1. Inability to play information 

Have you ever felt like some information simply disappeared from your memory? Or maybe you know it’s there but you can not find. One of the most common cause of forgetting is the inability to play a certain memory.One of the reasons for this inability is the theory of decay. According to this theory, it creates a memory trace is formed each time a new theory.Degradation theory suggests that while these traces of memories will fade and eventually disappear. If some information is not played and repeated, will be eventually lost. One problem with this theory is that, however, even the memories have not been repeated or remembered are remarkably stable in long term memory.

2. Interference 

Another theory is as interference theory suggests that some memories compete and interfere with other memories. When information is very similar to that previously stored in memory, there is a great opportunity to spend an interference. There are two basic types of interference:

• Proactive interference occurs when an old memory makes it difficult or impossible to play a memory in November.
• Retroactive interference occurs when new information interferes with the ability to convey information previously gathered.

3. Inability to store information 

Sometimes people forget information because they do not reach long-term memory. In one experiment, U.S. researchers asked participants to correctly identify a dollar (a penny) in a group of more coins of the same value.

Some people have noted the color and shape of the coin, but they forgot other minor details. The reason is that they were stored in memory only the details necessary to identify that currency other coins of different values.

4. Motivated forgetting 

Sometimes, people will forget some memories, especially traumatic or anxiety they cause. The two basic forms of motivated forgetting are: suppression, a conscious form of forgetting, and repression, an unconscious form of forgetting.

However, the concept of repressed memories is not accepted by all psychologists. One of the problems with repressed memories is difficult, if not impossible, to determine scientifically whether or not a memory has been repressed. Also, mental activities such as repetition and remembering are important ways of strengthening a memory and memories of painful or traumatic events are less likely to be mentioned, discussed or repeated.

Find interesting articles like this one and other cool things for all the category’s written with a lot of professionalism here. 

Abstract:

The purpose of this project was to determine which gender, male or female, is superior in oral short term memory.  I hypothesized that there is little or no difference between them.  As a control, all volunteers in this project were high school students that attend Haas Hall Academy.  Twenty volunteers of each gender were used in this experiment and were told 15 two-word phrases that they were asked to repeat after 30 seconds of silence.  I concluded that the difference between genders is noticeable, but not significant enough to declare a gender greater than the other, making my hypothesis correct.  If I were going to do this experiment again in the future or expand on this
experiment, I would include female and male associated phrases to intensify the quality of my results.

Introduction:

Short-term memory is defined as “The power or act of remembering something for, or extended for, a short time” (Webster’s New World Dictionary 2003).  Some people refer to short-term memory as something you can touch, but it is really just an idea formed from various parts of the brain.  The most interactive part of the brain used for storing short term memory is the pre-frontal lobe (Dubuc 2002). Although both males and females have a pre-frontal lobe, tests have proven some differences between their memory storage.  One such test showed that males are better at tasks dealing with mental rotation and females are more advanced in verbal skills which demonstrates they remember things differently (McPherson 2006).  Experts believe that our short-term memory has a capacity of only seven things and argue about its length being from thirty seconds to a couple of years (Minninger 1984).  I hypothesize that gender does not affect short term memory; however, the goal of this project is to determine which gender has superior short term memory. 

Methods and Materials:

            I found 20 volunteers of each gender – one at a time.  Each volunteer was in high school (ages 13 to 18).  Each person was taken somewhere quiet where people would not be able to overhear the questionnaire.  I told each volunteer 15 different two-word phrases – each volunteer was given the same phrases.  If the volunteer said he/she did not hear the phrase, I would repeat it once – only once.  Fifteen seconds of silence was observed after stating the 15 phrases.  When the silence was over, they were given 2 minutes to state the phrases they could remember.  At the end of their 2 minutes, I recorded the amount of phrases they remembered and placed that fraction in my data table.  I asked each volunteer not to tell anyone the phrases so that new volunteers would not already know them.

Results:

            As gathered from Figure 1, different genders seem to have an exceptionally small impact on short term memory.  Males averaged 4.7 while females averaged 4.15 phrases remembered.  The males ranged from 2 to 7, and the females ranged from 3 to 8.  Although there is a viewable difference, .55 phrases remembered is not large enough to conclude that males have higher oral short term memory than females.

            Some of the phrases were only remembered 3 times while others were remembered almost every time.  The most remembered phrase was Purple Duck, and the least common phrase recalled was Eating Fiddle.

