Chunking and its effect on short term memory
Word Count: 1,442
Oseas Medina
SL Psychology
Mr. Wiesse 2B
March 3rd 2013
Table of Contents
Abstract: 3
Introduction: 4
Method: 6
Results: 8
Discussion: 11
References: 13
Appendix I: 14
Appendix II: 15
Appendix III: 16
Appendix IV: 17
Appendix V: 18
Abstract
Chunking and its effect on short term memory; it is a replication of the experiment done by Bowler and Springston (1970).
The aim of the study is to find out if chunking can help someone recall more information than information that is not chunked. I will be presenting the participants with a PowerPoint and asking them to recall information that is seen on the slides. This experiment was conducted in Ronald Reagan High School, there were 25 participants taking part in the experiment and they ranged from age 16-18. I found that chunking helps short term memory with recalling information that is grouped together or chunked, on average the participants were able to recall about 2.3 more words on the slide that used the chunking technique than the information that was not chunked together. The conclusion was that chunking does significantly help with short term memory recall and I was able to replicate Bower and Springston’s to a considerable extent.
The Essay on Effects Of Short Term Memory
People have always wondered why they were able to remember certain things but forget others. After cramming for a test, why do you usually forget all the information over the next few days? When people cram for tests they have a tendency to use Type I rehearsal, which is repetition. Repetition is when you say the same thing over and over again until you memorize it. Type II rehearsal is ...
Introduction
Our memory is a complicated thing to analyze and truly understand, there has been many, many experiments on ones memory in an attempt to truly understand its potential. Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971) discovered that there were three different kinds of memory. Sensory, which is the memory that retains information so that your senses can process it, Long term memory which can retain relatively unlimited information throughout one’s life, this is the memory system that retains significant events that happened during your lifetime, and short term memory which remembers information being presented to you at the moment and can retain a small amount of information that you can retrieve for a short period of time. The experiment will aim to see the effect of chunking on the short term memory. “Chunking” is a method first defined by De Groot(1956) and Miller(1956).
Chunking relies on how the information is presented and your prior knowledge. A chunk is defined by a piece of information which has several elements in common with one another (Gobet et. al.) So for example if you saw LOASNMCBASNMB and AOLMSNABCMSNBC asked to remember that information you are more likely to remember the latter because in the latter sequence the mind is able to separate the letters into groups, Bower and Springston (1970) put this theory into motion when they conducted an experiment on chunking, they presented the participants with 2 sets of letters and asked them to memorize them, one of the sets of information were broken up into chunks (ex.PHD-FBI) and the other set was not (ex.HDPIBF) the participants recalled the chunked information much better than the information which was not organized. Their aim was to find if chunking really did help people remember information better and what they found was that when the participants were recalling chunked information their memory load was reduced, therefore chunking allowed them to remember more letters. Scientists are still trying to find out what in the brain creates chunks and what makes them so effective; studying chunks can help us understand a lot more about how exactly humans learn.
The Term Paper on Short Term Memory
Human memory is a major area of interest and study within the field of cognitive psychology and has been research intensively and is constantly being studied to establish new findings into the field of human memory. Quinlan & Dyson (2008). Many memory theorists have attempted to give their accounts of human memory systems by suggesting a number of Models in order to attempt to describe human ...
This experiment is essential to finding out how memory works, and why they are so effective just the fact that you can improve someone’s memory by grouping things together is intriguing and helps one’s understanding of short term memory. These experiments can also help us help people who have been affected by severe short term memory loss, such as Clive Wearing. Clive Wearing has the most severe case of amnesia known to man, his short term memory only spans between 7 and 30 seconds because of the damage to his hippocampus, his long term memory before the incident remains unharmed and can still recall events long before he was disabled, he lives from moment to moment, and his case of severe amnesia demonstrates the need for continued research in the field of short term memory. This experiment will replicate the study by Bower and Springston, the aim of this study will be to find out if chunking can help the participants short term memory.
Method
Design:
The participants were discouraged from communicating with one another during the experiment to achieve a more accurate sample and to prevent distraction which might have affected the student’s ability to recall. To prevent participants form working out the aim, single blind deception was used. I received signed informed consent form each participant. The participants were shown a PowerPoint, they were shown standardized instructions and a debriefing letter was shown to them after the experiment.
