Running Head: SHORT TERM MEMORY AND TIME CONSTRAINT
An experiment to investigate that the time constraint will negatively impact participants’ ability to memorize and recall word lists.
Yi Tsam Mary Kong
David Fontaine
Pargol Hamidi
Michaela Krauss
Hernan Ochoa
Anita Schmalor
University of British Columbia
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yi Tsam Mary Kong,
Psychology Department, The University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver,
British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada. Email :kongyitsam@hotmail.com.hk
Abstract
Short-term memory (STM) is the ability to memorize information in a relatively short period of time. The purpose of this experiment is to investigate that how the pressure of a time constraint will affect the subjects’ ability to memorize and recall word list. In this study, there are two groups, one is the control group, and the other is experimental group. Participants are randomly assigned to different group by flipping the coin. Researchers asked participants to memorize a list of words in one minute, and when the time was up, they were told to recall words from the word lists by writing down on a piece of paper. There were two conditions in this experiment that were perceived time limit and unawareness of the time limit. Both groups recalled around 30 percent of the total words, so there was just a little difference in performance between two groups. The researchers were convinced that the pressure of a time limit affect participants’ ability to memorize and recall the words. On the other hand, they realized that the time constraint did not impact participants’ short-term memory to recall the words. The hypothesis was not supported for this experiment. Therefore...
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...y? The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 724-734.
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Figure 1
Figure 1. Means of words memorized for control group (n=8) and experimental group (n=13)
Table 1
Group N=Sample size Mean
Median Mode
Control 8 8.38 8.5 10
Experimental 13 8.77 8 6
Table 1. The sample size, mean, median, and mode of control and experimental groups.
Figure 2.
Figure 2. Histogram of the control and experimental groups
Appendix
Word list:
School
airport error climate love kitchen island calendar pen plane actor friend medicine shower uncle dish elevator insect field secret hole mall bag cigarette
mountain
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This investigation looks at retrieval failure in the long-term memory, particularly context-dependant forgetting. The theory behind retrieval failure is that available information stored in the long-term memory cannot be accessed because the retrieval cues are defective. Cue-dependant forgetting theory focuses on the assumption that the context in which we learn something is significant when we come to recall the information. Recall is better if it takes place in the same context as the learning. Research conducted on retrieval failure includes Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) who studied intrinsic cues by asking subjects to learn a list of words from different categories.
Harvey et al (2000) also used the word list learning and delayed recall, pranix drawing, modified Boston Naming test and CERAD to assess cognitive function of both their control and experimental populations. The word list learning and delayed recall is a ten item list of words that is presented to the subject during three separate trials. After each trial the subject is asked to freely recall the words from the list. After a delay, which is filled with the pranix drawing task, the participants are asked to recall the list of words once again. The dependent variable in this task is the number of words recalled over the three trials and the number of words that were recalled after the delay. The scores ranged from 0 to 20 based the...
Preston, A. (2007, Sep 26). How does short-term memory work in relation to long-term memory? Are short-term daily memories somehow transferred to long-term storage while we
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... learning, stuck in time hypothesis and usage of semantic memory. A problem we encounter in coming up with one solution is that most of cognitive psychological research is based on humans. For instance the duration of short term memory and long term memory. Some species may have short term memory which is long till few hours. thus first this should be confirmed before we determine is episodic emory used or working memory as episodic memory is long term memory. There is a thin line between explicit and implicit memory which is further complicated by the lack of language use. Further Advances in biotechnology can tell is explicit memory being used or implicit, depending on the type of region used in the brain during testing. There are currently such barriers in research of episodic like memory in animals which leads to ambiguity and other explanations may be true.
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...Baddeley (1966) study of encoding in the short term memory and long term memory supports the MSM model on the mode of processing such that words are processed on recall and both models share the same opinion that processing does influence recall. Finally, the MSM model of memory states that all information is stored in the long term memory, however, this interpretation contrasts with that of Baddeley (1974) who argue that we store different types of memories and it is unlikely that they occur only in the LTM store. Additionally, other theories have recognised different types of memories that we experience, therefore it is debatable that all these different memories occur only in the long-term memory as presumed by the multi-store model which states the long term memory store as with unlimited capacity, in addition it also fails to explain how we recall information.
Making and storing memories is a complex process involving many regions of the brain. (3). Most experts agree that we have two stages of memories - short-term memory and long-term memory. Short-term memory is the immediate memory we have when we first hear or perceive someth...
Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed., pp. 271-273). Detroit, MI: Gale Group.
Murdock (1962) conducted another experiment in order to analyze free recall. Six groups of participants had different combinations of list lengths...
In daily life, memory is used all the time. When we go to buy things, we would remember the list of items what we are going to buy. At school, we would also need to have revision in order to remember the materials for examination. Or even, when we meet friends, we would also need to recall their names. Thus it is important to know and understand how we remember such things so that we can effectively recall them when necessary. Obviously, we do not need to remember the exact position or order of things in daily life. We would have our own pattern for remember and retrieve information (Ashcraft, 2010). This is named as free recall, which items recalled in any order (Francis, Neath, MacKewn and Goldthwaite, 2004). However, many researchers found that the probability of recalling items (such as words, letters, or numbers) does in fact depend on the items position in a list. The most striking finding is that words at the beginning and end of the list are often easier to recall than those words in the middle of the list. Thus, when the results of a free recall experiment are plotted on a graph; a u-shaped serial position curve can be obtained. This is often referred to as the serial position effect that is affecting our memory (Smith, n.d.).
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