The Intensity of Processing and Deterrence of Words - Research Paper Example

Depth of processing and retention of words Name Course Institution Date Abstract Majority of philosophers in the U.S universities have done numerous experiments on the memory retention capacity of a human brain with the aim of understanding the exact levels of individual processing and number of words that a particular test subject could remember. In major campuses such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane they have conducted research concerning correlation between the meaning of words and the retention capacity of various individuals in the campus. Nonetheless, some laboratory experiments have tabulated results of the experiment to focus on the various factors that affect the retention capacity of the various individuals whereby they have reasoned that, the deeper the level of processing of the word, the more likely the word was to be recalled. These aspects have thus showed that a correlation between the level of processing and the retention capacity exists. In the experiment that was conducted in the three campuses, the students were given test subjects in order to test their memory in terms of memorizing words and deciphering their meaning. The participants involved in the experiment were then given a few minutes to rest. After that, the test individuals were asked to recite the number of words they could remember. The number of words remembered was the basis for determining the level and the retention capacity. From the experiment, it was clear that there is a direct link between the levels of understanding and the brain retention capacity. Introduction The experiment focuses on the method of learning. However, other factors which determine retention includes ageing and stress to an individual. The ability of a person to remember facts and processes is dependent on the ability of the brain to coordinate a networked process of impulses. There are factors that can prevent the brain from remembering especially a disease or a head injury. Poor memory is a gradual process that results from psychological, age, nutritional and behavioral factors. Other factors that determine retention capacity include stress and dietary causes, and the ageing process. Level of processing refers to the diverse methods of encoding and deciphering information. These different methods of processing lead to different levels of retention, forgetting and remembering. The members of this research put forward three levels of processing. The levels are determined based on the questions the interviewers put forth. Structural questions focus on the physical dimensions of the question. Such things as the case of the question fall under structural questions. Structural questions are shallow questions; they are, therefore, not memorable. They focus on the appearance of the words; remembering the appearance of a word is like impossibility because all of them look alike (O’Shea 2007). The length of the words also inks towards structure of the questions. Phonemic focuses on how the words sound to the human ear. This is more memorable than the structure of the questions. Poetic qualities such as rhyme come into play. The focus of this paper is on the semantics of the words. This refers to the meaning of the words. Meaning is the sole aim of reading. It is the basic aim of learning. Theoretically, people are meant to remember more words when they are aware of their meanings. An incidental memory test refers to abruptly administering a memory test to the test subjects. This aims at discovering whether the participants can accidentally remember what they hear when they are not specifically memorizing the words. A cover story, on the other hand, is a guided study. This report is an example of a cover story. The scientist makes the respondents know that they are under test, and he or she focuses on a particular topic of interest (Craik et al 1972). Several firms and agencies have conducted widespread research on the topic of memory retention. Among them is Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine (O’Shea 2007). These researchers made a discovery that the neurons that are excited when a person experiences something are the same neurons that are excited when that person remembers that experience. This means that there is a medical side to memory retention. Prof. Fred from the university indicates that memory in the human brain is probably one of the mysteries of the world. Craik and Lockhart in the 1970’s insinuated that how well a person remembers something is dependent on how well a person understands what he or she hears (Craik et al 1972). Understanding the human memory is perhaps the most important headache to medical researchers. There is a need to understand completely memory retention in order to solve the very many cases of memory loss. The aims of this research was to show the role of semantics in the retention of words and collect data to examine whether different levels of processing have an effect on the memory. In addition, its hypothesis indicated that the semantics of a sentence play a vital role in memory retention Results and analysis The mean number of words correctly recalled was calculated for each of the three conditions. These means are presented in Figure 1. As can be seen in Figure 1, the number of words correctly recalled in the phonemic condition was significantly higher than that of the structural condition (t(554) = 4.08, p Read More