Random Access Memory of the Mind by Age



Random Access Memory

Introduction

People never realize that as they get older their brain operates differently; they usually blame it on maturity or experience. Is it true that you are able to remember more as you get older or is your mind more vivid at a younger age? Do you ever wonder if you memory in random or is it a method or pattern that encourages your recollection process. This paper will explain studies conducted on the effects of age and memory. Studies will show the different procedures and age groups used to analyze the memory process. Although the Isolation Effect is the most well-know reported literature. These authors explored the minds of individuals and conducted a study to solidify the theory of age, memory and exclusive events. Reviewing the results will provide additional resources for how memory is stores and maintained (Bireta, 2008).

Discussion

The article reviewed in this paper was written in 2009 by by Geraci, Mc Daniel, Manzano and Roediger III. The paper title is “The influence of Age on Memory for Distinctive Events. In this article, the researchers examined the effects of aging on memory of human beings. In order to do so, the researchers used a semantic isolation model. In this model, people recalled the word more quickly when it was presented in a list of items which belonged. For example, people instantly recalled the word table when presented in the list of birds. On the other hand, when the word table was presented in a list of unrelated words the memory was not as efficient as in the previous case. The results of the study indicated that young, as well as elderly people, have an isolation effect in memory (Cimbalo & Brink, 1982) (Bireta, 2008).

The isolation effect refers to the finding that people typically show superior memory for unusual or incongruent item (Hunt and Lamb, 2001). In this phenomenon, a group of people studies a list of items, for research purposes, amongst which one is entirely different from the rest of the items present on the list. In particular, the difference is commonly on the physical appearance of an item (von Restorff, 1933) (Cimbalo, 1982).

The study identified that the results of younger people are consistent with a number of studies conducted before this, in which Geraci and Rajaram (2004, Experiment 2) is also included. Thus, concluding that showing that, for isolated items, younger people have superior memory compared to the older people. The results of this study for older people are also consistent with a number of prior studies including Bireta et al. (2008) who also identified that young and older people both can benefit from the isolation effect. Thus, the isolation effect which the older people of this study displayed, generalizes the materials and methods used in this study with not only the study of Bierta, but also with those of Vitali conducted in 2006 (Cimbalo, 1982).

The study reported that elder people show superior memory for isolated items, ...