The Relationship Between Memory Performance and Mental Ability - Case Study Example

The relationship between Memory Performance (DV) and Mental Ability (IV) Under Exam-Like Situations This study explored the association between mental ability and memory performance among Brits students in Birmingham. It also identified relevant modifying factors of mental ability. Mental ability was determined among 90 Brits students (aged 12 to 52 years and 77.8% were females) with varied job occupations. Our mental ability test included 3 tests (immediate memory, cipher decoding, and digit span). The relationship between memory performance and mental ability was analyzed using multiple linear regression method. Memory total (MT), or memory performance was found to be significantly different among the participants in relation to their language level, gender group, and age groups. Multiple linear regression examination showed that memory total was significantly associated with age, gender, age, and language level. Higher memory total predicted a better mental ability. The study suggested that language level, age and gender are important predictors of poor mental ability, which in turn influence memory performance of students. INTRODUCTION Low mental capability is a significant predictor for poor memory performance, which is altered by age, language level and gender. Mental employees and those native language speakers exhibited high memory performance than manual employees or those who were second language speakers (low language level). According to Gatewood, Feild & Barrick (2011), this result contrasted the studies in America but was in accordance with researches in Japan and China. In our present study, the participants were sourced from the following areas: a machine plant with 22 registered staffs, a chemical plant with 30 staffs, and a college with 28 trainers and 10 assistant works. The total participants (n = 90) comprised of 20 males (22%) and 70 females (77.8%). Theoretical and empirical background According to Benson & Haith (2009), mental ability symbolizes an individual’s “brain power” in various aspects of competency, comprising of logical, spatial, mathematical, and verbal reasoning, which is part of the most significant components of mental abilities for an individual, particularly mental worker, to do a work task. Benson & Haith suggest that an individual’s physical and mental ability, and work ability vary with age or disease disorders, irrespective of language, occupation or gender. Efklides & Misailidi (2010) argue that assessment of problems regarding mental performance, including intelligence, reaction time, judgment, learning, thinking, speech and memory performance is an emerging basic care specialty. In line with Gruszka, Matthews & Szymura (2010), mental ability represents a complicated set of behaviors, learning style, different kinds of information process, conception, and solving problems in structured or unstructured conditions. Although problems revolving around adaptive self-management and self-care in diabetes are potential areas on which studies and interventions regularly focus, it is always been uncommon to investigate how mental ability influences memory performance in non-older grown-ups. Weiner (2013) claims that these days, researches who investigate mental functions have been restricted to childhood intelligence with only few last papers addressing the relationship between mental ability and memory performance (social skill or work performance). The truth is that the association between mental function and memory function among people and how mental function affects their psychological work performance is unclear. To give more insight on this issue, we carried out a cross-sectional investigation among students. According to Gruszka, Matthews & Szymura (2010), over the previous years, there have been growing findings that underperformance in daily activities, such as work and academic productivity are related to our variation in mental capability functioning. Efklides & Misailidi (2010) pointed out that cognitive intelligence, as demonstrated by psychometric constructs, exemplifies aspects of human capability and functioning that range from learning and information holding, comprehension, utilization of critical thinking abilities, generating solutions, and gaining from previous experiences. Others have guessed that superior mental agility enhances persons care of their health. Similarly, epidemiological studies have revealed that cognitive intelligence foretells time to illness, and inferior cognitive intelligence is linked to earlier death. Rational of the Research Determining the variability and relationship of mental ability and memory performance was a critical element of psychological inference and patient routine planning (Gruszka, Matthews & Szymura, 2010). For primary care psychologists working with individuals diagnosed with psychological disorders, there is increasing concern that mental capability changes could distress behavioral self-management and self-regulation, including self-checking of the daily routine behaviors, and interfere with ideal control (Efklides & Misailidi, 2010, pg. 42). Basic care providers were now starting to refer mentally ill patients for neuropsychological assessment, to ascertain what relative impact higher-order mental