Discussion:

            My results showed that males have slightly stronger short term oral memory than females; however, this difference is not significant enough to declare all males superior to females when addressing oral short term memory.  Some males dominated the females and vice versa which testifies that not all males are superior to females.   

            Two other tests showed that male and female associated images and phrases affected the amount of information remembered (Richardson E. 2006) (Geiger J., Litwiller R. 2005).  I infer that if I had selected male and female associated phrases, I may have had different results.  Unfortunately, when I started the project, I did not put enough thought into my phrases.

            Also, the fact that some of the volunteers learn visually and some learn orally definitely affected the results.  If I were to conduct another experiment, I would probably want to know if I was dealing with an oral learner or a visual learner. 

            The genders have no obvious measure of difference, making my hypothesis, that the genders would not present a significant oral short term memory difference, correct. 

Literature Cited:

• Agnes M.  2003. Webster’s New World Dictionary.  Pg. 404.

• Minninger J. 1984.  Total Recall: How to Maximize Your Memory Power.  Pgs. 84-85

• McPherson F. Gender differences in cognition.  The Memory Key.  2006.  November 22, 2009.  http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/gender.htm

• Richardson E.  Effects of Gender on Recall.  The Clearing House Missouri Western State University.  December 7, 2006.  Missouri Western State University.  November 22, 2009.  http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/823.php

• Dubuc B.  How Memory Works.  The Brain from Top to Bottom.  2002.   Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction.  November 22, 2009.  http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_07/d_07_cr/d_07_cr_tra/d_07_cr_tra.html

• Geiger J., Litwiller R.  Spatial Working Memory and Gender Differences in Science.  EBSCO Host.  March, 2005.  http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=16802909&site=ehost-live

By Joseph Parish

Your short term recovery efforts would encompass the usual preparations expended towards setting the community on the path to normal operation. These efforts could result from the local government combined with the resources of private and commercial agencies. At the conclusion of the short term recover all or at least most of the community’s daily activities should have been restored. It is in a sense “business as usual.” Thus short term recover can be considered complete upon business being open as usual, school children rushing to meet their morning classes and a normal traffic flow in and out of the city.

Alternately long term recovery efforts entail those operations centered upon individuals, families or communities which may have experienced excessive disaster damage and require additional assistance in order to recover properly. In many cases these forms of aid are of a specialized nature which addresses unique requirements which simply can not be resolved properly by the routine disaster assistance programs. Long term efforts are especially beneficial when it involves complex restoration challenges or extenuating health conditions. The long term recovery efforts could be the process needed to deal appropriately with the children who were exposed to the vapors on the initial day of a possible train disaster. It might perhaps include air and water quality testing for an extended period of time in order to ensure the public safety. Environmental concerns would fall into this sort of recovery since it may be months before the hypothetical crash site returns to normal. In short these long term recovery efforts could include any follow-up activities completed to ensure the safety of the community and its members.

Now we can consider the factors which may be involved to facilitate a return to normal process with the function of proper planning as the utmost key necessary to expedite the return to normal. Planning is vital for any location attempting to create normalcy after a disaster. In the aftermath of our scenario train disaster the cities services and systems will likely be strained to their max due to an assortment of factors. Normal transportation routines will need to be restored to add focus to the local businesses. These shops and plants must be able to get opened for customers as quickly as possible. Without transportation facilities employment will suffer and when the job base is decreased the communities living standards tend to deteriorate.

Roads must be reopening quickly to allow materials and needed supplies to enter the city. Hospitals will require replenishment of their medical supplies in order to continue to serve the community in a quality manner. Housing must be once again opened to the residence not only for the benefit of the community but to boast the morale of the people themselves. As you can readily see even though it may at first glance appear that recovery efforts are complete once the short term effects have been dealt with however we must always take into consideration any possible long term effects as well.

Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish

www.survival-training.info

Does memory has a capacity; and further, as in RAM of the computer is it likely to perk up that capacity?

Mind does it through a process of learning, in which first we learn to acquire the information; and, then encode it for storing and subsequent retrieval.

Memory is of three types; viz., memory derived from sensory experiences; short-term memory; and LTM, i.e., long-term memory.

Sensory memory:

Sensory memory is of fleeting type, in which the information is not stored; but it is lost almost immediately. However, if something captures our attention, then our mind transfers the information to short-term or the working memory.

