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Title page
Term paper
Summary of the article
The general topic of the article is of interest for the non-experts because it addresses the issue of false memories encountered by people in their everyday lives. The articles attempt to examine that old memory have significant impacts on the memories of individuals. It also discusses the role of memory tests for improving long-term memory. The topic is interesting for even the readers who are not familiar with psychology because it is linked to the topic of psychology. It holds interest for the common people because they are fascinated to study the relationship between memory tests and enhanced memory. The article provides knowledge about the subjective influence of old pictures on the memory of people. This allows them to find the role of false memory and how they are formed.
Theoretical issues
The article has highlighted two general theoretical issues such as memory decay and working memory. The working memory model in psychology states that the information is stored according to its importance. The working memory relies on the components of a visual-spatial sketchpad and the auditory phonological loop. These work in appropriate ways of storing information in the brain. The primary step involves storing information by processing it. The visual and auditory data is stored in different components. The visuospatial sketchpad stores the visual information in the memory. This exhibits the need for understanding the size of the object and its location in the environment. The visuospatial sketchpad allows subjects to retain visual information for in long-term memory. The phonological loops work to store auditory information. The information such as sounds and voices are stored in the memory of individuals. The information normally forgotten is also retrieved through the auditory phonological loop. This requires identification of inner voice and strengthening the memory of a particular sound.
Memory decay model suggests that information is forgotten after a certain period of time. This reflects the role of short-term memory. The use of different testing and learning techniques allow individuals to retain information for a long duration. If information is not recalled or revised the memory is more likely to delete it. The theory has relevance with the current article because it represents concerns on adopting techniques for retaining information. Short-term memories are not accurate because the individual managed to recall it for a short period of time. It is only through learning and immediate recalling that allow an individual to store information for a longer duration.
Hypothesis
The articles test the specific hypothesis; memory tests improve long-term memory of subjects. The hypothesis is tested by adopting experiments, conducted directly on a selected group of students.
Methods
The article conducted two experiments for determining the impact of memory tests on the memory of people. The first experiment targeted 120 subjects having ages between 18 to 24 years from Washington University. To examine the retention ability two proses are presented to the participants from the reading comprehension section of the test-preparation book. The passage is divided into thirty idea units having a length of 256 and 275. A mixed-factorial design of 2 x 3 is used with the learning condition restudy vs. test. The delay of the final test is between 5 days 2 minutes or a week. in phase one subjects are given 7-minutes period to study the phrase. They are then asked to restudy the passage and take a recall test. Manipulation problem is solved for the duration of 2 to 5 minutes. The test sheet is given to the subjects and the retention test lasts for 10 minutes.
The second experiment aimed at investigating impacts on repeated studying on retention and ability of subjects to replicate things. The focus is to assess the effects of repeated testing on the memory of the subjects. Two groups are compared in this experiment including the ones who have taken initial tests with the ones who are taking the test for the first time. The learning condition is compared with the retention interval interaction for examining the effects on memory. The experiment selected 180 undergraduate students from the university having ages between 18-24 years. Students were allowed to learn one prose passage and their ability to retain the information was assessed. The subjects were tested for two sessions. They were told to learn one passage during a consecutive period and SSSS condition caused them to read the passage for five minutes. The multi-test condition revealed that it was hard for the students to retain all information of the passage. They were allowed to study the passage for five minutes and the reading was recorded many times. A 7-point Likert scale was used in phase 1 that asked questions from the participants. The options of the Likert scale were; (1 = very boring, 7 = very interesting), how readable they thought it was (1 = very easy to read, 7 = very difficult to read), and how well they thought they would remember the passage in 1 week (1 = not very well, 7 = very well). Five retention interval conditions were set for determining the level of retention and effects on long-term memory.
