Introduction
In Psychology, the cognitive approach studies the mental processes of people; the organization of memory is a major area of research within this perspective (Cherry). The many theories of organization and memory originated from a study performed by Bousefield (1953) claiming that organizing in categories is the natural way to process information in long term memory (Cognitive Processes). Modeled after Bousefield’s study, the aim of this current study was to examine the effects of organization of words on the ability of recalling from memory if there are any.
W. Bousefield performed number of experiments on the organization of memory. In one of these he asked participants to learn a list of 60 items. (Cognitive Processes) Within the list (mixed up) were 4 categories of words: animals, names of people, professions, and vegetables. Subjects were asked to recall the words in any order they liked. The results found that subjects tended to remember the words in clusters, in which the words belonged to the same category. He concluded that categorical clustering is indicative of semantic organization in memory. (Memory Processes)
The current study will specifically explore the research question of whether subjects are better able to recall information from an organized list of words than an unorganized list. The justification for the current study is to follow up on the original study’s only moderately significant finding to see if other possible outcomes exist. The current study provides support to Bousefield’s theory which states categorical clustering is indicative of semantic organization in memory.
Method
Design
An independent measure design was used to measure the effects of word organization in a list of words toward...
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... an unorganized list of words? This study looked at the organization of words to see if it affected person’s ability to recall information. It was found that subjects were better able to recall information from organized list than an unorganized list. Based on the results of this study, it is supported that people are better recall information when it is presented in an organized manner.
Reference Page
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Participants were told that they did not need to remember category headings. When tested after, participants given category headings were able to recall more words than those who were not. The participants recalled 20% more in cued recall than free recall. Assuming this, the free recall group could have recalled as many as the cued recall group if to were given the cues, therefore the information was there to be accessed but unavailable due to absence of cues. In other words, their poor recall was due to retrieval failure.
Marsh, R. L., Cook, G. I., & Hicks, J. L. (2006). The effect of context variability on source memory. Memory & Cognition (Pre-2011), 34(8), 1578-86.
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...
The Effects of Levels of Processing on Memory PB1: Identify the aim of the research and state the experimental/alternative hypothesis/es. (credited in the report mark scheme) To show how different levels of processing affects the memory. “People who process information deeply (i.e. semantic processing) tend to remember more than those who process information shallowly (i.e. visual processing). ” PB2: Explain why a directional or non-directional experimental/alternative hypothesis/es has been selected. (I mark) I have used a directional experimental hypothesis because past research, such as that by Craik and Tulving (1975) has proved this. PB3:
Over the years, memory have been researched and debated, however there are two theories that have explained extensively and are highly recognised by psychologist in the cognitive field of psychology and scientist alike, on how we process experiences and turn them into memories. These theories include the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Multi-store Model of Memory and Baddeley and Hitch (1974) Phonological Loop Model of Memory. This essay aims to compare, contrast and evaluate these models of memory, with supporting evidence and empirical research.
Human memory is flexible and prone to suggestion. “Human memory, while remarkable in many ways, does not operate like a video camera” (Walker, 2013). In fact, human memory is quite the opposite of a video camera; it can be greatly influenced and even often distorted by interactions with its surroundings (Walker, 2013). Memory is separated into three different phases. The first phase is acquisition, which is when information is first entered into memory or the perception of an event (Samaha, 2011). The next phase is retention. Retention is the process of storing information during the period of time between the event and the recollection of a piece of information from that event (Samaha, 2011). The last stage is retrieval. Retrieval is recalling stored information about an event with the purpose of making an identification of a person in that event (Samaha, 2011).
McNamara, T. P. and Holbrook, J. B. 2003. Semantic Memory and Priming. Handbook of Psychology. 445–474.
Furthermore this article expands upon this subcategory of memory by describing the two types of tasks involved with it: verbal-production ta...
Farrants, J. (1998, September). The 'false' memory debate. Counseling Psychology Quarterly. Retrieved September 14, 2000 from ProQuest database (Bell & Howell Information and Learning-ProQuest) on the World Wide Web: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb
Murdock (1962) conducted another experiment in order to analyze free recall. Six groups of participants had different combinations of list lengths...
Roediger, H. L. III, & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803-814
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.).
Atkinson, R.C. & Shiffrin, R.M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control process.
The human body is a complex structure. The brain being the most complex organ has the most work to do. The human memory consists of a process in which memories are stored and remembered. According to Intelegen Inc., there is this unique process of Memory in which the process only involves three stages. In the stages of this process, the memory is formed, retained, and retrieved. There are three stages of the five different types of Memory; the three stages are encoding, storage and retrieval.
Prarthana,S. & Prema, K. (2012). Role of Semantics in the Organization of Mental Lexicon. Language in India.259-277.