Examining the Effect of Motivation on Short-term Memory Recalling of Arabic Abstract and Concrete Words Using Free, Cued, and Serial Recall Paradigms

Purpose: : The present paper explores whether a correlation exists between motivation and short-term memory recalling and examines motivation as a factor affecting memory recalling of Arabic concrete and abstract words through free, cued, and serial recall tasks. Method: Four groups of undergraduates at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia participated in this study. The first group consisted of 9 undergraduates who were trained to perform three types of recall for 20 Arabic abstract and concrete words. The second, third and fourth groups consisted of 27 undergraduates where each group member was trained only to perform one recall type: free recall, cued recall and serial recall respectively. Motivation was the independent variable and number of recalled abstract and concrete words was the dependent variable. The used materials in this study were: abstract and concrete words classification form based on four factors distributed to the participants (concreteness, image ability, meaningfulness, and age of acquisition), three oral recall forms, three written recall forms, and observation sheets for each type of recall. Three methods were used: auditory, visual, and written. Results: The statistical analysis indicated that the percentage of the retrieved words by the control group was slightly lower than that of the experimental group in the case of free and serial recall paradigms. In other words, the effect of motivation on short-term memory recall was found partial. A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was also computed to assess the relationship between motivation (one recall trail, that is recalling only either freely, supportably (with cues), or serially [as compared to those who recalled the words freely, supportably, and serially) and short-term memory recall (recalled Arabic abstract and concrete words). The participants with a motivational stimulus tended to recall slightly more Arabic abstract and concrete words, whereas those participants with no motivational stimulus tended to recall slightly less Arabic abstract and concrete words, r = .713, p< 0.01. Conclusions: Motivation effect on short-term memory recall of Arabic abstract and concrete words was not significant especially in the case of free and serial recall paradigms. However, Pearson’s correlation supported the research hypothesis that there was a moderate positive correlation between the two variables, r = 0.713, n = 440, p = 0.000, with R2 = .508.