Week 3 – May 25
Breakout Discussion 2
How many sentences did you remember?
I remembered 11 sentences in total:
- A newspaper is better than a magazine
- Seashore is a better place in the street
- At first better to run than to walk
- Even young children can enjoy it
- You may have to try several times
- Even young children can enjoy it
- Rain however soaks in very fast
- Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problem
- One needs lots of room
- If there’s no complication it can be very peaceful
- A rock can serve as an anchor
Which group were you in?
I was in Group 2, the group that was given context. In our case, the sentences were all related to the topic of flying a kite. Group 1 did not have context and just heard the sentences as random statements.
What did you notice?
The test was supposed to show that Group 2, with context, would remember more sentences. However, in our class Group 1 actually remembered 15 sentences. This could be an outlier result, possibly because one individual in Group 1 had stronger recall and skewed the numbers. Still, I noticed that having context made it easier for me to reconstruct sentences even when I only remembered fragments.
What do you wonder?
I wonder if the way memory tests were done in the past versus now changes the results. For example, in the 1970s people often wrote things down with pen and paper, which may have engaged more brain power in encoding information. Today, we mostly type, which can feel more mechanical and less connected to memory. It makes me question whether differences in method—writing versus typing—affect how much we truly remember.