is to determine whether explicit memory and attention have any role in determining the attitude change of a person. The choice of the researcher to use free-choice paradigm is best in this case. To enable the researcher to find out and the extent of role that is played by explicit memory and attention in influencing the altitude, the researcher had no better way other than to design a unique paradigm that are going to gather the required data and produce valid conclusions. The ideal research methodology in this case would require the researcher to gather information from people with explicit memory then from people without explicit memory. From this data, the researcher would be able to identify the similarities and differences and make acceptable conclusions. Similarly, in case of attention, the researcher would be required to carry out research on a person who is has adequate attention and then to a person who does not have attention at all. From the data, the researcher would find how they influence altitude. But in this case, measure of attention, explicit memory and altitude cannot be quantified. It is difficult to make or find a person with the attention and the explicit memory of a given amount when it is required. The best way to carry out an acceptable research with this kind of situation is to find a way of collecting data that represent the kind of information that the researcher is interested in. To gather data from persons who have explicit memory and those without explicit memory, the researcher uses persons suffering from amnesia and people who do not suffer from amnesia. People with amnesia would definitely not remember what they have done or seen after a short period or memory distraction. On the other hand, people who are not suffering from amnesia would remember some details of things that they have seen after a short period of time or even memory distraction. In carrying this kind of research, the participant of the research is likely to put extra energy on memory which may result to the data collected being biased. There is therefore the need to design the paradigm in a manner that would cater for this setback. In this case, researcher opts to use filler verbal task and a methodology that involves phases that are not related. The participants choose two sets of prints. After rearranging the prints in third phase and taking filler verbal task, they are required to recall the set of photos in phase three. From the data collected after taking this research, people with amnesia definitely had a hard time recalling which prints they had seen, while majority of those who never had amnesia could remember most of the prints. Unless if other conditions influenced the choice kind of data collected, it is only through this kind of free choice paradigm that the necessary data could be extracted. In this case, the choice of participant and the process of data collection perfectly combine to ensure that the right kind of data is collected. To measure attention, the researcher relies on the procedure so as to collect the data. The researcher uses two sets of students one group is required to two sets of pictures while at the same time recalls the number to tones played. The control group is only required to recall the set of pictures and ignore the playing tone. In this case, the tone acts as a way of distracting the attention of the participants who are required to do multiple things at the same time. The choice of this paradigm perfectly fits the requirements of the research. From the data that is collected from this experiment, it is observed that the students who had to do remember two things were indeed destructed. With regard to the paradigm, it is perfectly fits the scenario. Any free choice paradigm should be able to have a way of proving that the components that are being monitored indeed works. In this case, people whose attention is destructed are required to recall less of what they are doing than those who have been concentrating. From the data that is collected, it shows that the majority of the participants who were concentrating were able to remember the prints. If this research would have proved otherwise, then the data that would have been collected would not have represented the kind of findings that was of interest to the researcher. For the component of research that is being investigated to be proved to work to be correct or wrong, a control group of participant is very important (Merriam, & Heuer, 1996, p. 134). In both experiments, there is mixture of two groups of participants. In the first case, we are interested in role of explicit memory with relation to the attitude change. In this case people who do not have amnesia are used as the control. In the second experiment, one group of participants is required to concentrate in listening to sound pitch and observing the prints, while the control group is required to only concentrate in observing the prints. The control in the designed paradigm perfectly brings out the required observable difference between the elements of research that are being carried out. The main component change that is being measured is attitude. Altitude is the general feeling or opinion that a person has over a certain issue (Dervin, 1977). To measure this kind of aspects in research, either the research procedure or the research components should be able to clearly portly the component being investigated. In this research, the researchers chose to use a procedure that is able to bring out the aspect of attitude. The first phase of the experiment requires that the participants arrange a set of prints in the order of priority. The second phase of the experiment makes the participants to look at the pictures from a different perspective and in greater detail. It is designed such that at the end of