Mc Gaugh and Cahill (1995)

Introduction
This study is investigating the role of emotion in the creation of memories. Emotional memories are
believed to be remembered far more accurately than non-emotional memories. When experienced with
events that are associated with high emotions, our body elicits the “fight or flight” response which makes
our heart race faster, because stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released from the adrenal
gland. The amygdala gets activated once adrenaline reaches the brain, which warns our body about the
danger that has happened. The amygdala is part of the brain associated with emotional processes. It is
responsible for processing strong emotions such as fear or aggression. This is why when we get
emotional, the amygdala, which also plays a pivotal role in memory, gets stimulated, which makes us
remember better. McGaugh and Cahill 1995 study studies the role of emotion in the formation of
memories through making up scenarios that are highly arousing and having the participants recall the
events told.
The aim of McGaugh and Cahill's 1995 study is to study the role of emotion in the creation of memories.
This laboratory experiment investigates the relationship between emotional arousal and long-term
memory. It is worth studying because the results of this finding can inform people of the importance of
the amygdala; it can be used to explain why we tend to remember events that are associated with high
emotions better than we do for normal/ neutral events. The findings of this study can also bring context to
people who experience post-traumatic stress disorder- a mental disorder triggered by a distressing event,
by helping them overcome or avoid the “highly traumatic” event ingrained in their long-term memory.
The independent variable (variable the researcher manipulates) in this study will be the narration of the
story, which was either emotionally “neutral” or "arousing". In the emotional neutral condition, the
participants hear a rather boring story about a woman and her son who paid a visit to the son’s father in a
hospital where they witnessed the staff in a disaster preparation drill of a simulated accident victim. The
“emotionally arousing” condition includes the participants hearing a story about a boy involved in a car
accident who was brought to the hospital to have his injured limbs reattached because his feet were badly
severed. He then stayed in the hospital for some weeks and then went home with his mother. The
dependent variable (variable that is being measured) on the other hand, is the amount of information they
could accurately recall. They consisted of a “recognition test”, which was a series of questions about the
slides with three options for them to choose from. (I.e., What was the job of the father of the boy in the
story? A. A janitor B. A lab technician C. A surgeon.)
H0: There is no significant difference between one’s emotional state and the ability to recall the stories
told.
H1: There is a significant difference between one’s emotional state and the ability to recall the stories
told.

Exploration

The study used an independent measures design as each participant was assigned to only one condition of
the experiment. We used this design because it allows different participants to undergo only one condition
and, in this study, it seems to be the best fit because if a repeated measures design was used, meaning
each participant will have to undergo different conditions, then practice effect will much likely take place.
The same participants will have to rewatch the same stories again and again, meaning this will have an
effect on the results because they are more likely to remember the stories more accurately when presented
to them several times; which is why an independent measures design was the best fit for this experiment.
Neither the sample size nor the sampling technique was mentioned precisely in the study. However,
random sampling could be one of the techniques utilized in this experiment. This technique allows the
experiment to be more representative as it does not favor certain people- each sample has an equal chance
of being chosen. The sample could be of among people ranging from different age groups, occupations
and cultures in order to elicit reliable results that would minimize the effects of extraneous variables and
make the results more generalizable.
The researcher did not ask consent from the participants as far as the video of the experiment goes, “the
subject was told his emotional reactions to a story are going to be measured.” Although it wasn’t clearly
specified in the study, consent should have been obtained from the participants as not only is the ethics of
informed consent included in the APA (American Psychological Association) guidelines, this experiment
includes disturbing or distressing images that would be displayed for the participants to see; therefore,
they should be warned beforehand. When failed to give a trigger warning to the participants, the
researchers could have breached another ethical guideline, which is causing undue stress and harm to the
participants, by showing them disturbing pictures of severely injured legs. Although the use of debriefing
was not clearly specified in this experiment, the researchers should always remember to debrief the
participants after every experiment conducted to ensure the participants know the exact procedure,
hypothesis and the use of deception. Debriefing is more necessary for this experiment because deception
was used- the video mentioned how the researchers told the participants that they were measuring their
emotional reactions with the device but the supposed “device” actually wasn’t hooked up to anything.
Moreover, anonymity was breached: in the case of consent not being obtained, because the participants
were being filmed, their faces were shown out in public, intruding their confidentiality.
The controlled variables in this experiment would be the setting that the participants were placed in: a
dark room with a projector displayed in front. This minimizes the effect of extraneous variables, as being
in a dark room will direct the participant’s attention to the story and the story only, as the projector will be
the only object lit in the room. The narrator telling the stories was also controlled for, as using different
narrators for the two conditions can be considered an extraneous variable; different people have different
tones (e.g., loud, soft, aggressive...) and accent, which could influence the way the participants interpret
the story. Moreover, the base concept of the stories in the two conditions were controlled for. Although
the two story lines were different, the base concept of the two stories were the same: which was the
concept that a woman and a boy were visiting a hospital where they either witnessed or actually
experienced a severed limb injury caused by a car accident. This is to reduce the differences between the
two conditions which could possibly influence the results. Furthermore, the participants under the two
conditions were asked to come back after 2 weeks to take a memory test (time was controlled), and this
was done to equalize the time gap between the participants under two conditions.
The materials used in the experiment were a projector to display the slides in front of the participants, a
paper the researcher used that includes the narration of the story to ensure the researcher does not mess up
the words, 12 slides that showcase the scenarios of the story to ensure all participants from each condition
get the same narration of the story along with the pictures, and the scenario of a boy being injured because
little kids receiving severe injuries are more likely to elicit more emotional reactions from people than
adults.
Analysis
Although there has been no data reported for this study, I would apply a Mann-Whitney U test because
not only is the experiment an independent measures design, it has an ordinal data. The participants were
asked about how emotional they found the story on a scale of 1-10 and this indicates an ordinal data
because it has a kind of categorical data with a scale to it. This experiment is also an independent
measures design as mentioned in the introduction above, as different participants were tested under
different conditions. A Man Whitney U test is used to compare if there is a difference between the
dependent variable (emotional reaction) and the two conditions (arousing and neutral story). Since there is
no accurate data- meaning we cannot accurately deduce about the presence of outliers, I would find the
mean rather than the median. The mean, which is the average of the data set, will allow us to get a general
picture of the data set. Then I will find the Standard Deviation to measure how spread out the data is in
relation to the mean. I would also use a bar graph to get a visual comparison of the two groups and plot a
box plot to see if there are outliers and summarize variation in large data sets visually.

