Final answer:
The cognitive psychologist is conducting an experiment to determine if distributed practice improves learning. The experiment involves three groups of participants studying Chinese vocabulary words over different time periods. Previous research suggests that the group with expanded spaced practice will perform the best on the memory test.
Step-by-step explanation:
The cognitive psychologist is testing the hypothesis that people learn better when they spread out their studying over several days. The experiment involves three groups of participants who study a list of 120 Chinese vocabulary words. The first group studies for 20 minutes on the first day, the second group studies for 20 minutes on the first and second days, and the last group studies for 20 minutes on the first, second, and third days. On the fourth day, all participants are tested on how well they remember the vocabulary words.
This experiment is based on the idea of distributed practice, which suggests that spacing out learning sessions over time leads to better retention. The first group represents the control group, studying only on the first day. The second group represents a spaced practice condition, studying on two consecutive days. The last group represents an expanded spaced practice condition, studying on three consecutive days. By comparing the performance of these three groups on the fourth day, the cognitive psychologist can determine if distributed practice improves learning.
Based on previous research, it is expected that the last group (expanded spaced practice) will perform the best on the memory test. This is because their studying is spread out over a longer period of time, allowing for more opportunities for memory consolidation and retrieval. The first group (control group) is expected to perform the worst, as their studying is limited to a single session with no reinforcement. The second group (spaced practice) is expected to fall somewhere in between.