Validity of Animacy as a Mnemonic Dimension

Validity of Animacy as a Mnemonic Dimension Lomasi Fogarty   Abstract The objective of this report was to agree or disagree with the theory that animacy is an important mnemonic dimension. It was hypothesised that this was the case and animacy helps people with recall. First year students of 1001PSY Introduction to Cognitive and Biological Psychology, participated in an experiment where they were to remember words that appeared on a PowerPoint. A distraction task was applied to control for maintenance rehearsal and recency effect. The results from the experiment showed that animate words were more correctly recalled than inanimate words. It can be concluded that the hypothesis was supported and animacy is a mnemonic device as it is an aid for memory. The Validity of Animacy as a Mnemonic Dimension The purpose of this report is to validate whether animacy is an important dimension in regards to memory and mnemonics. Memory is the process of which information is acquired and modified so that knowledge can be stored, retrieved and used (Foster Wilson, 2005). The memory process starts with encoding the information, followed by storage, and retrieval. Encoding involves the information getting into the memory, and forming a memory code. Storage is where the information is kept in the memory, and retrieval is the process of accessing the stored information at a later time. This occurs in between short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM). The serial position effect is the idea that the position in a list to be remembered, can have an effect on the correct recall. The usual pattern for this is that the first few items (primacy), and the last few items (recency), on the list, are better remembered than the stimuli located in the middle. The primacy effect has emerged due to the first few items being successfully transferred to stable, long-term memory, whereas the recency effect is a result of the stimuli functioning in short-term memory (Wiswede, Russeler, Munte, 2007). The term mnemonics is used to describe a variety of aids for memory that can result in an improvement in the retention and learning of information. The basic principles within this technique are recoding, meaningfulness, and organisation (Dickel, 1983). Animacy is acknowledged to be a foundational dimension for mnemonics, and plays a helpful role in regards to memory. Animacy is the concept best defined as living organisms. According to Nairne, VanArsdall, Pandeirada, Cogdill, and LeBreton (2013), for successful reproduction and survival of the human race, it is essential to distinguish between animate and inanimate things. Evolutionary psychologists would think it fit to suggest that selectively tuning and remembering animate things is an essential process done by the memory system as predators, as well potential mating partners, are animate beings and aid with the continuation of human existence. Little attention has been brought to mnemonic dimensions when studying memory. As Nairne et al. (2013) state, â€Å"the focus tends to be exclusively on the ‘how’ of remembering†. The recognition of the origins of cognitive systems can create a basis for the discovery of empirical phenomena. It is theorised that animate words are more likely to be recalled than inanimate words, and therefore is an important dimension for memory. This report aims to support or disagree with the idea that animacy is a mnemonic dimension. It was hypothesised that more of the animate words in this experiment were correctly recalled than the inanimate words. Method Participants In the 1001PSY Introduction to Cognitive and Biological Psychology tutorials, 386 (279 female) first year undergraduate psychology students at Griffith University participated in this experiment (Age Range= 16-55 years old; Mage= 19.79, SD= 5.39). Participation was encouraged however there was no incentive. Design This experiment was a within-subject design as everyone was tested on animacy. In this experiment, the one independent variable was the words that were to be remembered. This variable had two levels, animate and inanimate. The only dependant variable was memory; how many words of each level of the independent variable could be remembered by each participant. The serial position effect was acknowledged and controlled but was not measured. Materials There were two types of stimuli presented in this experiment. The main experiment was presented on a white PowerPoint slide with 24 words (12 animate and 12 inanimate) and were on a slide each. 2 buffer words were also used at the beginning and the end of the slides but were not identifiable from the other words by the appearance. The words were in black, Calibri (Headings) in size 115 font in the middle of the slide. Every 5 seconds the slides would change and a new word would appear. The exact words used are presented in Table 2 (Appendix A). The participants were supplied with a scoring sheet to tick off what words they remembered (Refer to Appendix B). The second stimuli was the distractor experiment, which consisted of a similar presentation. 20 varying numbers (11 odd, 9 even), were presented on a PowerPoint with white slides. The numbers were on the middle of a slide each, in the same font but size 166. The numbers used in the distractor experiment are presented in Table 3 (Refer to Appendix C). The digits were presented on a slide each; one at a time for three seconds. Procedure The instructions were given by the experimenter, which in this case, is the tutor of the class. Once all the participants were all seated at a table, they were asked avoid any sort of implement to help record the words, and were asked to remember as many words that appeared as they could. The PowerPoint and the tutor notified the students when the words were going to appear. Once the last word was reached, the tutor as well as the PowerPoint notified the students that it was the end. The distraction task began after the last word appeared. This task had a designated time for 1 minute and began with a slide of the PowerPoint that included instructions that were also read out by the tutor. The participants were required to indicate whether the numbers changing on the board were odd or even on a supplied response sheet (Refer to Appendix D). Results for this task were then checked. At the end of this instruction, the response sheet for recalling the words was supplied. It was asked of the students to write down as many words of the first task as they could with a time allowance of 4 minutes. To check what words they remembered, they were given a scoring sheet in which they could tick off the words they correctly recalled. Once the 4 minutes were over, the students compared their recalled words with a scoring sheet (Refer to Appendix B). The number of correctly recalled ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate’ words, were added and the total for each was written down. Additional information like their age and ge nder was also collected. Only the scoring sheets for the word recalling task were handed up to the tutor. Results The amount of which each word was recalled is presented in Table 2 (Appendix A). The total number of words correctly recalled for both animate and inanimate categories are in Table 1. The raw data in both these tables shows that in this experiment, more of the animate words were remembered than the inanimate words. It was also noted in Table 1, that in regards to the serial position effect, the first 6 words, were more remembered than the last 6, and the last 6 were more remembered than the middle 12. This table also shows that the animate words were more remembered in each serial position class except the first 6, where the inanimate words were remembered 19.4 more times than the animate. The serial position effect is evident in Figure 1, where more words were correctly recalled in the first and last 6 for both animate and inanimate words. Table 1 Total No. of Words Recalled. Figure 1. No. of words recalled for each serial position class. Discussion This experiment has supported the theory that animacy is a mnemonic dimension as more animate words were more correctly recalled than inanimate words. In this study, the aim was to find whether animacy was a mnemonic in which it is easier to remember than inanimate words. The prediction that animate words are more remembered than inanimate words came from the evolutionary perspective where humans remember animate stimuli over inanimate stimuli because it was helpful for survival and reproduction. This experiment showed that animate words were more correctly recalled than inanimate words. The theoretical basis of this prediction was from work done by Nairne et al. (2013), in which they stated that animate words would be more easily recalled due to the fact that they helped humans survive and reproduce. Although buffer words were used to control the primacy and recency effect, the results still show that the first and last few words were more remembered than those that appeared in the middle of the list. Likewise with the distractor task, it was put into place to control maintenance rehearsal but the results still show that the last few words were more remembered than the words in the middle. This however may be explained with the last few words easily being stored in the short-term memory (Wiswede, et al. 2007). A methodological concern with this experiment could be that the tutors were different throughout the classes and may have altered the instructions, this could include longer time on a word. Along with this, another concern could be that the participants could have written down words that they didn’t actually remember. These could have compromised the eternal validity affect the end result in measuring animacy as a mnemonic device. From this information, further research can be done to find if there are differences in memory within social demographics and improve knowledge on mnemonics. References Dickel, M. J. (1983). Principles of encoding mnemonics. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 57(1), 111-118. doi: 10.2466/pms.1983.57.1.111 Foster, J. K., Wilson, A. C. (2005). A refined model of sleep and the time course of memory formation. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 28(1), 71-72. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X05290027 Nairne, J. S., VanArsdall, J. E., Pandeirada, J. N. S., Cogdill, M., LeBreton, J. M. (2013). Adaptive memory: The mnemonic value of animacy. Psychological Science, 24(10), 2099-2105. doi: 10.1177/0956797613480803 Wiswede, D., Russeler, J., Munte, T. F. (2007). Serial position effects in free memory recall—An ERP-study. Biological Psychology, 75(2), 185-193. doi: doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2007.02.002 Appendix A Table 2 List of word type and presentation order Appendix B SCORING SHEET 1001PSY Mt Gravatt Memory of animate vs inanimate words experiment worksheet Scoring Sheet Age:_____________ Gender:____________ Appendix C Table 3 List of Numbers from Distraction Task Appendix D ODD EVEN RESPONSE SHEET 1001PSY Mt Gravatt 1001PSY MG Introduction to Cognitive and Biological Psychology Odd-Even Task Worksheet Please tick (à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ¼) whether the displayed number is either odd of even

