Short Term Memory: Recall of Related and Unrelated Words Manifa Gharapetian, David V. Burns, and Emily King California State University, Northridge Abstract Short Term Memory: Recall of Related and Unrelated Words Without short-term memory, completing routine daily tasks, those we take for granted, would be challenging. Something as simple as writing down a new phone number or address would be burdensome. Memory and factors effecting memory have been the focus of thousands of experiments in the field of psychology. Our research centered on experiments involving the recall of related and unrelated words. Many of those studies provided contradicting results. The inconsistencies motivated our interest in short-term memory recall of simple everyday words, both related and unrelated. Secondary variables may have an …show more content…
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For example, if you were to start cooking something and walk away to do something else and forget about it, it could easily catch on fire and damage personal property and maybe even cause injury or death. I can recall my own experience of short-term memory loss. A lady in our community was frying bacon and left her house and forgot to turn the burner off. Tragically, her youngest daughter was trapped inside the house and perished in the fire. This is an example of how important short-term memory loss can be.
The procedure is simple. On the computer screen, twelve words are revealed one word at a time in the form of a list. After the last word, a matrix of twelve words is shown. The matrix is a table of twelve words, some of which were on the list, some of which were not. Participants in the task chose which words they believe were on the list, using free recall to select words in any order. A new list begins when participants believe they have all of the correct words from the matrix. The cycle begins again. A list of twelve words are presented, a matrix appears after the twelfth word, and participants select words according to their memory of what was on the list. There are six lists in total, with no practice trials, however there are breaks in between to express the differences in each list.
Research studies established by Herlitz, Nilsson, and Backman prove that sex differences favor women when it comes to episodic memory. In this research experiment these psychologists took about 1,000 applicants, both male and female, between ages of 35 – 80, and asked them to remember a list of words; the study showed that women outperformed men by 25 percent. Coming to the conclusion that, since women were able to recall more words than men they evidently had the better episodic memory. Furthermore this article expands upon this subcategory of memory by describing the two types of tasks involved with it: verbal-production ta... ...
The serial position effect has been studied extensively for many years. Researchers have designed a variety of different studies in order to analyze and explain both, the primacy and the recency effect. The primacy effect is the tendency for the first items presented in a series of words to be recalled more easily, or to be more influential than those presented at the end of the list. On the other end, there is also the recency effect. The recency effect is the tendency to recall the items located at the end of the list. Many studies have been designed to analyze how the primacy effect works and its accuracy. For instance, research compared the primacy and the recency effect (Jahnke, 1965). Forty-eight college students read lists of 6, 10, and 15 English words in a counterbalanced order. Twenty-four of the students were given instructions for the immediate serial recall of the list; while the other half of students were not aware that they would need to recall words from a list. Both groups received a total of 12 different lists. The words were read at a rate of one word per sec without any emphasis on specific word. In addition to that, the participants’ responses were recorded in an interval of 30 seconds. Results showed that the recency effect is stronger for free serial recall and for a longer interval than primacy effect (Jahnke, 1965). When instructions were given for a serial recall, primacy effects were stronger and recency effect weaker than when instructions were given for free recall. As the length of lists increased, the recency effect became stronger and more accurate.
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2014). The second study, Cherdieu, et al. (2014) examined whether age worsens sleep-dependent memory consolidation in people. Surprisingly, the researchers found that sleep did not enhance memory in older adults like it does for younger adults. It was also found that younger adults benefited from sleep, whereas forgetting in the older adults were comparable between the sleep and wakefulness group. Lastly, the third study by Schönauer, et al (2015) examined whether sleep after learning, compared to sleep deprivation or day-wake periods, shows a lasting beneficial effect on memory performance. The researchers found that sleep deprivation before recall did not have a lasting effect on performance and that performance was significantly enhanced immediately after intervals of no more than 24 hours. Schönauer, et al (2015) also suggested that the hippocampus serves as a buffer during retention interval, and consolidation occurs during delayed sleep. Also since the mirror-tracing task is non-hippocampal dependent suggest that there are more than one sleep-related memory consolidation process. All three of the articles relate to each other because they examine the role of sleep on memory
Kliegl and Lindenberger (1993, pp. 617-637) tested a model for correct recall and intrusions in cued recall of word lists. Intrusions are defined as false responses that were correct in an earlier list. The model assumes three exclusive states for memory traces after encoding; 1) with a list tag-with information about list origin, 2) without list tags, and 3) missing. Across lists, a trace can lose its list tag or it's content.
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Forgetting is the inability to retrieve information. Forgetting occurs constantly across the human population. Since the early times psychologists have tried to determine the causes of forgetting. It is very difficult to study memory since there is no physical exam of the brain that can map memory however; we now have some theories regarding what is remembered. All we can do is measure what we can remember. Memory plays a vital role in our lives. It can dictate our feelings, emotions, and response to environment. There can never be enough studies regarding this matter. This essay will discuss the four theories of forgetting and what we can to to counteract its effects.
The focus on the phonological mental memory was first initiated by Paul Meara (1980). He argued that the organization of words in memory depend on the phonological knowledge of the words in second language acquisition. However, in first language acquisition the memory depends on the semantic knowledge. Mear (1980) conducted a study on lexical performance in fir...
1. Short-term memory holds memories that were created recently for a short period of time.
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