Short Term Memory Psychology

1775 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Short note on short term memory

Short-term memory is a broad topic that has been studied by many psychologists for many years to discover the factors of cognition. Many past studies have concluded that short term memory is very limited and can only hold up to just a few seconds of information. In order to retain information for a longer period of time, many techniques such as repeating information, can possibly be converted into long term memory. The purpose of current study is to determine which gender can score higher on a short term memory assessment when placed under a time constraint. This experiment was designed after a research done by George A. Miller. He was the founder of cognitive psychology; who discovered that people are able to memorize seven numbers plus or …show more content…

Konkle, Brady, and Alvarez (2010), conducted a study based on visual long-term memory, whereas participants had to memorize as many sets of pictures as possible. As a result, participants scored 82% on test results, even after spending many hours looking at 2,800 different objects (Konkle, Brady, & Alvarez, 2010). Since most of these images consisted of everyday life, people were able to memorize these images without a problem. For example, there were images such as different types of cellphones, foods, animals, clocks, and much more. Participants recognized these images from previous experience which made it easier to memorize since it has been stored in there memory for a very long time. Difference between long-term memory and short-term memory is that with long-term memory a person can store information for a longer period of time. In addition, recent studies have shown that information stored in a memory for a long period of time, can become very limited as aging goes by. Many studies demonstrated that as people get older, long-term memory becomes less accurate to the point when remembering things such as visually and verbally becomes highly difficult for them. Not everyone has the same type of memory retention than others. Declines in verbal and visual ability were found to be significant between older adults (Pauls, Petermann, & Lepach, …show more content…

As presented in past research, as people age, memory can become difficult when trying to recall certain things from the past or present. Everyone has different amounts of capacity and different ways of memorizing everything on a daily basis. Furthermore, short-memory can then become into long-term memory if something was presented again to that person in a later future. Two ways to memorizing information such as numbers, could possibly be done by either rehearsing or chunking the digits. Chunking digits has been done for many years by many participants that were part in digit span studies according to many researchers. In addition, short-term memory is very limited and can hold only certain amount information which can actually turn into long-term memory eventually. Method Participants A convenience sample of 40 participants (20 women, 20 men) was used as part of this study. These participants varied from the ages 18-45, in which Group 1 had an average of (M= ###) and Group 2 had an average of (M= ##). Demographics were just based on age, sex, and ethnicity. Participants were tested in two different groups in which there were 20 subjects in each group. Ten females and ten males participated in one group and the other ten males and ten females were put into the second groups.

Show More
Related

  • False Memory In Children

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    Memory is an important and active system that receives information. Memory is made up of three different stages sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory. According to the power point presentation, sensory memory refers to short storage of memory that allows an individual to process information as it occurs. Short term memory refers to memory that is only available for a limited time. It is information that is held for seconds or sometimes even minutes. Long term memory refers to memory that is stored for a long period of time and it has an unlimited capacity with the ability to hold as much information as possible. Retrieval is key and it allows individuals to have memories. Episodic memory refers to memory for events that we

    Read More

  • The Levels of Processing Theory by Fergus M Craik

    1136 Words  | 3 Pages

    Memory can be defined as the mental system for receiving, encoding, storing, organising, altering and retrieving information (Coon & Mitterer, 2012). Many a time one is able to remember something, example how to drive a car, yet they are unable to remember a mathematical formula for an examination. People vary in their ability to remember certain things, and research conducted has proven that even infants differ in their memory abilities (Fagan & Singer, 1963). It was discovered by psychologists that memory is not static, but rather it is influenced by ones internal factors and situational happenings to a large effect (Huffman, Vernoy & Vernoy, 1997). This essay will attempt to discover which method of study is most suitable, by listing and explaining various memory strategies, as well as indicating how each method will improve memory efficiency. The process of memory is made up of three operations. The first being Encoding, this is the conversion of information into a form which enables it to be retained in memory (Coon & Mitterer, 2012). The second operation is called Storage, this is the keeping of information until it is later needed. The third and final operation is known as Retrieval, and this is the recovering of information from Storage (Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus & Wagenaar, 2009). These formerly mentioned operations each represent a stage in the process of memory (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012).

    Read More

  • A Broad Analysis of Memory

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Memory And Long-Term Memory: Different Types Of Memory

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    Memory is a group of related mental processes that are involved in acquiring, storing, and retrieving information (Hockenberry and Hocenberry page 232). I will be addressing two specific types of memory: short-term memory and long-term memory. Short-term memory holds temporary information transferred from sensory memory or long-term memory. Sensory memory is the first stage of memory and obtains information for a brief amount of time. Short-term memory is also called active memory and is stored in the prefrontal cortex which is the most active part of the brain during an activity. Short-term memory can hold information for roughly twenty seconds, but sensory memory holds information for a shorter amount of time. We usually store things such

    Read More

  • The Different Types of Memory

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    short-term memory and long-term. After the testing, the results showed that the males had a better short-term memory. For the test on long-term, the females ended up having a better one. He only tested fifty males and fifty females. Burt also didn’t take notes on how he did the experiment. He died in 1970.

