Honors Theses

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Matthew Reysen

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of the present experiment was to explore the effects of using various retrieval strategies on a collaborative reconstruction task. More specifically, we sought to determine the extent to which the Retrieval Strategy Disruption Hypothesis (RSD) could explain the effects of collaborative inhibition on such tasks. Collaborative inhibition is observed when collaborative group performance is lower than the pooled performance of an identical number of individuals working alone (nominal groups). The RSD hypothesis suggests that one group member’s output disrupts another group member’s idiosyncratic retrieval strategy leading to poorer performance relative to individuals working alone. In the present study, participants were asked to reconstruct an eight-item list of common nouns either individually (later used to form nominal groups), with a partner employing a turn-taking strategy (turn-taking groups), or with a partner employing a turn-taking strategy while recalling the words in the order in which they were originally presented (restricted groups). We observed equivalent performance in the nominal and restricted groups and statistically poorer performance in the turn-taking groups. These results are discussed with respect to the Retrieval Strategy Disruption Hypothesis.

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