Results
The results of the first experiment depict that the effects of restudying improve the retention capacity of subjects as they perform better in reading the passage. Findings of ANOVA reveals "post hoc analyses confirmed that on the 5-min retention tests, restudying produced better recall than testing (81% vs. 75%), t(39) 5 3.22, d 5 0.52”. This suggests that after the initial study episode the subjects managed to retain some information in their minds. Restudying further allows them to store information for a longer duration and subjects perform better. Retention tests enhanced the performance of subjects having different effects on delayed and immediate tests.
The results of both experiments were computed on ANOVA that depicts that no differences existed in the reading scores in 1-week retention when responses were recorded for two passages. During a 5-minutes study interval, the participants managed to read the entire passage for 3.5 times. The reading competency of the subjects increased with time. This suggests that repetition and restudying has a significant impact on memory. The students who read the passage for more times managed to recall most contents in the test. While the participants that were given limited studying time were unable to recall all information. This reflects the role of memory tests on the ability to retain information. After the initial three recall tests, the memory of the subjects improved because they managed to remember the sentences that they read in the passages. The results of the questionnaire also indicate that the respondents who restudied the passages exhibited better memory and recalling compared to other participants. No significant difference is noted in initial tests. The students in the final test are asked to recall idea units for at least five minutes. The retention level of the SSSS group was better because they managed to recall 83% of the content that they study in the material. Compared to them the retention level of STTT group was low because they retained 71% of the information. the results varied in the case of the 1-week test as the STTT group performed better than the SSSS group. The STTT group managed to recall 61% of the information compared to the 40% of information recalled by the SSSS group.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the study explains that old memories have significant impacts on the memories of individuals. It also discusses the role of memory tests for improving long-term memory. Memory tests have significant impacts on enhanced long-term memory. Two groups were compared in the experiments including the ones who have taken initial tests with the ones who are taking the test for the first time. The working memory model in psychology states that the information is stored according to its importance. The students who read the passage for more times managed to recall most contents in the test. The results of the questionnaire also indicate that the respondents who restudied the passages exhibited better memory and recalling compared to other participants. The results obtained from the experiment are adequate for providing the validity of the experiments. This suggests that taking repeated memory tests improves the retention rate of individuals. It also suggests that giving more time to restudying is a practical way of enhancing long-term memory.
Evaluation of the main ideas
The overall analysis of the results obtained from both tests indicate that the participants performed in a similar manner in both groups. Immediate testing involved prose reading that encouraged subjects to develop long-term retention and recalling ability. The outcome was obtained when feedbacks were not involved in the tests. Restudying is a practical tool used for enhancing long-term memory of the participants. This allowed students to re-experience 100% of the material and they managed to store information for a longer period of time. The outcomes occurred when the tests involved no feedbacks. The positive effects of testing had been significant. In repeated testing students managed to recall much information in a week compared to repeated study condition. They read former passage only 3.4 times and testing had profound impacts on long-term memory. The results changed in case of tests that were taken after learning. Both experiments thus confirm a significant correlation between testing and long-term retention. With repeated encounter with the tests or passage, the students manage to store information for a long duration. This is due to the fact that they re-experience the words and passage that improve their familiarity. Manipulating the passage had even strong effects on the memory. The outcomes of the immediate tests also reveal that implications of testing.
The inclusion of the key relevant theories such as working memory model and memory decay are useful for understanding the process of retaining long-term information. The theories have allowed the researchers to prove correlation between memory tests and long-term memory. The article has chosen appropriate techniques and methodology for studying the role of memory tests on retention of the subjects. This is due to the fact that both experiments included adequate sample size of 120 and 180 students. This depicts inclusion of appropriate sample size. However the study has focused only on a young group having ages of 18 to 24 years. The results are thus applicable only to a specific age group including youth. The results may not be valid or reliable in case of other age groups such as older adults or children. This reflects the limitation of the study and suggests need for future research to study long-term memory and tests relationship in case of other age groups also.
Reference
Lindsay, D. S., Hagen, L., Read, J. D., Wade, K. A., & Garry, M. (2004). True photographs and false memories. Psychological Science, 15, 149-154.
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