• All my results were statistically significant and proved all my hypotheses correct.

• People are more likely to be accurate at remembering ASL signs with picture elaboration techniques rather than word(no picture) techniques, 91% compared with 86%.

  • This data supports my hypothesis of picture elaboration techniques yielding higher accuracy than words. This connects back to what I found in the literature, specifically how using picture elaboration techniques facilitates phonological decisions by activating the sensorimotor cortex, leading to easier identification compared with word technique elaboration (Vinson et. al 2015).

• I hypothesized that there would be higher mean accuracy at immediate testing then at delayed testing. The mean accuracy at immediate testing was 91%, and the mean accuracy at delayed testing was 85%.  I had a short distraction period between immediate and delayed testing, lasting 2-3 minutes. This connects with the literature that finds distraction intervals lasting as little as 5 minutes leads to poorer accuracy ratings between immediate and delayed testing (Maki 1998).

• My interactive hypothesis that predicted the highest mean accuracy would be in the pictures elaboration techniques condition tested in the short term was proven correct. In this condition the mean accuracy was over 95%, the highest accuracy out of all of 4 conditions. This connects to research I found using similar conditions to my current study, concluding that signs prefaced with images were rehearsed and recalled slightly more frequently in immediate memory than delayed memory (Bonvillian et. al 1987).

Ceiling effects

• The graphs presented in the results section depict a ceiling effect in the data, showing most people were able to get a 100% on the memory test.

• Why?

  • Could be due to that people learn better with images/visually, especially the college age population I tested on.

  • Word elaboration techniques yield higher accuracy in sign recognition for deaf people (Hu et. al 2011).

    • I had no deaf participants which could point to the lower overall accuracy in response to word elaboration techniques.

  • There could have been impacts of a short distraction interval, pointing to basic maintenance of accuracy over time (and not a huge distribution of data).