Short-term or working memory:

We can compare sensory memory to a scrap of paper where we have scribbled something, which we might lose later. The short-term memory is akin to a diary. We enter notes in the diary, to recall the information later; unless of course we lose the diary. Losing a diary is same as forgetfulness; because it always takes place in the working memory.

Image via Wikipedia

In working memory or short-term memory we can remember on an average seven items; and not more. In doing mental work or thinking working memory plays a vital role. Working memory depletes with age; in younger people it is more and in older people it is less. IQ is the measure of capacity of this working memory.

Long-term-memory:

The sensory memory and short-term or working memory is a kind of a single system; on the other hand the long-term-memory comprises many systems. Long-term memory has an infinite capacity: Long-term memory stores episodes from our childhood. It can store in it the general knowledge of the world. We remember nine multiplied by nine equals 81. We remember alphabet on the keyboard, we know how to ride a bicycle or drive a car and know how to swim.

Then there are less known regions in the memory. One such memory is Déjà Vu. The strange sensation of have been somewhere before is Déjà Vu. Another similar phenomenon similar to Déjà Vu is Jamais Vu; which is opposite to Déjà Vu; that is never seen before.

There is one more less known region, which is unconscious memory. Unconscious memory harbors memories of time long past; the painful memories of our progenitors who brought us forth. Their experiences invoke in us the feelings of fear; anxiety; desires; and survival instincts.

MICHAEL BUCKOSH

JANUARY 18, 2010

Handling a situation with your day to day life is based on having motivation

for conflict and resolution, and trying to make the best of a situation. There are coping mechanisms,

and then a strategy to resolve the issue.

Depending on the situation; you may ask for help, or you may handle it by yourself. You must

contain your physical impulses as much as possible based on your own dealing with a problem without

the help of others. If you have someone with more knowledge of how to handle the situation at hand,

then you use that as a resource.

Fantasy dreaming of a situation as a coping mechanism is ineffective and unhealthy.

It is best to psychologically handle a problem with your life with realist optimism and education, and

try to handle the physical problem as well as possible. You then try and deal with the problem at hand

depending on the severity of the situation as appropriately as possible based on the resources you have;

weather it be other people, education on the subject, or; in smaller problems which are spontaneous in a

day to day routine, a good eye for the solution.

In a day to day routine, if you come across a problem which you have to handle as well as

possible you try with your mind to go over all the facts that are available to you with the problem in

your mind; maybe even jotting facts down, you then go through your own mind of almost as basic

science process; try to piece together all the data for a hypothesis of what the outcome would be with

handling It a certain way with the data given, and what the most effective way of handling it is. You

may contact another person that specializes in a problem; such, if you have health problems, then you

contact a doctor.

Then you try to solve the problem as well as possible; sacrificing your efforts and how far you

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research into handling the problem based on how dramatic the problem is that your are dealing with

and the urgency in which you must handle it.

The automatic impulse you have several times a day in handling situations in a day to day

routine which are not that major of life changing decisions or major of problems that you have to

expand on to solve the problem are based on past experience. Short term memory of facts that are

currently used for up to date impulse reactions to how to handle situations, or sometimes long term

memory is used with inherit trained reactions mixed in with other facts which makes it a more

known, trained reaction. Your long term memory already has memorized your reaction to touching

something hot, so your day to day impulse of a situation avoids touching things hot. It is then the

mixture of short term and long term memory of new information. An example is a commercial. You

may be informed by a commercial to try a product. Then when you walk through the isles of the

shopping market, You have different impulses of what products you buy. Advertised new products may

be a short term agenda to want to try while your long term memory is set in what specific foods you

prefer with your normal routine. Your logic fuses with your short term and long term memory for the

day to day impulse decisions you make.

This is true with day to day routine ways of handling situations. You try to use the impulse level

of knowledge in your memory to come to conclusions. This then trains your mind to have a more

educated impulse reaction to dealing with a problem in your life. This adds the personality of how to

handle a serious situation in your mind to have a more educated impulse reaction to dealing with a

problem in your life.

In serious decisions or problems in your day to day routine more advanced than the basic

impulse mechanism of decision making based on short term and long term memory impulses, you get

help from specialist in how to handle the situation and follow his exact orders. Be completely honest to

the specialist of the problem you have and do as he says. If someone isn’t available, then you just try

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and use the facts you know and study the scenario in depth, and try to come out with the best way to

handle the scenario as a mathematical problem.

