Memory Full
by Mikki W.
1st Place - Behavioral Science

Question - What percentage of students will recall facts about an event when questioned shortly after the event, opposed to those questioned several hours after?

Research - I learned about: Short-term memory: A system for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. Short-term memory is involved in the selection, initiation, and termination of information-processing functions such as encoding, storing, and retrieving data. Long-term memory: A system for permanently storing, managing, and retrieving information for later use. Items of information stored as long-term memory may be available for a lifetime. Working memory: Working memory is a system for temporarily storing and managing the information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. Working memory is involved in the selection, initiation, and termination of information-processing functions such as encoding, storing, and retrieving data.

Hypothesis - My hypothesis is I think the students given the 1st survey will do better than the students given the 2nd survey. I believe the students given 1st survey will recall more precise descriptions.

Experiment - Before I started my project I had to find 20 students that could witness the scenario. Once I found them I had to find some unfamiliar guest to the class. So, I asked my dad about the local flower man that he uses and he said Daisy Florist (Jay Pantel). I personally called Jay and asked him could he deliver 3 red roses in baby’s breath with a big red bow around the vase. I told him approximately deliver them at 10:20 am. I also told him the person to whom he was delivering was Ms. Johnson, and he was to ask her “Where is Vanowen”, and “Does she happen to have change for a $10.00”.Jay did exactly that .when he came into the class room, I was the only 1 that knew him. So when he came in, I took notes of EXACTLY what he was wearing. Once he left I waited until 12:45, and then passed out the 1st set of surveys to my 1st group. I collected then as soon as they were done. Then at 1:30 I passed out my second surveys to my 2nd group. I also collected them when they were done. Later on that night I compared theirs to mine and only found two that looked just like mine. This boy and this girl had everything correct down to the very hardiest,” what was his nationality”. That’s when I started doing my data and notice that both of the people who got it correct where in the 2nd group and no one in the 1st group got all of the descriptions correct.

Analysis - I observed that once I looked at all the surveys that my hypothesis was completely wrong. There were two students who had all the facts about the delivery man correct. She took the survey at 2:40 pm and was more precise then the students who took the survey at 12:45 pm. There was another student who had all the facts correct as well, and his was turned in at 2:50 pm on that day. But there was a student who took the test in the 12:45 pm group and gave me a very unique description. Her descriptions did not match mine or math the two correct surveys. All the other 1st takers were at least half correct. This goes to prove that the people who took the earlier didn’t not remember any other precise things that my later group didn’t.

Discovery - People don’t really observe if they aren’t asked to. For example, noone really looked up or noticed the man until he started talking to Ms. Johnson, but they still didn’t care or notice. I also learned that psychologist typically divide the process of remembering into 3 strategies: Encoding Storage Retrieval.
Encoding-to converts into a code
Storage-act of something being stored
Retrieval-act of getting something back

Bibliography- Medical Net-www.medterms.com
Science Buddies-www.sciencebudddies.org
Dictionary-www.dictionary.com