Dependent Variable: Chunking
Independent Variable: Number of words participants were able to recall
Participants:
There were 25 participants in this experiment. All participants were high school students who ranged from ages 16-18. Due to time constraints opportunity sampling was used, there was only an experiment conducted on one class yielding only 25 participants. The participants were in a mixed class of juniors and seniors and they were encouraged to keep silent during the experiment to not distract other students.
Materials:
Informed Consent form( Appendix I)
Standardized instructions (Appendix IV)
Debriefing Letter (Appendix V)
The Essay on Confusion Class Words Number Speech
Nomads College scouts everywhere; All have tags with a name Act like I don't care; My play must remain the same. Try not to stare; Must stay focused on the game To lose can not bare; Can not have any shame The pressure is on for all; Starting to feel sick Their sweeper has the ball; In I know I must stick I now have control and mustn't stall; I now quickly I must kick There is the goal; To which ...
PowerPoint (Appendix III)
Stopwatch
Procedure:
The participants were shown standardized instructions, after the instructions the participants were shown the first slide containing 38 words for 2 minutes and 30 seconds then a blank slide appeared and the participants were asked to write as many words down as they could remember, this slide contained words with no relation to each other, this was repeated for the next slide, the words in this slide were chunked together, they were all some type of animal. After the experiment the participants were thanked and debriefed.
Results
Descriptive Statistics for # of words remembered form each slide:
Slide 1 | Slide 2 | |
| | | | |
Mean | 11.79167 | Mean | 14.08333 | |
Median | 11.5 | Median | 14 | |
Mode | 8 | Mode | 11 | |
Standard Deviation | 2.888947 | Standard Deviation | 3.437854 | |
Minimum | 8 | Minimum | 7 | |
Maximum | 17 | Maximum | 19 | |
| | | | |
Frequency of # of words remembered:
For raw data see Appendix III .As seen in the data tables, Participants on average remembered about 2.3 more words from slide number two( the slide with the chunked words).
Slide number one averaged about 11.7 words recalled and slide number two averaged about 14 words recalled. In slide number two, with the exception of two students, slide number two also has a higher number of people remembering more words, as you can see in the frequency table most of slide number two’s data is condensed in the 11-19 range whereas in slide number one’s data is condensed in the 8-17 range. Overall the participants were able to recall the words in slide number 2 which used the chunking technique, all the information on this slide shared animal type characteristics, whereas slide number one was filled with words that were not related to one another.
Discussion:
According to my results chunking does help you retain more short term information, the participants remembered on average about 2.3 more words when the words were “chunked” or grouped together based on shared characteristics. This proves the theory that Miller (1956) had on chunking, he came to the same conclusion after researching the topic for some time, chunking helps recall of short term information. These results were also similar to those achieved by Bower and Springston (1970), they came to the same conclusion, so this experiment was a fairly successful replication of the experiment conducted by Bower and Springston (1970).
The Term Paper on The Stroop Effect Color Words Experiment
By the age of 5, most children have entered school and have begun to learn how to read. This soon becomes an automatic process so that it becomes hard NOT to read a word when presented with one. However, because this process becomes so automatic, the human mind tends to discard other aspects of the words we read. The Stroop effect is perhaps the most well known demonstration of this approach: ...
The results I achieved were a product of one’s ability to process information and relate them to one another, most of the participants recalled a greater number of words on the second slide because they were able to “chunk” the information together and look at it as a group with similar characteristics which relieved the load on their brain henceforth being able to recall more information, not everyone processes information the same way, which may explain the few participants who were able to recall less on the second slide, perhaps they read the words on the screen individually and did not make the connection that they were all related. That theory would explain the 3 participants who were able to recall less information during the second slide. There were several strengths to this experiment, for example I was able to follow the ethical guidelines presented and limit any confounding variables by making sure to the best of my abilities that the students did not interact with each other, eliminating the chance that the participant might get distracted henceforth affecting their ability to recall information. I felt another strength was the sample group I experimented on, they were of different races and ethnic backgrounds and there was a decent mix of females and males, this eliminated any cultural bias or the possibility that a certain race could recall information better than others because the results were generally consistent. There were also several Limitations to this experiment, a major limitation being the time constraint and the sample group that I had, due to the small size of the group I was only able to get 25 samples, a relatively small number, I would have liked to present this experiment in front of a greater number of participants with a wider range of ages to see if I would have still gotten similar results. The time of day I presented this information was also a limitation, It was about 10:15 this is right about the time were students start getting hungry and that might have served as a distraction, something I could have not controlled, and another major distraction could have been the possibility that the participants were anxious for class to end since I experimented only 10 minutes before class ended, so if I were to conduct this experiment again I would conduct it at a more ideal time were those distractions are not present. In conclusion, this experiment has proven that short term memory is improved by the chunking technique, the same conclusion that Bower and Springston (1970) came to, this proves that the experiment was replicated to a considerable degree, but with a few modifications this experiment could have been replicated more accurately.
