Test your memory

Okay. So one of the factors I have found to help improve your memory is by clustering information. This is when you group words or any elements into categories which you can remember and structure them visually into the groups. This helps to improve your short term memory and increase the number of elements you are able to remember. To test this theory, I carried out my own experiment at home.

What I did

1. So first, I thought of 25 different words, all random and placed them in a 5X5 table, lets call this group A.
2. I then thought of another 25 different words but this time, selectively choosing them so that words in each row was associated with a certain but obvious categories, lets call these set of words group B which uses clustering method.
3. I gave these words to my brother and my dad to look at for 2 and a half minutes.
4. Then gave them 2 minutes straight afterwards to write down all the words they could remember.
5. Here are the results:

 

As you can see, both my dad and my brother could recall a MORE information when clustering method was used.

 

However, I have only tested this technique on two people and so my primary data collected doesn’t have much confidence. Therefore, in order to collect a larger sample of data, you can help me by carrying out this test on your own and commenting your results below in the following format:

Group A: Number of words recalled/25     Group B: Number of words recalled/ 25

When you are ready with the time: 2.5minutes to look at

click here for a countdown

2 minutes to write

Scroll down

 

 

 

Here are the set of words:

 

Group A

 

 

 

 

 

 

Group B

To comment your results, scroll right down to the bottom of the page.

Some may have found this test to be quite easy as although we can exercise to improve our memory, our genetic information also plays a comes into factor in the end. On the contrary, social factors may influence our ability to remember information, causing degradation to the maximum capacity of information our brain is able to store in the short term for example, some drugs may inhibit and slow our processing center such ecstasy or alcohol. Factors such as vitamin B1 deficiency and strokes may also degrade our memory formation. Challenge yourself with the following test. Test the limit of your short term memory with these following words: TEST YOURSELF-PART 2