{"title":"Seeing what you believe: recognition memory for evolutionary tree structure is affected by students' misconceptions.","authors":"Laura R Novick, Jingyi Liu","doi":"10.1080/09658211.2024.2360567","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Peoples' recognition memory for pictorial stimuli is extremely good. Even complex scientific visualisations are recognised with a high degree of accuracy. The present research examined recognition memory for the branching structure of evolutionary trees. This is an educationally consequential topic due to the potential for contamination from students' misconceptions. The authors created six pairs of scientifically accurate and structurally identical evolutionary trees that differed in whether they included a taxon that cued a misconception in memory. As predicted, Experiment 1 found that (a) college students (<i>N </i>= 90) had better memory for each of the six tree structures when a neutral taxon (<i>M </i>= 0.73) rather than a misconception-cuing taxon (<i>M </i>= 0.64) was included in the tree, and (b) recognition memory was significantly above chance for both sets of trees. Experiment 2 ruled out an alternative hypothesis based on the possibility that 8-12 sec was not enough time for students to encode the relationships depicted in the trees. The authors consider implications of these results for using evolutionary trees to better communicate scientific information. This is important because these trees provide information that is relevant for everyday life.</p>","PeriodicalId":18569,"journal":{"name":"Memory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Memory","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2024.2360567","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/5/28 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Peoples' recognition memory for pictorial stimuli is extremely good. Even complex scientific visualisations are recognised with a high degree of accuracy. The present research examined recognition memory for the branching structure of evolutionary trees. This is an educationally consequential topic due to the potential for contamination from students' misconceptions. The authors created six pairs of scientifically accurate and structurally identical evolutionary trees that differed in whether they included a taxon that cued a misconception in memory. As predicted, Experiment 1 found that (a) college students (N = 90) had better memory for each of the six tree structures when a neutral taxon (M = 0.73) rather than a misconception-cuing taxon (M = 0.64) was included in the tree, and (b) recognition memory was significantly above chance for both sets of trees. Experiment 2 ruled out an alternative hypothesis based on the possibility that 8-12 sec was not enough time for students to encode the relationships depicted in the trees. The authors consider implications of these results for using evolutionary trees to better communicate scientific information. This is important because these trees provide information that is relevant for everyday life.
期刊介绍:
Memory publishes high quality papers in all areas of memory research. This includes experimental studies of memory (including laboratory-based research, everyday memory studies, and applied memory research), developmental, educational, neuropsychological, clinical and social research on memory. By representing all significant areas of memory research, the journal cuts across the traditional distinctions of psychological research. Memory therefore provides a unique venue for memory researchers to communicate their findings and ideas both to peers within their own research tradition in the study of memory, and also to the wider range of research communities with direct interest in human memory.