ability may play in memory performance, principally for non-older grown-ups. Research objective This investigation had a specific objective to explore the association between mental capability and memory performance of the students. We were to ascertain the variations in memory performance as a function of mental ability with regard to age, gender, and language in a cohort of students. Additionally, the study was to measure and ascertain the correlation between language (literacy with respect to first and second language) and mental capability performance, and ascertain differences in mental capability by sex. METHOD Design We employed a cross-sectional design in the research Participants Study subjects were picked from Birmingham city, in UK; a medium-sized city with a population of close to half a million. We adopted a random sampling technique. All schools in the city were firstly coded, and then a random sampling of the subjects was done. A total of 90 participants (n = 90) were sampled. This comprised of 20 males (22%) and 70 females (77.8%). An equivalent 90 questionnaire forms were filled and returned out of 100 sent. This gave a 100% response rate. Of the 20 males and 70 females, the average age was 30.81 and the standard deviation was 8.344. Materials Computer SPSS software Tests and Questionnaires forms Procedure The participants were categorized into three types of groups: total words in verbal fluency, accurate verbal reasoning and accurate cattell task, all of which formed a single task of mental ability. Mental Ability was observed through exhausting a battery of tests such as immediate memory, cipher decoding, and digit span, which measured the following basic mental abilities: verbal understanding, mathematical operations, word fluency (anagrams), spatial visualizations, associative memory, mental transformation, perceptual speed, and reasoning. The three scores of measures were integrated and converted to a single figure, which was Memory total (MT). The MT ranged from a score of 0.00 to 19.00, signifying a score from poor to good mental capability. We administered the questionnaires and mental ability tests midway in their work shift. Forty seven students (52.2%) were inspected at noontime while another 43 students (48.8%) were examined in the afternoon. Proper training was accorded to all the investigators, and measure tools and questionnaire were adjusted and standardized. Before the study commenced, investigators explained the objectives, importance, and matters of the study to the participants. As such, we gave informed consent forms alongside the questionnaires to the participants, and both the forms were self-administered. We also made arrangement for some participants with low reading level to instead have interviewers, which helped them to overcome the confusion they had while trying to read and comprehend the questionnaires. We uniformly conducted the assessment of mental ability in a single room dedicated for this particular task. The data, which was stratified by language level, age, and gender were analyzed using SPSS and by extension the ANOVA method. To detect factors that may adjust or confound the MT and its association with mental ability, we employed a multiple linear regression assessment. The variable of job type was recoded as dummy variables. MT was the outcome variable whereas sex, age, language level were recorded as the independent variables. RESULTS No significant difference was recorded for the Memory total among the age group or gender groups (p > 0.05); however a difference was observed among first language levels and second language level. Those who had the lowest reading literacy demonstrated lowest memory total scores than the people with higher reading literacy level, and younger participant demonstrated higher scores as opposed to older participants (Table1). Table 1. Correlations Age Memory Total Kendalls tau_b Age Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .211** Sig. (2-tailed) . .005 N 90 90 Memory Total Correlation Coefficient .211** 1.000 Sig. (2-tailed) .005 . N 90 90 Spearmans rho Age Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .282** Sig. (2-tailed) . .007 N 90 90 Memory Total Correlation Coefficient .282** 1.000 Sig. (2-tailed) .007 . N 90 90 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Memory total score was significantly greater in female than in men, and language level performance displayed a higher score among native speakers than in people speaking it as a second language (Table2a, 2b and Graph A, B). Table 2a. Memory total by Language level and Gender English Second language Group Low Mid High Table Total N % Table Total N % Table Total N % Gender Male 6.7% 1.1% 0.0% Female 7.8% 12.2% 12.2% Graph A. Graphical presentation of language level by gender among second lang. speakers Table 2b: Memory total by Language level and Gender Graph B. Graphical presentation of language level by gender among native speakers Memory total was significantly different in language level and gender group, that is, highest among the female group and native speakers and lowest among the male group and second language speakers. A part from the outcomes of the multiple linear regression breakdown of Memory total and mental ability, collinearity analytical test showed there was less multi-collinearity between these