With logic in your memory of what the specialist tells you as to how to handle the situation; or

the information you gained about handling the situation on your own, then use the facts given by that

source you needed to handle a more complicated, more serious situation. It molds your day to day

routine of how you handle your life taking into consideration the more serious problem you have with

your memory being exposed to a professional, more educated take on how to handle your specific

problem. Your day to day impulses then fluctuate into taking into consideration the guidance you

received that automatically adjusts your reactions and your life on handling the new conflict. If there is

foods you have to avoid because of a new serious problem such as a health situation, for instance, your

impulses contain a new short term memory automatic reaction with the new learned reactions for

handling the new situation. So try to train your brain with your automatic reactions as well as possible

to handle the day to day handling of a situation automatically and correctly.

Try and keep in mind all of the positive aspects of a scenario that you are in, and remain

respective of the people in your surroundings. This then protects your image as you deal with your

serious situation, and benefits you if you handle serious situations with optimism. Everyone has their

problems with their lives. If you are consistently optimistic with your problems, then you are more

pleasant to be around; protecting the opportunities that you may have with your life that others may

have to offer.

Emotionally handling a problem in your life with optimism is important, so that way your

consistently pleasant to be around. Then you are able to work your way into higher positions in life,

because people like working and associating with people that are pleasant rather than people that are

not pleasant.

To emotionally cope with the problems with your life is different than the logical way to handle

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problems with your life. Some people turn to religion. An example is Jobe, and how his optimism with

spirituality pleased an unknowable god. Where Jobe has everything brilliantly in order with his life and

then it all collapses, and then remained optimistic and praised God. Such Biblical scriptures as that

within spiritual writings can help people relate to thinking about other people having life problems, and

them just handling it with optimism for spirituality. You then relate to others that use religion as their

coping mechanism, and feel like your not alone to cope.

You may just try to ignore a problem with a conflict you yourself have no power to resolve, that

just passes time as you deal with your problems. Handling a situation being passive is trying to ignore

your problems and not thinking about something you know is true. You then just try and wait for the

problem to pass over as soon as possible.

Handling a situation passively should only be done after you look at all the aspects of a situation

and find absolutely no way you yourself can physically do anything about the problem. You then try

and ignore the problem with your day to day routine; trying to add to your impulse logic how to handle

it day to day, and just not think about the problem; wasting time and stress trying to continue doing

something about it.

These techniques in handling serious situations will win with your conflicts. Take life in stride.

Just try to handle your problems with your life as well and constructive as possible and you will always

be victorious with your problems. Being ambitious with your lives burdens while remaining optimistic

will usually win. These basic concepts of problem solving may help you deal with them. Just stay good

and peaceful with your life, keep your lives problems to yourself, and try to always defeat the serious

problems within your life.

SOURCES:

Davidson, Janet, and Robert Sternberg. The psychology of problem solving. New York: cambridge university press, 2003. print.

Pritchett, Price. Hard optimism. New York: Mcgraw hill companies, 2007. print.

Here are some useful tips, to ensure that you keep your memory in excellent condition:

