effects of short term memory
People have always wondered why they were able to remember certain things but forget others. After cramming for a test, why do you usually forget all the information over the next few days? When people cram for tests they have a tendency to use Type I rehearsal, which is repetition. Repetition is when you say the same thing over and over again until you memorize it. Type II rehearsal is elaboration. Elaboration is trying to connect what you are learning to something you already know. Elaboration is very effective. An example of Type II rehearsal would be the acronym of HOMES. HOMES could help a person remember the names of the Great Lakes - Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior, by using the first letter of each of the great lakes name. Given the overall importance of Short Term Memory, there could be factors that cause certain people to have a better short term memory than others. An experiment was done by Ronald B. Gillam to see if specific Language Impairment Children had the same memory capacity of average 16 year olds. Gilliam asserted: each participant was tested at a level that was consistent with his or her auditory short term me
Zimbardo, Philip G., and Gerrig, Richard J. (1996). Psychology and Life. New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers Inc. The results support the hypothesis that the participants memory significantly increased when they had more time between numbers. With knowing that all of the five participants increased greatly with the longer interval of times helps support the study by Albert Postma. Postma did a study that participants were given objects and numbers over 30 seconds and the participant were required to relocate the various subjects within the display merely to reconstruct positions, or to assign objects correctly to an equal number of pre-marked positions. Postman asserted the following: Proper information such as that given by Gillam could suggest that there are many complications concerning memory. Even after studies and experiments have been done, there are too many questions dealing with Short Term Memory; however these experiments and studies help us learn more about Short Term Memory. During the experiment the experimenter was hoping that the participant would use a process called chunking. Chuncking is the process of reconfiguring items by grouping them on the basis of similarity or some other organizing principle, or by combining them into larger patterns based on information stored in long-term memory. An example of chunking would be 194119171865. Instead of remembering twelve separate numbers, a person could remember three important dates, 1941,1917, and 1865 (Zimbard and Gerrig, 1996, p. 353-4). The experiment was conducted in a small room in an introductory psychology class. The small room consisted of a table and two chairs. The experimenter was equipped with 10 index cards which had single numbers of 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9. Each index card had its own number. The experimenter also had a stop watch. The assistant experimenter was equipped with a piece of paper and a pencil.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Term Memory, Lycoming College, Zimbard Gerrig, Results Results, Impairment Children, Postma Postma, William Vitulli, Perception People, short term, term memory, short term memory, Shepard Heather, Type II, minute span, five minute, five minute span, assistant experimenter, experimenter told, specific language impairment, language impairment, five participants, et al, 30 remembered, experimenter told participant, told participant experiment,
Approximate Word count = 1638
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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