Memory for Temporal Order
This is enabled by modifying the sequence elements in the hetero associative networks. Studies in rats and human beings with lesions to the hippocampus have demonstrated that it would be difficult to learn the sequences of stimuli that are located in series. Newly acquired evidence may demonstrate that through sleep the recently acquired representations in the hippocampus-dependent systems of memory would get consolidated. During learning, the encoding of the sequential data is permitted in the hippocampus. Studies in human beings have demonstrated that people who learn word pairs are better able to remember when they sleep after they learn. Further sleep studies have demonstrated that memory is better when period rich is slow wave sleep are present rather than rapid eye movement sleep. The mechanism by which this occurs is not understood, but it is said that reactivation of neuronal networks that were used during learning takes place during sleep. The hippocampus neuronal network permits the transfer of memory representations into the neocortical circuitry where it is stored on a long-term basis. This study centers on how the memory for temporal order relates with the advancement of age and maturity. We are about to make a research on whether or not the memory for temporal order decreases as time advances (Drosopoulos, Windau, Wagner, and Born, 2007).
Proposal
Problem Statement
This research study attempts to determine the changes in memory brought about by age and maturity, specifically on whether memory for temporal order increases or decreases over a period of time.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of the paper is to determine if age and maturity influences the memory capacity of the individual. It centers on how the memory for temporal order relates with the advancement of age and maturity and the factors that influence temporal order. A research question in this area is Whether or not the memory for temporal order decreases as time advances Through this research, the writer intends to accomplish the answers to whether or not temporal order depends extremely on age and maturity.
The paper would also try to determine if sleep alters the memory capacity of the individual. Several activities involve the mind such as intention, memory and vision. Preliminary data suggests that the sleep enables the consolidation of temporal sequences of episodic memory and in this manner enables more long-term memory. A research question in this area is Whether or not sleep consolidates the episodic memory and ensures a more long-term memory The role of the medial prefrontal cortex, perirhinal cortex, passage of time and the way in which these affect memory and other parts of the body that relate to memory, would also be studied.
These are important research questions because it explains why some people behave the way they do in terms of memory and helps psychologists to establish what the best course of action is. This research needs to be conducted since the additional knowledge would be very helpful for people who need answers regarding the memory for temporal order. More generally, people who have trouble remembering order information need some answers on why they tend to forget items that are in the list of representations in their brain. They need to know whether or not age and maturity have a lot to do with the decrease in their memory, or if it highly depends on health and brain formation in the uterus.
Literature Review
The influential model of temporal order in long-term memory indicates that long-term preservation of order information makes inhibitory connections from the representations of earlier items in the list to the representations of later list items (Kesner, Hopkins Fineman, 1994). Earlier items would be less inhibited than later items, but the question however is whether or not temporal order depend on age and maturity, especially that the role of the medial prefrontal cortex and cortex perirhinal appears to be evident in this case. Sleep enforces the temporal order in memory (Drosopoulos et al., 2007, p.1), which indicates one of the details that should be addressed vehemently, since sleep alters with the advancement in age and maturity. For most of the time, the time of sleep reduces with the advancement in age and maturity.
Temporal Dynamics
Temporal order is the sequence of arrangement of information. There are two ways of looking at memory, the first is the object being remembered and secondly the action itself. Mental events and the amount of time between them is what create the temporal aspect of memory. Vision is also another aspect of the mind which involves some parts of the body. Color perception involves a complex neural circuitry that occurs in the cones and rods in he retina of the eye (Parry, McKeefry, Murray, 2006). Whereas visual perceptions can only be explained by the physical dimensions surrounding the object, memory on the contrary is explained by the temporal gap (Chiba, Kesner, Reynolds, 1994).
Memory
Memory can either be semantic or episodic. Semantic memory is whereby we remember what we have gone through mentally e.g. desires or hallucinations while episodic memory is where we remember things that have happened to us. What brings the difference between semantic and episodic memory is the manner of storage of the object of memory or what aspect of the object is encoded. (Jung-In Kwon, 2004, p.3).
Memory has mainly two arms the state of the actual event to be remembered and the actual act of remembering. There are two dimensions of temporal memory episodic memory and semantic memory. A temporal lapse that is experienced during the act of remembering purely takes place during the mental events and not under the stimulus of external events. The temporal sequence represents one of the main principles that underlie episodic type of memory (Chiba, et al., 1994).
