Experiment 3: Meaning Enhances Recalling

In today's experiment, Dr. Anthony raised up a set of flashcards with a certain word written on it and a letter written ont he top left or right corner of the paper. Given that the letter was A, one had to count the number of syllables in the word. If the letter was B, one had to evaluate the word as "pleasant" or "unpleasant". After twenty letters, students wrote down the words and the letter associated to the words.

Results revealed that the majority of the students remembered words they had to rate "pleasant" or "unpleasant". Dr. Anthony commented that this revealed how humans tend to remember things that are more meaningful, which in this case are feelings. For most people numbers did not mean as much as feelings did and therefore, the "A" words were not memorized as easily as the "B" words.

Many other factors may affect this experiment though, one of them being the amount of sleep an individual had. I for one did badly in the experiment, which may be (as an excuse) a result of having four hours of sleep due to IB homework and stress.

This experiment could also reflect how individuals attempt effortful processing. A student in our class managed to remember 19/20 words. His tactic of remember the words was creating a story using the words themselves.

Short Term Memory and Chunking

Dr. Anthony conducted an experiment on the whole class today. He read out numbers starting from 3 digits to twelve digits. Students had to attempt to remember each set of digits and write them on a piece of paper. The class in average remembered 7 digits, but I only remembered 5.

The average human is also able to store about 7 digits in their short term memory. The experiment the teacher has just conducted supports this statistic.

Generally individuals may device ways of memorizing digits. One way is through "chunking", or the splitting of digits from a list of them. Chunking creates a rhythm or pattern in pronounciation. Generally, a pattern in pronounciation is easier to remember than having none.

To prove this point, Dr. Anthony repeated sixteen digits, but this time using the chunking technique. A student recited all sixteen digits without hesitation or guessing.

Memories of the Past: Cognitive Perspective

The instructions for this class were to recall the earliest memories one had.

I remember being licked by a dog I had in KL when I was about 1-2 years old. The wet and soggy feeling made me cry.

According to Dr. Anthony though, it’s highly unlikely that I had remembered this memory, but produced this memory, woven or influenced by other events such as family members recalling it. Dr. Anthony argued that one could only remember true memories originating when one is 5 years old and above, due to neurological development. However, this event seems so vivid and lively that it doesn’t seem possible for it to be something made up.

Memory is capable of changing quite easily. Dr. Anthony used the term “malleable”, meaning it is easily influenced by society. I agree to that as I do recall some memories that I know are false.

In my point of view, I think that there are some memories that I actually do recall accurately. Apart from being licked by a dog, I remember picking the bones of my grandfather after his cremation as part of a ceremony.