Pharmacy Admission Paper - Essay Example

? Pharmacy Admission Essay Pharmacy Admission Essay This paper focuses on evaluating two sources related to an investigation about the working memory capacity; and how it contributes significantly to the individual differences in online processing. This is in relation to sleep- dependent declarative consolidation of the memory. This is done through exploring an online article from the Science Daily that relates to how people learn while they sleep. The other a source is a report from Michigan State University focusing on the journal of experimental psychology with the topic of Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity Predict Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation, done by Kimberly M. Fenn and David Z. Hambrick. The main objective of the paper is to establish the underlying idea under the two sources in order to come up with reliable knowledge in this paper. According to Fenn and Zach, they explain that the study was in the form of an experiment conducted on more than 250 people. From the findings of the study, which also involved associate professor of psychology, there is vastly different effect derived from sleep memory ability? This involves the improvement of other memories while others failing to improve (2011). The study involved two experimental sessions with a separation of twelve hours retention intervals, which were assigned to the experimental conditions. The experiment commenced with a session that occurred at nine and the other at 21:00. The other group had a session that commenced at 21:00 and ended at 9:00. The one session involved a study phase and test and the other was a test followed by operation span task (OSPAN). The participants reported the sleep patterns for the duration of one week. There are both independent and dependent variables in this study that facilitate in understanding the findings in an appropriate way. The variables are further subdivided into both conceptual and operational variable. The variables are related in order to develop the basis of the experiment. The testing on the differential relation between the change in memory performance and OSPAN was done across conditions. This was done through a regression analysis that involved the performance change as one of the conceptual dependent variable. The test showed a positive correlation between OSPAN and performance change in the sleep condition, which is an operational dependent variable. This result indicated that the participants with a high WMC tended to show substantial improvement in recall after sleep, which is a conceptual dependent variable than those who had a low WMC. However, there was no correlation that existed between the amounts of sleep and the change in recall performance from the either tests. The author’s conclusion on the experiment indicates that the individual difference in WMC is related to the change in memory performance after sleeping. However, the authors advocated for more researches aimed at clarifying the nature of this relationship. They emphasized on there being a proactive possibility of individual differences in offline processing translated into individual WMC. They also insisted that the consolidation process is bound to facilitate an acquisition of verbal knowledge. This knowledge is meant to be beneficial to WMC to the operational span like remembering of words. They also indicate that there being a future research to address these possibility advance the scientific comprehension of the mechanism behind online and offline memory processing. There is a similarity between the two authors, in that both argue that people may have different memory capacity, even if they sleep at the same time, and for a similar duration of time. Additionally, both articles say that people’s performance is determined by their memory functioning during offline processes. People’s brain is processing data devoid of their awareness and this capacity might contribute to memory in the waking state. After different researches, both articles suggest that cognitive processes, which function during retrieval of information and conscious encoding, contribute significantly in individual diversities in memory. Moreover, the articles have analyzed performances in both online and offline process by analyzing individuals in different circumstances. However, the two authors have dissimilarities in that the article by Kimberly focuses more on the working memory cognition while the article by Fenn focuses on the short-term and long-term memory behavior. An educated consumer can make use of this media article by trying to relate to what the media article is talking about with the real life occurrences. This way, the consumer will be able to understand fully how memory works even when an individual is a sleep. The article is accurate in that it has succeeded in offering sufficient information to be used in the scholar article. The story has not been manipulated by the writer because one can clearly see that the writer only emphasized what the main article was trying to explain. The factors contributing to this accuracy are the fact that there is proof of the information in the article and so; one cannot easily manipulate the information. However, the media omitted some information in the article. For instance, it did not talk about working memory cognition, which is the main topic in the article. This might have resulted from the fact that there are different explanations of the same point; therefore, it is hard for a writer to understand accurately what the article was precisely trying to explain. In order to avoid biases in a media article, the article should clearly lay down the ideas so that scholars cannot change it with the claim that the ideas where not clearly articulated. From the article, it is evident that, during sleep, people’s brain processes data devoid of their awareness, and this capacity might contribute to memory in the waking state. In the current world, some people are demised due to the fact they have limitation such as being slow in mental development. To some people, this is right while to others it is wrong, raising an ethical concern. Based on the understanding of the information presented; it is not the fault of anyone to be deficient and thus critics should be discouraged. Conclusively, diversities in working memory capacity ought to predict the feat on visual awareness tasks. Memory capacity cannot be determined by aptitude and other tests. Retrieving in a selective manner a sub-set of previously researched information improves memory for the retrieved data but brings about forgetfulness of related, non-retrieved information. Both articles can agree that people learn while they are asleep and the level of awareness is different between individuals. Even though, there are slight differences between the two articles, one can see that there are many similarities. The scholar article was not biased in a while, mostly because it did not alter the ideas in the main article, but instead, put more emphasis on the ideas. However, the author of the main article should undertake more research in order to strengthen the ideas put across. References Kimberly M. Fenn, David Z. Hambrick (2011). Individual differences in working memory Capacity predicts sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2011; DOI: 10.1037/a0025268 Science Daily (Sep. 27, 2011) — People may be learning while they're sleeping -- an unconscious Form of memory that is still not well understood, according to a study by Michigan State University researchers. . Read More