    Read More

  • Retrograde and Anterograde Amnesia

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    As brain systems begin working, memory also starts to work. (4). The aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid afor I am intrigued by the fact that short-term memory can work independently of long-term memory. While long-term memory can be achieved through the repetition of a fact that is in the short-term memory, it appears that in amnesiac patients their long-term memory tends to return faster than their short-term memory. They can remember their favorite childhood food, but cannot remember why they are in the hospital.

    Read More

  • Gender Differences and Memory

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    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... ...

    Read More

  • Sensory Memory Analysis

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    Short-Term memory is the memory store in which information first has meaning; although the maximum length of retention there is relatively short (Hamilton & Martin, 2007). Most psychologists believe that Short-Term memory is memory that holds information for fifteen to twenty five seconds unless stored to become a long term memory. Short- Term memory can be stored in chunks. For example if you see a bunch of numbers like this (4438040829) most likely it’s going to be difficult to remember a random bunch of numbers. But if you see the same group of numbers chopped up into chunks like this (443-804-0829) there is a greater chance of remembering the numbers because they are in groups and of threes and fours. This is how I remember my cell phone

    Read More

  • Memory And Long-Term Memory

    1701 Words  | 4 Pages

    Long-term memory can last for years. It holds everything we know about the world, such as, personal experiences, factual information, and knowing of how to do something. In general, “long-term memory is organized so that it is easy to reach a stored item by a number of routes. For example, the concept "umbrella" may be retrieved by seeing an umbrella, experiencing a rainstorm, hearing the words to the song "Let a smile be your umbrella," and so on (Myers & Gluck, 2008) .” Regardless of the organization of LTM, we still experience memory lapses on a daily basis. After keeping a "forgetting journal" for a period of five days, I have learned that the top three types of memory errors that I make are semantic, prospective, and retrospective errors.

    Read More

  • Peer Competition and Women's Body Image

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this study, 218 university students, all females between the ages of 14 a 34, partici...

    Read More

  • The Recovery Rate Of The Male Is Significantly Faster Thna The Female

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many factors can influence the results of testing this hypothesis. All variables have been controlled except for the variable gender. Both the male and female subjects are close in age (< two years difference), both are nonsmokers, both possess small body builds for their respective gender, and both have no debilitating medical conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes, heart condition). Controlling these factors allowed for the testing of the hypothesis, which is focused strictly on gender.

    Read More

  • What´s Eidetic Memory?

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...tumps them and studies and research is still being conducted in order to gain more insight into this quizzical case. But in order to understand the correlation between age and eidetic memory, one can look at the causes as three different theories. The first theory is the Linguistic theory, the idea that as children mature, their language skills help them perceive information. The second theory is one dealing with functionalism. The idea is that over time, the child’s brain learns to retain only significant bits of information and discard unnecessary ones. And the last theory deals with association. As one matures, one learns to associate their different senses in order to process information. In all, each theory takes credence, because one provides a thoughtful and logical explanation as to why children rely less and less on visual imagery to build their memory.

    Read More

  • Gender Differences on Memory

    1471 Words  | 3 Pages

    It has been a time-consuming belief that women have better multi-tasking skills than men. Multi-tasking involves doing several tasks at once. Multi-tasking uses short-term memory. If women are better at multi-tasking than men, it would seem that they would have better short term memory as well. “In general, the gender-related differences include a wide range of processing skills. It has been shown that females recall the appearance of others better than males and score higher on tasks involving manipulation of phonological and semantic information, episodic and semantic memory, verbal learning, verbal analytical working memory, object location memory, fine motor skills and perceptual speed, while males tend to score higher on tasks involving visuospatial working memory fluid reasoning, and positional reconstruction, or when spatiotemporal analyses are required (González, 2013).” Memory is one the most important cognitive domains in order to have an everyday function. Memory processes storing, encoding, and retrieving information. Short-term memory is the function that temporarily retains stimuli that just have been perceived and is involved in the frontal and temporal cortices.

    Read More

  • How Does Human Memory Work?

    752 Words  | 2 Pages

    The brain is by far the most complex system in the human body. Although many processes and components of the brain are important for humans to function, memory is by far one of the most unique characteristic s of the brain. The implication of memory can be seen in every aspect of a human's life, whether this is the retention of facts or executing and performing tasks to survive memory is a compilation of information that allows for functionality among people. Memory defines a person. The primary question regarding this topic is how can humans store information and then apply it to their surroundings? Answers are dependent on how the brain gains and stores information and then communicates that information to different parts of the brain. A human’s memory is based upon the brain’s structures, a person’s perceptions, and visualizations of their surroundings.

    Read More

  • What´s the Human Memory?

    825 Words  | 2 Pages

    When an individual acquires information it is processed into the memory system and must be manipulated into a form the system is capable of understanding in order for storage to take place. This information is then stored in the long term or episodic memory and is known as encoding (Baddeley, 1975). There are three ways in which information may be encoded; visual (imagery), acoustic (sound) and semantic (meaning) (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Acoustic coding is suggested to be the main or principle coding system concerning short-term memory (STM). If someone were to be presented with a list stating various letters or numbers, the information will be held in the STM, which would occur through rehearsal. This is a verbal process irrespective of whether the items are represented acoustically (being read out), or visually (on a piece of paper). The dominant encoding system involved in the long-term memory (LTM) however, is suggested to be semantic coding (Baddeley, 1975). Information in the LTM may be encoded visually as well as acoustically.

    Read More

More about Short Term Memory Psychology

Open Document