Programming – Example of a Selection Structure

Introduction:The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple example of a selection structure that is contained as part of the Programming Solution Proposal I am developing throughout the course of this programming class. The selection structure I chose to make an example of isn’t really inclusive as part of my original programming proposal due in week 5, however, I devised a very simple â€Å"If-Then-Else† structure that uses somewhat of the same information and calculation as what I may use in my final proposal. I’ve written the pseudocode for a section that at this time appears to make sense to use, given the selection structure I chose, and I also paralleled that with a Visual Logic com/cards/">flowchart. The visual logic flowchart was executed correctly with specific values that are to be used in order for others to properly test it. These values will change as the program gets fine-tuned, however, for now there are specific values that must be used to obta in the correct percentages. Purpose of the structureThe reason I chose the â€Å"If-Then-Else† structure is because it seemed to make the most sense for my program and it didn’t appear to be too complicated a structure to master. Even though this structure may not be included as part of my final proposal paper, I thought it would be good to work with and verify if I could somehow make it work. The program I’ll ultimately be creating is one where seasonal stats will be entered in by an assistant coach, for athletes on any given basketball team.Through this they will be able to determine a players overall field goal average, free throw percentage, rebound average, etc. However, for now, I’ve decided to simply use an If-Then-Else structure that displays a friendly output message of what the user might see if he/she entered their â€Å"field goals attempted†Ã‚  value and â€Å"field goals made† value. The pseudocode for the If-Then-Else structur eAgain, I must reiterate, that the selection structure I chose to use may not be part of my final proposal paper, however, the pseudocode that is displayed below is a simple and short example of how I used the information for my original proposal, using the If-Then-Else structure: Write â€Å"Enter amount of field goals attempted: â€Å"Input FGA Write â€Å"Enter amount of field goals made: † Input FGM Set Average = FGM / FGA If Average => 50 Then Set FieldGoalAverage = Average Write â€Å"Your field goal average is: † + FieldGoalAverage + â€Å"%† Else Write â€Å"Your field goal average is: † + FieldGoalAverage + â€Å"%† Write â€Å"You need to work on your shooting game!† End IfVisual Logic flowchart The Visual Logic flowchart I put together, which parallels the pseudocode above, has been executed successfully. The field goal average in this VL example is calculated using the following values: FieldGoalAttempts (FGsAttempted): 5000 FieldGoalsMade (FGsMade): 50 The values for the variables above test the ‘True’ decision statement. Entering the following values below execute and test the ‘False’ decision statement: FieldGoalAttempts (FGsAttempted): 2000FieldGoalsMade (FGsMade): 50 The .vls file has been uploaded as a separate attachment in the Assignments tab of the UoP Student website.

