HRPYC-81 Assignment 62 - full report - The effect of aging on short term memory (STM) Performance

Student number: 60878223 unique assignment number: 820527 Module: HRPYC-81



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NAME: __________KIM SHAW ____________
STUDENT NUMBER: 60878223




SIGNATURE:

Date: 23/09/2018

Assignment: 62 project 4813

Assignment number : 820527

Module: HRPYC-81




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,Student number: 60878223 unique assignment number: 820527 Module: HRPYC-81




Research Report:


The effect of aging on short term memory (STM) Performance


K. Shaw


Student number: 60878223


Module: HRPYC-81


Project number: 4813


Assignment number: 62


Unique assignment number: 820527




2

,Student number: 60878223 unique assignment number: 820527 Module: HRPYC-81


Table of contents:

1. Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………..pg 4
2. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..pg 5
3. Literature review………………………………………………………………………..pg 6
a. Memory Models………………………………………………………………pg 7
b. What parts of the brain are responsible for memory …..…pg 8
c. Memory systems…………………………………………………………....pg 9
d. What does ageing do to our memory?..............................pg 12
4. Method …………………………………………………………………………………....pg 13
5. Materials…………………………………………………………………………………..pg 14
6. Procedure……………………………………………………………………………….…pg 15
7. Ethics ……………………………………………………………………………………..…pg 16
8. Hypothesis…………………………………………………………………………………pg 17
9. Analysis………………………………………………………………………………….….pg 18
10. Results ………………………………………………………………………………….…..pg 19
11. Discussion ………………………………………………………………………….……..pg 26
a. Word and digit recall ……………………………………………………..pg 26
b. Recency and primacy results ………………………………………….pg 27
12. Implications and limitations ……………………………………………………….pg 29
13. Recommendations for future research……………………………………...pg 30
14. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………pg 31
15. References…………………………………………………………………………..…….pg 33
16. Appendix………………………………………………………………………………..…..pg 37
a. Data capture sheet …………………………………………………………pg 37
b. Examples of data completed…………………………………………...pg 38
c. Consent form completed ……………………………………………..…pg 40




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, Student number: 60878223 unique assignment number: 820527 Module: HRPYC-81


The effect of aging on short term memory (STM) Performance


1. Abstract


Throughput the years many researchers have sought to identify and describe the relevant
systems in human memory. The research findings, over these years, indicates that with age
comes cognitive decline and cerebral atrophy and with that comes memory lapses and
decreased memory abilities. This study explored the effect of ageing on short term memory
(STM) performance. It formed part of a postgraduate requirement in the field of psychology
at UNISA.

This report includes relevant literature on STM, working memory (WM), and long term
memory (LTM) as well as a detailed discussion on biological, neuroscientific as well as
cognitive research on memory. This information is followed by an experiment examining the
effect of ageing on STM recall. The study comprised of taking two groups of differing ages,
15 participants between 20 and 30 years old, and 15 participants between 50 and 60 years old
and comparing their memory recall. They were tested using two memory span tests, (a Word-
Span task and a Digit-Span task). The results of these tests were then analysed using a t-test
for independent samples. We hypothesised that the older groups mean scores would be lower
than that of the younger groups mean scores. The results did show a significant difference in
the Word-Span Task that proved this hypothesis. However no significant difference was
shown between the older and younger groups mean scores of the digit span task.
Therefore it was concluded that ageing does affect memory recall with regard to word –span
tasks but not with regard to digit-span tasks. Therefore memory is a complex field and the
effect ageing has on memory needs to be further researched.




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