it, it is likely to trigger change of attitude to the observer. This is evident since in the third phase where they are required to rank the pictures again, they are observable changes in the way all the participant ranks them compared to how they did it in the first phase. Definitely, there is observed change in attitude on the choice of prints this round. According to Bisman (2002, p. 112), the research method and the components or individuals of research should be able to combine so as to produce meaningful data that is trusted by the research method. Looking the inter relations of the entire paradigm with relation to the kind of findings that the researcher is interested in finding; it is evident that the entire research process is properly designed. The inter relations of the tasks and procedures of the research is what makes the entire paradigm to come up with trusted data. In the first experiment, 12 amnestic patients and 12 other people who do not have amnesia but matches the age of the amnestic patients are used. The two sets of participants are able to clearly bring out the role of explicit memory. The research further ensures that the two sets of people have age match. Age match is important since people at different ages have different levels of memory and therefore making sure that the participants matched the age would remove the bias that is likely to result from age difference. The experiment takes four phases. In the first phase, the participants are given 15 sets of prints and asked to rank them in the order from the preference. In the second phase, based on how they ranked the prints, they are required the researcher produces two pairs of print, one with 4th and 10th ranked prints and the other with 6th and 12th ranked prints. The researcher then asks the participant then asks the participant his preferred pair of prints. This phase makes the researcher to look into greater details the prints that he or she had initially seen in the first phase. The fact that the pairs have prints that overlaps triggers the participant to change the opinion he or she have on the ranks. In the fourth phase, the researcher is interested in finding out how the participant changed the attitude in ranking the prints. Having looked at two sets of pictures in greater in greater depth, in each case, the participants have a different attitude on the way of ranking the prints. At this stage, the researcher is interested in finding the new attitude and sure enough, most of the participants rank the prints differently from the way they had initially done in the first phase. In the fourth phase, the researcher asks each of the participants to identify the pairs of prints that he or she had in phase 2.The researcher is further interested in finding out whether the participant can be able to recall the prints that he or she accepted and rejected in phase two. In this case, the researcher tests the memory of the participant. This is the control phase for the researchers. The researchers are interested in finding out whether indeed the persons with amnesia could remember the prints at the same rate as the person who never had amnesia. Based on the finding of the research, it is evident that the participants who had no amnesia could remember more of the print details than those who had amnesia. In the second experiment, the procedure in the first was repeated with only minor changes. First the participants were replaced with those of student who were not suffering from amnesia. The element that was being tested in this case was attention with relation to change in attitude. For this reason the participants had to be of the same memory status so that the only component that would be altered would be change in attention. To be able to come up with a group of students who had total attention and another group which had no attention, the participants of one group was put on load while the other group was not. In this case, phase two where the participants were required to remember the prints, one group of the participant memory was put on load through being required to recall number of tones that were being played alongside recalling the prints. The series of tones in this case would definitely make the participants to have a different attention. This is confirmed by phase four which is the control phase. The findings from this phase showed that participants whose attention was interrupted by the tone ended up remembering less in phase four than those whose attention was not interfered with. The interrelation of the entire process, from choice of the participants and the phases involved in the research makes this paradigm to produce the ideal data for the research. The main advantage of using free-choice paradigm is that the researcher is at free will to design the means through which he or she shall take the research in a way that addresses the issue at hand (Krauss, 2005, p. 760). In this paradigm, the researcher uses combination of participants and methodology in order to test memory, attention and altitude. The paradigm used however, cannot be used to represent the ideal results in this case. Memory, attention and altitude are not easily measurable since there are triggered by a number of factors. Though the researcher tries to as much as possible remove contribution of other factor to the data collected from this research, it is difficult to totally eliminate other influences. Alternative Paradigm: Qualitative paradigm If qualitative paradigm was used, other memory elements could be involved in the research. Memory could be triggered by a number of factors which among others may include health, environmental status. Some people may be able to remember more when in one environment and fail to do so in another environment (Deetz, 1996, p. 232) . However, the researcher