Homework - Week 6

Tell your subject you are going to read them a list of 20 words, and their job is to remember as many as they can. There will be 10 seconds between each word for them to help commit it to memory.

The 20 words are listed below:
paper seat tire love beach analysis conjunction brush chairman accurate woods green hunger gift keyboard number bottle jogging wheel system

Immediate Recall: (listed in order given)
paper seat tire love beach conjunction system bottle jogging
woods green keyboard number analysis chairman accurate

Delayed Recall: (listed in order given)
green woods seat paper chairman keyboard number guest
bottle jogging love accurate conjunction analysis tire paper

Differences between the 2 groups:
Beach and system were included in the Immediate Recall group, but were omitted from the Delayed Recall group. Brush, hunger, gift, and wheel were omitted from both groups. Guest was added to the Delayed Recall group.

Write up your findings, and try to explain the data in terms of long-term memory (ie., Ashcraft reading for this week).

According to Tulving’s classification, episodic memory refers to a person’s autobiographical memory, to the personally experienced and remembered events of a lifetime. Having the opportunity to remember words, rather than numbers or nonsense words, would allow the participant to associate personally experienced meaning to the words, and therefore, the likelihood of retention would be higher. This would account, in part, for the participant being able to remember 16 out of 20 words, for the Immediate Recall group and 15 out of 20 words for the Delayed Recall group. Ashcraft states that “the element of meaning within a passage will exert a strong influence on what is remembered, as will the person’s own knowledge of the material.”

According to Ashcraft, part of memory development consists of knowing when and why one should intentionally store and retrieve information. The participant knew in advance that he was supposed to remember as many words as possible. In other words, the participant understood the need to engage in deliberate rehearsal. Allowing 10 second intervals between each word, provided an opportunity for the participant to take action in order to learn the material. An active, strategic kind of learning method is referred to as rehearsal strategy. Mnemonic means “to help the memory” and this term refers to a rehearsal strategy. Because there were 10 second intervals between the words, the words to be remembered could be practiced repeatedly. In addition, the words could be integrated into an existing memory framework. This rehearsal strategy (mnemonic device) could then provide a means by which the participant could retrieve the information.

According to Ashcroft, a mnemonic device does three things to help the memory. First, it offers a structure for learning or for obtaining the information. Second, by using visual images, rhymes, or other kinds of associations, the mnemonic device ensures a durable record of the subject matter in memory, one that is not easily forgotten. This helps to safeguard against interference in storage, or against other kinds of loss within memory itself. Third, the mnemonic device guides the learner through retrieval by providing effective cues for recalling the information. This is a very important point, because much of what we call “forgetting” seems often to be a case of retrieval difficulty. Therefore, if a mnemonic device is applied correctly, information will be acquired at the outset, it will remain in memory, and it will be retrievable. When asked to repeat the words an hour later, the participant indicated he had not memorized the words in a sequential or rote manner. The sequence was not the same the second time. Also the same four words were missing the second time as they were the first round, which indicates this was not a matter of “retrieval” as much as not acquiring the information in the first place. Perhaps the rehearsal strategy for these four words was not effective enough to be sufficiently stored in the first place. Interestingly, “guest” was added to the list the second time, although it was not given in the original list. But even though the participant said the word, “guest”, he asked, “Was that one of the words given? I’m not really sure.” He did not ask that question about any of the other words he listed.

In addition to using a rehearsal strategy, having a time period of 10 seconds between each given word provided the opportunity for “overlearning”. Ebbinghaus investigated the effects of repetitions and his results demonstrated that “overlearning “ yields a stronger record in memory. Therefore, not only could meaningful associations be made during the 10 second time period, but repeating the word over and over, could also have an effect on the participant’s ability to retain the material.