Question: Schmidt (1994) conducted a series of experiments examining the effects of humor on memory. In one study, participants were shown a list of sentences, of which half were humorous and half were nonhumorous. A humorous example is, “If at first you don’t succeed, you are probably not related to the boss.” Other participants would see a nonhumorous version of this sentence, such as “People who are related to the boss often succeed the very first time.” Schmidt then measured the number of each type of sentence recalled by each participant. The following scores are similar to the results obtained in the study.

A. Identify the independent variable and the dependentvariable for this experiment.

B. Sketch a polygon showing the frequency distribution for the humorous sentences. In the same graph, sketch a polygon for the nonhumorous sentences. (Use two different colors, or use a solid line for one polygon and a dashed line for the other.) Does it appear that humor has an influence on memory?

Number of Sentences Recalled

Humorous Nonhumorous

sentences sentences

4 5 2 4 5 2 4 2

6 7 6 6 2 3 1 6

2 5 4 3 3 2 3 3

1 3 5 5 4 1 5 3