Attention
The effect of attention
on memory recall has surprising results. It seems that the only time attention
largely affects memory is during the encoding phase. During this phase,
performing a parallel task can severely impair retrieval success. It is
believed that this phase requires much attention to properly encode the
information at hand, and thus a distractor task does not allow proper input and
reduces the amount of information learned.
Motivation
Motivation is a factor
that encourages a person to perform and succeed at the task at hand. In an
experiment done by Roebers, Moga and Schneider (2001), participants were placed
in either forced report, free report or free report plus incentive groups. In
each group, they found that the amount of correct information recalled did not
differ, yet in the group where participants were given an incentive they had
higher accuracy results. This means that presenting participants with an
encouragement to provide correct information motivates them to be more precise.
Interference
In the absence of
interference, there are two factors at play when recalling a list of items: the
recency and the primacy effects. The recency effect occurs when the short-term
memory is used to remember the most recent items, and the primacy effect occurs
when the long-term memory has encoded the earlier items. The recency effect can
be eliminated if there is a period of interference between the input and the
output of information extending longer than the holding time of short-term
memory .
Cohen (1989) found that
there is better recall for an action in the presence of interference if that
action is physically performed during the encoding phase. It has also been
found that recalling some items can interfere and inhibit the recall of other items.
Another stream of thought and evidence suggests that the effects of
interference on recency and primacy are relative, determined by the ratio rule
(retention interval to inter item presentation distractor rate) and they
exhibit time-scale invariance. Three experiments investigated serial position
effects in immediate and final free recall.
State-dependent
memory
State-dependent
retrieval is demonstrated when material learned under one
State is best recalled in that same state. A study by Carter and Cassady (1998)
showed this effect with antihistamine.
In other words, if you study while on hay fever tablets, then you will recall
more of what you studied if you test yourself while on antihistamines in
comparison to testing yourself while not on antihistamines after having studied
on antihistamines.
Gender
Consistently, females
perform better than males on episodic memory tasks including delayed recall and
recognition. However, males and females do not differ on working, immediate and
semantic memory tasks. In general, neuro-psychological observations suggest
that anterior lesions cause greater deficits in females than in male. It has
been proposed that the gender differences in memory performance reflect
underlying differences in the strategies used to process information, rather
than anatomical differences. However, gender differences in cerebral asymmetry
received support from morphometric studies showing a greater leftward asymmetry
in males than in females, meaning that men and women use each side of their
brain to a different extent. There is also evidence for a negative recall bias
found in women, which means females in general are more likely than males to
recall their mistakes. In an eyewitness study done by Dan Yarmey (1991) from
the University of Guelph, he found that women were significantly more accurate
than men in accuracy of recall for weight of suspects. There has been studies
done that have tested the difference of males to females and what each sex can
recall after a presentation was given. The study had three speakers one being
female and two being male. Men and women were put into the same lecture hall
and had the same speaker talk with them. Over all the results of this study
suggested that information presented by the women speaker was more easily
recalled by all the members of the study. The reason researchers believe this
to be a significant difference between genders is women have better acoustics
with their voices, ranging from low tones to high tones. Since their voices
have this range semantic encoding is increased for the pitches are stimulating
the auditory component of the brain. This resonates better in the ear function
and also pitch helps bring people’s attention to the words used within the
presentations. Since pitch ranges from low tones to high tones, this draws
people’s attention to the words attributed with the tone. As the tone changes
words stand out and from these differences memories can be stored. Recall is
made easier since the association the brain can make is between words and
sounds spoken. The differences between genders though are how males and females
process the information and then recall what was presented to them. Females
tend to remember nonverbal cues and associate the meaning of a discussion with
gestures.[62] Since males
follow verbal cues they react more to the facts and actual words within a
discussion to recall what was said, but the in fluctuation within the voice of
the speaker helps males maintain the memories made. Another difference that
sets males and females apart is recalling someone’s voice. Females tend to
remember a speaker’s voice one week after hearing the speaker. They can recall
exactly what the speaker sounded like and can recall the exact word choice used
during a presentation. Males, on the other hand, do not have that type of
recall memory. Males tend to recall information they have read, for instance,
lists of objects are better recalled for men than women; but women recall
spoken language better than men. The only similarity between men and women
about recall memory is that when emotional words are used or an emotional tone
is produced, males and females tend to recall those changes within a
presentation.
Food
consumption
There has been much
research on whether eating prior to a cognitive recall test can affect
cognitive functioning. One example was a study of the effect of breakfast
timing on selected cognitive functions of elementary school students. Their
results found that children who ate breakfast at school scored notably higher
on most of the cognitive tests than did students who ate breakfast at home and
also children who did not eat breakfast at all.
A different study was
of women who were experiencing Premenstrual Syndrome. The women were either
given a placebo beverage or a carbohydrate-rich beverage. The patients were
tested at home, and their moods, cognitive performance, and food craving were
measured before the consumption of the beverage and 30, 90, and 180 minutes
after consumption. The results showed that the carbohydrate-rich beverage
significantly decreased self-reported depression, anger, confusion, and
carbohydrate craving 90 to 180 minutes after consumption. But more related to
recall, memory word recognition also improved significantly.
Physical
Activity
Studies have indicated
that children who are inactive have poor health, but they also have poor
cognitive health also. With low fitness there is a relationship to decreased
cognitive functioning; for instance there are different types of cognitive
problems like perception, memory, cognitive control, and there is lower
academic achievement. Many tests have
been conducted to identify what exactly is the reduction when children do not
have physical activity. One test selected children to be in two different
groups, one group was physically active the other group was not. After a while
of monitoring the children the researchers tested the children in learning and
recall memory to see what they were retaining and to observe the difference if
available of low physical activity versus high physical activity. The results
came back indicating that the children without physical activity have a later
recall process than the children with physical activity. The learning part of
the experiment was equally distributed on both spectrums for each group, but
recall memory was the only variable that did not match both of the groups.
Physical activity has a significant influence on the hippocampus, since this is
the part of the brain that is responsible for encoding information into memory.
With physical activity having such an impact on the hippocampus this can
regulate other parts of the body as well like weight, memory, daily function,
and many more processes that are necessary for the body to work. Since physical
activity impacts all of these important parts of the brain, this form of
exercise keeps the neural networks functioning well. Neural networks allow
information to process and pass to the hippocampus in order to retain memory. This lets the brain be more efficient in
processing and more memories are stored this way.
Ebbinghaus, H (1885), as translated by Ruger
& Bussenius (1913)
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