assumes that all the participants have the same conditions to trigger the same memory status. Merriam (1998, p. 234) observes that to counter this effect, the researchers needed to come up with a way of choosing the people with the same at least same level of memory. To the paradigm used by the researcher, the perquisite to the research would be subjecting the participants to a memory test with the aim of ensuring that they fall at the same level of memory. The choice of paints may not have been the ideal thing to influence the memory of the participants. Different people remember different things differently (Manicas, & Secord, 1982, p. 490). Some of the participants may generally have no passion for pictures which would make them to be intimidated by the research and hence give irrelevant results. On the other hand, some people may be having high passion for paints hence being able to understand in details the paints resulting to giving of biased result. The paradigm used in this case fails to address any of these extreme levels which would have been addressed using qualitative paradigm. As a result this would have negatively resulted to data that is influenced by other sources. Qualitative paradigm would have required that the researcher needs to carry a pretest to the participant to understand their level of passion on paints. The researchers should ensure that all the participants have acceptable range of passion to the paints so that the data collected is not biased (McArthur, 1958, p. 154). Based on this additional information, the likely results and conclusions made would be different from those got using the free choice paradigm. The level of concentration in someone is also unique to some individuals that would have altered the result of the data collected using qualitative paradigm (Cousins, 2002, p. 98). Some people are able to pay attention to certain kind of things more than other (Dewey, 1933, p. 112). Some people may pay attention for the fast few minutes and fail to do so sometimes later while others takes time to start paying attention. In free choice paradigm, the researchers assumed that all the researchers had a uniform way of paying attention to the things in their surrounding and not considering the issue of time (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p.47). In some situations, some sounds played may influence the level of concentration both positively or negatively. In this case, the researcher assumes that the sound that is being played is going to make the participants loose attention. However, according to Lofland & Lofland (1996, p. 398) in some people this sound may have contributed to them remembering or paying more attention to the paints. Qualitative paradigm would have come up with a way through which the researcher can be able to tell whether the element intended to interfere with the attention of the participant does it positively or negatively. Moreover, all the methodology would have required that the attentions of the participants to be interfered in the same magnitude. Though the method used to distract the attention of the participant is the same using free choice paradigm, it may have different level of destruction depending all depending on how each participant perceives it. In this case therefore, the participant needs to be adequately researched on before they are used as tools of the main research. Change of altitude is the main thing that is being investigated in the two examples. Free choice paradigm in this case assumes that the change of altitude has occurred when the participant in phase three fails to rearrange the paints in the same order as he or she had done in first phase. However, this may not be a very good measure of altitude. In some situation, lack of interest in paints may make the participant view all the paints either the same and does a guess arrangement. When told to repeat the same thing after sometimes, he or she does the same and there is no guarantee that there was intention or interest in this case. In this research, it has been concluded that there was no relationship between altitude change and attention. However, the paradigm does not address issues such as participants who did the test. The negative thing about this kind research paradigm is that there is no guarantee that the data collected is reliable. Conclusion The paradigm used in this research did address most of the issues that relates to altitude, attention and memory. However, the few elements that have been overlooked and left out would have significant effect on the data and hence the conclusions made from this research. It is therefore critical to the initial design addressed issues that ensures that the participants are even and the data collected does not come out of interference from other sources other than the exact course. For this research, a pre research need to be carried to the participants to ensure that under the same conditions and environment, the participants have the same level of attention control, memory state and attitude. In addition, they need to ensure the participants have the same level of reaction to prints. Any participant who portrays different measure of these results from the rest of the participant is not fit to be used as a tool of carrying research. If the paradigm involved was qualitative, then the kind of findings got would have been totally different If qualitative paradigm would have been used instead, the data corrected would have been more accurate. However, the choice of this paradigm would have resulted to more complicated decisions to make like how one could quantify the altitude, attention or memory. Failure to have a way of doing this would mean that this paradigm could not adequately apply in this case. 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