• Whenever you are trying to remember something important, make sure that you keep your attention cantered the required information, so that you are able to store it in your memory bank.  Should there be any distractions around you, make sure that you block out the distraction and stay focused on the subject matter. The more you concentrate of your subject matter, the higher the chances are of retaining the information in your memory.
• When trying to remember something, try to apply the most appropriate sense or senses, when you are gathering the information. This is what is referred to as acuity, (when sensing your environment). Be totally mindful of any colours or details of objects, or perhaps there is a particular sound or aroma that you can recall.  Enhance all of your senses, to help ensure that you capture all of the information pertaining to the item/object/person that you are trying to remember.  Whilst your sense of sight is normally the most used sense for collating information, your senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch are equally important and extremely helpful when trying to remember things, situations, and information about something or someone.
• If you’re not certain that the information that you are about to recall is going to be retained by your brain, it would probably be beneficial for you to write the information down. This could be particularly efficient for gathering detailed information such as lecture notes or perhaps details during supplied when conducting an interview. However, make sure that you pay particular attention as to where you write down the information, so that you do not misplace it!
• Have and maintain a healthy and balanced diet. Believe it or not, what we eat does not just effect our weight, it can also effect your memory.   By having a healthy and balanced diet will result to a conditioned memory. Too much oily or sweet foods can cause your memory to be to “clouded”. If you are not able to totally give up any unhealthy foods which might effect your memory, try to cut down your intake of these memory-inhibiting foods over a gradual period.  By cutting down gradually, softens the effect of any withdrawal symptoms, which will enable you to adjust to your new lifestyle. By adapting a healthy diet is not only beneficial for your memory, but healthy for your health. In addition to healthy eating, to help improve your memory, keeping hydrated is vital for improving your memory. If you are dehydrated, your memory can diminish by more than 10%.
• Make sure that you have enough rest and sleep. If you feel tired, this is your body and mind’s way of telling you to have a rest.  If you feel tired and you have the opportunity, go to bed early.  Have as much sleep as you feel is necessary – but try not to oversleep, as this can be counter productive.  Have as much sleep is necessary so that you feel revitalized.
• Set aside time each day so that you can relax. If breathing deeply helps you to relax – do it!  Try to keep your thoughts uncluttered and organized prior to acting on them. Try to keep away from any stress and anxiety. It will be virtually impossible to entirely eliminate all stress from your life, but if you can try to keep it to a minimal level, it will be beneficial for both of your health and memory. Stress has the ability to reduce your memory to its inefficient level, so try to avoid stress as much as you can.
• To get the best out of your memory, try to stay positive, creative, and energetic. Your memory requires to be within a circle of various things. Anything that comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours is able to motivate your creativity. This can be a positive way of discovering your surroundings in all its variations and diversities. Try to avoid being cooped up within the four walls of your room as if you’re a prisoner. The only time you should be enclosed is when you are trying to rest or sleep. Don’t be a couch potato – this has a negative impact on your brain. There’s a very big and exciting world out there, with lots of exciting things to explore, and all that will help to improve your memory.

Your memory tends to work best between infancy and adolescent and unfortunately, as we grow older, our memory starts to fail.  However, you still have the ability to have a strong memory if you develop it during the prime years of your life. This can be done by continuously exercising your memory through reading and other cognitive activities such as solving crossword puzzles or sudoku puzzles. The more you compete in these types of activities, the better memory retention is developed.

 Memory is a fascinating subject to me; especially how it is stored in our brain and how we can measure it. I got a better understanding of memory when I found out that electrical impulses in the brain transmit it and store it, similar to a computer. It is also interesting that memory, which initially seems abstract, can be measured using recall, recognition and relearning.

Human memory stores information into our brain, like a computer, for later use. Both use electrical impulses. We and the computer need to use three processes which involve memory. These are:

1. Encoding which is used to transform information to be stored. In a computer that means transferring data into code. For us, it is transforming data into a meaningful association, image or sound.
2. Storage is where the information is stored. In order for this to happen, the computer must physically write 1’s and 0’s within the hard drive. We store memory through a physiological change.
3. Retrieval, which is taking the memory out of storage and returning information to a similar form that was originally stored.

The main difference between humans and computers is how memory is stored. Computers have only 2 types: permanent storage and permanent deletion.

Humans have 3 types: sensory, short term and long term memory.

Sensory memory is the sense that we receive information from. This memory lasts only a few seconds.

Short term memory (STM) is when our consciousness receives transferred information from sensory memory.

Long term memory (LTM) is similar to the computers permanent storage. It is information that goes through our short term memory and into the long term memory that typically has significance attached to it. LTM has 2 subcategories, declarative and non-declarative.

Declarative memory is where information of live events of facts of memories in our environment is stored. This includes semantic memory, which is the knowledge that gives us the ability to do math and understand the meaning of words and concepts, and episodic memory which is memory of events and situations.

Nondeclarative memory is internalized information from habits, practice or conditioning (such as brushing your teeth).

(Memory)

We can measure memory by three commonly used methods: recall, recognition, and relearning.

Recall can be things that happened a long time ago or a direct retrieval of recent facts or information.  Recall can be word for word memory, or ideas or events, not necessarily word for word, such as something you learned a long time ago or an event that occurred.

Recognition is normally superior to recall in terms of confirming details (for example, recognizing a face rather than describing it). Recognition is very accurate for pictures and photos. Investigators proved that between 85 to 95 percent of the time people can recognize pictures after seeing them a second time and differentiate them from new pictures.

Relearning is recalling previously learned or memorized information. The information can be relearned or memorized 25% faster than if it is new information. It is partially stored in memory and recalled through relearning.

These three methods are all related to each other, because they all encode, store and retrieve information, and they all involve the interplay of short term and declarative long term memory. Therefore these methods of measuring memory actually investigate the major processes the brain uses to store memories, which give these methods validity.