Remembering the events of a basketball season : an autobiographical memory study

This study used videotape to record the games of one team's intramural basketball season. The subjects were asked to recall specific events within the three games using a multiple, progressive cueing technique developed by the experimenter. Four variables were investigated, and each play that the subjects attempted to recall was coded according to its relation to the four variables. The four variables were retention interval, level of participation, frequency of action, and consequences of results. Each recall was given a score and categorized based on its accuracy and quality. Analysis involved comparing the memory scores and percentages of recalls associated with the different levels of the four variables.

There were three retention intervals, five week, four week, and three week intervals. There was little evidence to suggest that the retention interval affected the memory of different plays. Level of participation reflected how involved the subject was in each play. Personal plays were ones in which the subject was the central player and were recalled more completely and with more detail than Connected (plays in which the subject was minimally involved) and Observed (plays in which the subject was not involved) plays. Frequency of action referred to how frequent the actions in the play to be recalled was in a game. There was a difference observed between Single (plays with actions that only occurred once) and Several (plays with actions that occurred more that five times) with respect to the percentage of plays not recalled: Single plays were less likely to score zero than Several plays. Finally, plays that were positive or negative were examined. No differences were observed in memory for these types of plays.