The Effect of Meaningfulness on Short-and Long-Term Recall Among Ethiopians

Abstract

Summary The present study seeks to demonstrate, in a non-Western (Ethiopian) cultural setting, the hypothesis that greater meaningfulness of verbal material results in better recall under conditions of short- and long-term memory. Verbal material of three different levels of meaningfulness was presented to 31 senior boys of an Ethiopian secondary school. The least meaningful material was made up of words taken from Zulu, Hausa, and Chinese languages, while the intermediate and high meaningful material consisted of Geez and Amharic words, languages prevalent in Ethiopia. The Ss performed significantly better in high than in intermediate or low, and in intermediate than in low meaningfulness condition. Thus the results confirmed the hypothesis and validated it cross-culturally.