variables. Collinearity Diagnosticsa Model Dimension Eigenvalue Condition Index Variance Proportions (Constant) Group English Gender 1 1 3.775 1.000 .00 .01 .01 .00 2 .134 5.301 .00 .60 .33 .00 3 .067 7.481 .04 .34 .51 .33 4 .023 12.862 .96 .05 .16 .67 a. Dependent Variable: MemoryTotal Gender, age, and language level are the factors associated with memory total (r=0.4219) in which younger age, female, and higher reading literacy level (native speakers) were independently correlated with higher scores. A negative relationship between age and memory total suggested that participants of old age have poor memory total. DISCUSSION The results above suggested that low mental capability is a significant predictor for poor memory performance, which is altered by age, language level and gender. Mental employees and those native language speakers exhibited high memory performance than manual employees or those who were second language speakers (low language level). This result, according to Gruszka Matthews & Szymura (2010), contrasted the studies in America but was in accordance with researches in Japan and China. In our present study, the participants were sourced from the following areas: a machine plant with 22 registered staffs, a chemical plant with 30 staffs, and a college with 28 trainers and 10 assistant works. The total participants (n = 90) comprised of 20 males (22%) and 70 females (77.8%). As such, both mental employees and employees who were native English speakers (higher language level) had superior mental ability; something that was lacking in manual employees and those who spoke English as a second language (lower language level). This was evidenced in their dissimilar memory total scores. Generally speaking, employees who had higher mental ability are prone to be hired in mental work (Gatewood, Feild & Barrick, 2011). Of the female native language speakers, 15.6% were at median and high language score in this study. This implied that language level, aside from age and gender, also added to the range of mental ability in different work groups, especially participants sourced from schools. The multiple regression examination indicated that high age could be among the risk factors that depress mental capability, after adjusting for language, and gender. This is also in line with the findings in Weiner (2013). Conversely, higher language level contributed to superior mental ability, perhaps because the letter might have gained from recurrent stimulation of the brain function. Earlier study also submitted that intellectual stimulation and social engagement played a central role in sustaining cognitive health and thwarting deterioration of mental ability. Gender was another significant factor for mental capability, which was possibly associated with the varying degree of stress that female and males experience in life. To sum up our argument, we found out that mental ability indeed stimulated the memory performance of the sampled students. Limitations We definitely experienced various limitations such as the sample sizes were somewhat small. We acknowledge that small sample size may result to an inaccurate outcome but since our study also employed inferential statistics, this was never going to be a major issue. Moreover, some of the participants could not perform the administered tests as planned forcing us to re-schedule the tests in line with their preferred time. Further research Since the study was of cross-sectional design, but still could not provide evidence as to how occupational stress may influence mental ability and by extension, affect memory performance, a follow-up research need to be done to address this concern. CONCLUSION Interestingly and in conclusion, this study observed that there was a close connection of memory performance and mental ability (tested in terms of gender, age and language level as the influencing factors). People with greater mental ability demonstrated superior memory performance and strengthening abilities like reaction, reasoning, attention, adaptability, and observation in the administered exam-like tests. Our results were also in line with what Morrison, Muñoz & American Psychiatric Association (2009) found: the relationship between psychological performance and social ability were stronger in people with greater mental ability. References Benson, J. B., & Haith, M. M. (2009). Language, memory, and cognition in infancy and early childhood. Amsterdam: Academic. Efklides, A., & Misailidi, P. (2010). Trends and prospects in metacognition research. New York: Springer. Fei, Z., Eiji, Y., Yajia, L., Mianzhen. W., Zhiming, W. & Xiaorong, W. (2006). Mental Ability and Psychological Work Performance in Chinese Workers, Industrial Health 44, 598–603. Gatewood, R. D., Feild, H. S., & Barrick, M. R. (2011). Human resource selection. Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning. Gruszka, A., Matthews, G., & Szymura, B. (2010). Handbook of individual differences in cognition: Attention, memory, and executive control. New York: Springer. Morrison, J. R., Muñoz, R. A., & American Psychiatric Association. (2009). Boarding time: The psychiatry candidates new guide to part II of the ABPN examination. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Weiner, I. B. (2013). Handbook of psychology. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Read More