The Term Paper on The Hawthorne experiments
The Hawthorne experiments were conducted by Professor Elton Mayo of Harvard University, over the period of five years from 1927 to 1932. These studies or experiments were performed in order to measure and observe productivity at Western Electric Hawthorne works in Chicago. The basic aim of the experiments was to understand and analyze the impact of light on the productivity of the workers. ...
References
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Miller, G. (n.d.).
The Magical Number Seven. Music Animation Machine. Retrieved March 3, 2013, from http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/
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Psychology Essays – Short Term Memory Recall. (n.d.). UK Essays, Dissertations & Coursework | Trusted, Reliable & Secure. Retrieved March 3, 2013, from http://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/short-term-memory-recall.php
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Using Chunking to Increase Capacity of STM :: Papers. (n.d.). Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Paper, and Book Report. Retrieved March 3, 2013, from http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=120739
Appendix I
Consent Form:
Dear participant,
As part of my IB Psychology Internal Assessment, I am carrying out an experiment chunking and its affect on short term memory. Please sign below, agreeing to take part in this experiment.
-I have been informed of the nature of this experiment
– I understand that I have the right to withdraw form the experiment at any time, and that any information/data about me will remain confidential
The Term Paper on Malleable Memory
The study of memory dates back as far as the time of Ancient Greece, however, the birth of the study of memory is often credited to Ebbinghaus, who concentrated his research on memory store and capacity. The study of memory has had a long history, and still there are many myths associated with memory processes and the overall potential of memory. This paper will address one of the misconceptions ...
– My anonymity will be protected as my name will not be identifiable
– The experiment will be conducted so that I will not be demeaned in any way.
– I will be debriefed at the end and have the opportunity to find out the results.
Student Signature:
Appendix II
PowerPoint Outline:
* Short-Term Memory Experiment
* Slide #1
Tree Building Cat Balloon Dig Craft Run
Brain Ring Media Block King Game
Along Dark Chunk Fry Exhibit Plow
Need Mail Help Drink People Vow
Minute Notch Lights Hear Bury Work
Self Over Care Apart Streets Grew War
* Slide #2
Cat Monkey Cow Dog Shark Elephant Kangaroo
Dinosaur Eagle Sparrow Zebra Lion Beatle Crow
Butterfly Hyena Bat Human Jaguar Horse Bull Whale
Panther Alligator Snake Gecko Turtle Hippo Rat Hawk
Spider Frog Tortoise Cobra Fox Rabbit Badger Wolf
Appendix III
Raw Data:
Slide 1 | Slide 2 | |
11 | 14 | |
8 | 11 | |
8 | 11 | |
12 | 17 | |
13 | 16 | |
12 | 18 | |
9 | 18 | |
14 | 12 | |
15 | 16 | |
11 | 11 | |
9 | 14 | |
13 | 14 | |
10 | 11 | |
10 | 15 | |
8 | 10 | |
13 | 18 | |
15 | 17 | |
10 | 7 | |
10 | 16 | |
17 | 13 | |
8 | 8 | |
15 | 19 | |
17 | 13 | |
15 | 19 | |
Appendix IV
Standardized Instructions:
* There are going to be two slides, the slides will appear on the screen for 4 minutes each
* Each slide will have a set of words on them
* After you have seen the slide, write down every word you remembered from that slide
Appendix V
Debriefing Notes:
* Thank you for participating in this study! The purpose of this study was to examine The effect of chunking on short term Memory. This study was based on previous work by Miller(1956) who studied Memory. Your results will remain completely anonymous and confidential and if you would like to see a Final report of the study please contact me at [email protected]
