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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN MEMORY RETENTION
Individual differences in memory retention can be defined as the variables that makes one person different from the other person. Even though the cognitive theory tend to disregard these individual differences focusing only on the processes that are universal. Examples are to recall recent events, solving mathematical equation, recording and retrieval of information.

The mind plays an active role in processing information from the environment which influence every individual response .It is also the individual perception of event that account for behavior these theory help us to know the world around us and how to function in it. It is very possible that more than one individual can be expose to the same stimuli or information and they respond differently this could be because of how they interpret the information given to them however there could be other factors that may affect individual cognitive ability which I will discuss later.

It is important to know that understanding is about comprehension, realization, and recognition. We know that knowledge has a lot to do with perception, cognition, content, and mental attitude but firstly let us look at what assimilation is. Assimilation is the process of becoming like others by taking in and fully understanding an information passed. Robert Stormberg defined intelligence as mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to selection and shaping of the real world.

Environments:
Environments relevant to one’s life and some animals also has the ability of retention that is the act of retaining something or remembering experience these has a lot to do with good memory and reproduction is when an individual can recall and replace that information earlier given either it was received or learned which was stored in the memory for reproduction when needed internally and externally.

Disuse theory is all about the decline in psychological abilities with aging due to not using the abilities learned and it leads to forgetting and the interface theory state that some interface from certain stimulus or stimuli has the possibilities of bringing wrong response.

Early age experience and learning makes remembering stronger which it possible for the retention of the information one may reason we forget and remember things.All is because of our individual differences which determine our capacity of memory retention.

However, when it cannot be remembered after it has been registered one has lost the memory and repeatedly producing information learned enhances the memory of that person on the other hand when they are not repeatedly produced then the loss of memory is said to take place.

There are factors that affect the rate of remembering or forgetting of material some of which are the condition of learning the retention interval the remembering situation and differences among individuals e.g if a student practice something to be learned it helps the information to be learned to be retained and remembered. Also remembering is affected by age memory span decreases in later age in some cases.

Short term Memory
Short term memory is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active readily available state for a brief time. And the long term memory refers to the memory process in the brain that takes information from the short term memory store and create long lasting memories.

Gestalt psychology was a movement in psychology founded in Germany in 1912 seeking to explain in terms of gestalts rather than by analyzing their constituents the theory state that ‘’the whole is more than the sum Gestalt theory emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than it is part that is the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation on the other hand Donders in his study used differences in cognitive processing.

It is important to note that intelligence runs in some families or researcher’s such as Asifa Majid, Sotaro Isito,Stanley Atten etc. work on several factors that may affect learning indices such as language, communication, culture, color textual, odors, linguistic, shapes recognition, mathematical calculation speed multi modeling etc.

This study is based on individual differences in memory retention in relation to individual cognitive abilities was carried out on children between ten (10) to sixteen (16) years with some of the indices or parameter discussed above.

THE STUDY
The study is based on individual differences in memory retention it was carried out on Children between the ages of 10-16 years and they are in primary and secondary school. The sample is made up of eighteen (18)children nine (9) boys and nine girls some of the variables discussed was used in the study.

The sample size was divided into groups

A. From ages 10-13 years (early teenagers )

B. From ages 14-16 years (middle age teenagers )

C. Girls only

D. Boys only

The dependent variable is the response from the subject as a researcher, I tried to avoid the influence of parents, guardians, and colleagues in the Church. I also tried to make the study interesting and interactive and most especially exciting to the teenagers by making them relax that the study is not an examination in any way.

RESEARCH OUTCOME
In the research, from each group I found out that memory retention capacity of the teenagers grow as the age differences increase. The younger teenagers tend to retain and reproduce easily smaller words than the more complex words unlike the older ones from (14-16) the older teenagers remember both the smaller words this trend was also notice even in basic mathematical calculation as the memory capacity of the older children tend to remember more and faster hence it was arrived that the cognitive ability of the older teenagers is higher than that of the younger ones.

The same experiment was also carried out when shapes are presented even as they were used in mathematical questions the younger children tend to remember more of the common shapes than the complex shapes  the older children on the other hand tend to remember and give proper response to presentation on different in trial angle shapes and  the cognitive ability of the middle-aged teenagers due to the fundamental fact that they retain and reproduce more which shows that their memory spin is higher than the younger teenagers.

The other variable used is reading comprehension. I notice that older teenagers could read faster than younger teens, though they tried to read fast, but some were limited. Cognitive ability in relationship with memory retention is the slight shift in intelligence. I also observed that two of the younger teenagers were exceptionally good in all round questions being that they are siblings. Some of the teenagers find it difficult to relate with their group while a couple of the younger teenagers responded better than those in their group and measured up to the older teenagers in response to the study's variables.

From the study, we can see differences in memory retention which are related to individual cognitive ability. We can also see that memory span increases with age. It is also a non-fact that memory retention can be related to genes.

Recommendation.
Individuals with high intelligence should be given scholarship awards as gifted children. Those identified as slow learners should be encouraged to work harder by providing learning aids as support materials to meet up in their numerous studies.

Consideration should be given to some learning materials with the understanding that individual differences in sex is a factor that can deter a weakling from performing adequately.

WILHELM WUNDT’S EXPERIMENT BROUGHT CHANGES IN PSYCHOLOGY.

He was able to distinguish Psychology as a science from philosophy and biology.

Wundt’s first research laboratory marked Psychology as an independent field of study. He was able to establish that Psychology as a separate science from other disciplines. From Wundt’s research on reaction time when you understand something clearly at last on the left, press the key and when you understand something clearly at last on the right, press the key. He subtracted to know how long it takes to decide with the left one and then with the right hand. That is to see how long it takes to measure information and how long it takes one to act on the information.

The study showed individual differences on how we see and perceive things and act on it as cognitive phenomena.

References