The Confidential Secrets of Uva Engineering Essay Samples

The Confidential Secrets of Uva Engineering Essay Samples Top Uva Engineering Essay Samples Choices It will describe how you landed on the outcomes you've got and you should explain your findings and irregularities if there is one. High school isn't free in Kenya. Since I have learned from them. This is precisely what I exactly did. Currently construction is extremely costly. The financial strength of the usa is intimately related to the strength and dependability of our highways and bridges. When humans chose to build their permanent houses, the building of shelter began. Grappling with the thought of murder with no actual motive is definitely troubling. Though some appreciate a rest from the more standard essay, others might see it like a failure to follow instructions. Each principal point or argument needs to be discussed in one or a couple of paragraphs in the principal body of the essay. Next a primary body includes further info and ideas, and could give examples. The primary purpose of this essay is to aid students have a better comprehension of the civil engineering as a scientific field. Customer service administrator cover letter Is an important introductory document It ought to be tailored in line with the corporation's requirement for the work post. The application itself may supply you with an opportunity to provide detailed educational and job history. There are lots of classes a man or woman must take to find the appropriate details on what you will need to be a Civil Engineer. The procedure for registration of any civil engineer by the appropriate authority is quite crucial. Composing the abstract area of the paper is extremely critical to comprehend how to compose a civil engineering essaythat mandates an accurate overview of your writing. A computer-based design is a simpler method of solving very complicated technological issues. You don't need to be worried about your personal details that may be viewed, as we handle the matter on a safe network. There are lots of challenges in designing this kind of material. If you don't know Calculus then there is absolutely no hope for you in the industry of Engineering. The fulfillment differs. It was exciting to know I was the previous checkpoint before the entire project went for approval. It's undisputable that civil engineering has ever played a pivotal part on earth civilization. The failure of such a dam results in the destruction of the entire settlement downstream. They don't need much maintenance, because they are very well resistent weathering agents. So deciding to engage in a career in civil engineering isn't depending on the money. Despite terrible economy the society doesn't quit functioning, for example having bad economy doesn't signify that you drink poisoned water. Civil Engineers have to at the exact time be curious, detail-oriented, and ready to handle intricate troubles. They are responsible for lots of the things that are required for a society to function properly. New Questions About Uva Engineering Essay Samples One comfortably receives a course ongoing at the comfortable place at home. Today, many structure and buildings are extremely unique in designs. Consequently, identification of appropriate storage and suitable water resources i s crucial. Imagine the simplicity and convenience of having all your kilts and accessories in 1 place. The capacity of engineers to work with a web-based on-line platform is an advantage in their opinion. Any kind of statistical practices or analysis used to share the results also have to be shown here. This is brought on by the growth in literacy practices inside this profession. In the subject of civil engineering computer program application is getting more important, famous and productive. Along with the broad spectrum of challenges, the versatility of projects civil engineers can take part in ensures that you will probably not have a dull moment on the job. Bridges are essential in the region of civil engineering, because their work as engineers is to develop and make certain that their work is great to use, and efficient. However, since a civil engineer you require these tools to make sure that you satisfy the demands of the projects you're working on. There are several different specialties involved with civil engineering which need to be taken into account when deciding upon this career.

The Code Of Ethics For Nurses - 1110 Words

Introduction Nursing is a career that is governed by a set of ethical principles. The duties of a nurse consist of care and support and its important that nurses are aware of their professional ethics. These principles are put into place to uphold and maintain moral values in healthcare. The American Nurses Association (ANA) code of ethics for nurses consists of nine provisions, outlined in the Code of Ethics for nurses with Interpretive Statements. These provisions are constructed to blueprint the role and responsibilities of a nurse. The chosen provisions being discussed will refer to the three main principles of patient autonomy, patient confidentiality, and patient rights. Patient Autonomy Provision 1.4 The Right to Self-Determination: Patients have the right to self-determination and individuals should have control over their own lives. With respect for human autonomy comes respect for patient rights. 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