Exploration
The results were that the researchers found that the participants who had heard the more emotionally
arousing story demonstrated better recall of specific details of the story. They could also recall more
details from the slides. However, there is no sufficient data reported for this study, therefore we cannot
come to a conclusion about whether the results of this study were significant or not since the p-value,
which is the probability value that indicates how likely the results occurred by chance, is not calculated.
This study also uses an independent measures design. As mentioned above in the exploration,
independent measures design avoids order effects such as practice effect- which will allow participants to
rewatch the story again, meaning that they will remember the story more accurately which can skew the
results if they were to be put in a repeated measures design. However, participant variability should be
taken into account. Different participants have different characteristics and traits and when divided under
two conditions, there is a high chance that one group would be more different than the other. Although
there are no specifics about the sample, one group could possibly be more intelligent than the other.
However, random allocation- which ensures participants in each group of the experiment to be the same,
could be used to minimize the participant variability. Independent measures design also requires more
participants in relation to the repeated measures design as each participant is undergoing only one
condition, whereas in the repeated measures design, the same participants will be put in all conditions.
The study did not accurately mention the sample, however, if we were to use random sampling for the
experiment, we could reduce researcher bias: the researcher will not have control over who is being
selected. The researchers only require a little knowledge about the population prior to the experiment,
which will save them more time than the other techniques (which usually takes researchers a really long
time to research about the population). Random sampling also makes samples relatively easy to select in
places where the population is small, however, it may not be as representative because the sample may
not be evenly spread across all sections of the population, which results in low generalizability.
The experiment in general is low in ecological validity and is highly controlled. Since the experiment was
conducted in a lab environment, the findings of the results are artificial, it is hard to generalize the
findings to real life situations. The recognition task was also not a valid test of memory as it was rather a
multiple-choice questionnaire which restricts the participants to answering only within the limit of the
options provided, where they could just get the answers right by luck. Moreover, the construct validity of
the experiment is relatively low because of the “neutral” story that was provided; what one person may
find “neutral” can differ for another. However, one strength of the experiment includes being replicable
because of its procedures which are highly standardized- all participant receives the same instructions and
treatment. This study also has high internal validity because there was a significant difference between the
total recall of the participants in the two conditions.
By judging on the low ecological validity of this study, Mcgaugh and Cahill could modify this experiment
by executing the experiment in a different setting that is not in a laboratory, targeted towards a specific
group of people who either actually witnessed a car accident or meet a boy who actually injured his limbs
and hear him tell his story for the experimental condition, and witness an actual staff preparation drill in
an actual hospital for the control group. The recognition task used in this experiment could also be
modified in ways that include open-ended questions rather than multi-choice questionnaires, which will
allow participants to answer in detail with their own answer rather than the multiple-choice answers that
the researchers prepare for them.
Although most of the details of the experiment were not specifically mentioned in the study, we can
conclude that the participants who had heard the more emotionally arousing story demonstrated a better
recall of specific details of the story.