Nonparticipant observer recall of videotaped conversations : the effects of observer sex, gender stereotypicality of conversation, and prior knowledge
Date
1992
Authors
Boutilier, John Patrick
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Abstract
Forty undergraduate psychology students, 20 male and 20 female, were asked to recall a videotaped conversation after a first and second viewing. There were two versions of the conversation: Gender stereotypical and gender atypical. The generalization of three common findings in memory research to memory for conversation were tested: Females have a verbal advantage over males, stereotypical material is remembered better than atypical material, and prior knowledge improves recall. Therefore, the effects of sex, stereotypicality of conversation, and prior knowledge on the recall of conversation were examined. There were five dependent variables: The number of total, correct, incorrect, verbally derived (derived from the spoken discourse), and visually derived (derived from the setting, characters' physical appearance, etc) propositions recalled. A proposition was defined as any obvious or embedded statement which could be classified as true or false and conveyed some coherent information.
A mixed factorial ANOVA was performed on each dependent variable, and planned comparisons were made using t-tests. Each planned comparison was a test of an individual hypothesis, thus, the alpha level remained at alpha .05 for each t-test. Significant main effects of sex were found for the number of total, correct, incorrect, and verbally derived propositions recalled. Planned comparisons revealed the following significant results. Females recalled significantly more total propositions than males on the first recall trial for the gender atypical conversation. Females recalled significantly more correct propositions than males on their first and second recall trials for both the gender stereotypical and gender atypical conversations. Females also recalled significantly more verbally derived propositions than males on their first and second recall trials for both the gender stereotypical and gender atypical conversations. Males recalled significantly more incorrect propositions than females on both recall trials for the gender stereotypical conversation and on the first recall trial for the gender atypical conversation. Males also recalled significantly more visually derived propositions than females on the second recall trial for the gender atypical conversation.
Mixed factorial ANOVAs failed to reveal a significant main effect for stereotypicality of conversation on any of the five dependent variables. Planned comparisons also failed to reveal any significant differences between group means.
The mixed factorial ANOVAs revealed a significant main effect of prior knowledge for the number of total, correct and verbally derived propositions recalled. Planned comparisons revealed the following significant results. Females recalled significantly more correct propositions on the second recall trial for the gender stereotypical conversation than on the first recall trial. Both males and females recalled significantly more verbally derived propositions on the second recall trial for the gender stereotypical conversation than on the first recall trial.
The ANOVAs failed to reveal any significant interactions. Inspection of the variances, however, suggested a strong sex by gender stereotypicality of conversation interaction. The variance for males tended to be higher than that of females for the recall of the gender stereotypical conversation, while the variance for females tended to be higher than that of males for the gender atypical conversation.
The conclusion was that the results support the finding that females have an advantage over males for the recall of verbal material. The absence of stereotypicality of conversation effects was thought to have resulted from the fact that the two conversations did not differ enough on the gender stereotypicality dimension. Another conclusion was that the results support the finding that prior knowledge improves recall.
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