Memory can be said to be intrinsically past the directed process just in the same way that intention is an intrinsically future directed mental process. Direction here refers to the temporal orientation of the mind that is in relation to the object of intention (Earhart, Middlemist, Hopkins, 1993). When one is intending to do something, the intentional object is usually not yet actualized. However, during remembering, the intentional object is supposed to have already been actualized (Chiba et al., 1994).
This is similar to psychologically explaining a visual dimension. The temporal order can be explained through memory (Chiba et al., 1994). As vision is intrinsically spatial, memory is temporal such that the mental phenomenon of memory may not be understood without having to pay attention to spatial contingencies and temporal lapse (Anastas, Gibeau, Larson, 1990)
Such questions as to how vision can be explained without having to take into account the role of spatial contingencies emerge (Block, 1990). A good example is color perception. This is often an interaction between various parts of the body such as neural circuitry, cone cells in the retina of the eye, and the aspects of the environment such as the reflection properties of the physical surface as well as the wavelength of the reflected light (Celia, 2004)). Though seeing color does take time, the intricate perceptual and the neural activities take real time and though this be the case, the temporal magnitude of the event does not become an important part of the entire process. In this regard therefore, though the act of remembering does take place in neural and perceptual architecture, spatial magnitude does not play any role in the understanding of memory (Hannesson, Howland Phillips, 2004).
Organ Impact with Memory
Findings from studies carried out on the role of the perirhinal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex suggest that both of these organs, through some kind of interaction, are useful in the retrieval of information that is useful in the temporal order memory of long term objects. (Hannesson, Howland, and Phillips, 2004). Further the studies imply that only the perirhinal cortex contributes to retrieval of information necessary for long-term object recognition (Bartko, Winters, Cowell, Saksida Bussey, 2007). Another organ that affects memory is the hippocampus. The Hippocampus influences the manner in which information is stored and the sequence that is followed. Elements in the sequence are bound together in heteroassociative networks so that an individual is able to remember events as they happen. Without this part of the body an individual cannot be able to remember the things that happen immediately, he can only remember the things that happened a long time ago before the hippocampus was destroyed (Drosopoulos et al., 2007).This explains why some accident victims with head injuries are not able to remember things that are happening to them seconds and minutes away from the time of the accident, and yet can remember things that happen long before the accident since by then the hippocampus was in perfect shape.
Aging Impact with Memory
Advancement of age and maturity definitely comes with such problems as memory difficulties which can be as a result of the altering of either short-term or long-term memory storage. According to Sekuler, et al. (2006), age related changes do not make the dimensions of short-term memory to be equally vulnerable. Short-term memory is said to become vulnerable in terms of storage of source memory with age (Barker, Bird, Alexander Warburton, 2007).
Method
In this research paper a primary research mode would be used and includes administering 10 questionnaire tools to 10 individuals from 5 different age groups - two are within the range of 11-20 years old two are from 21-30 years old two are from 31-40 years old two are from 41-50 years old and finally, two are from 51-60 years old. The participants would be informed about the risks, benefits and details of the study. The participants in general had to be non-smokers and drug and alcohol-free would can speak, understand and write English.
The questionnaire included
1. Status of health
2. General medical problems
3. Occupational history
4. Diurnal routine and activities
5. Sleep history
6. Mental history
7. IQ levels
8. Stress-related issues
9. Hobbies and Interests
10. Drug use
11. Smoking and alcohol
12. Medications
Following the administration of the questionnaire tool, by using a process of random selection, each of the age groups would be divided into 2, one belonging to the case group and the other to the control group. Before undergoing the test, a sleep evaluation would be conducted the pervious night of the test to determine the normal sleep pattern. The individuals were called to the laboratory at 9 pm and were placed electrodes to evaluate the entire sleep duration which lasted for 7 to 8 hours duration. Further the test was administered only if the sleep patterns in the Individual were normal.
During the period of the test, the subjects were strictly advised to remain alcohol-free and caffeine-free. The subjects were asked to report to the sleep clinic again at 9 pm at night. The entire process of learning and sleeping was done after placing the subjects on the polysomnography. Each individual would be given a receipt containing 4 unrelated words arranged in an order. The individual would be given one minute to observe the group of worlds. After this, the receipt would be taken back and the next receipt would be given after a break of 20 seconds. The entire exercise would include 15 such receipts and would take about 20 minutes to administer. The words provided were simple and chosen from a variety of subjects uniformly. Following the completion of this exercise, both the case and the control group would be given another questionnaire tool that would ask them queries of the exercise including-
Difficulties during the test
Attention
Motivation
Fatigue
Sleepiness during the test
IrritabilityAnxiety during the test
The subjects from the case group were then asked to sleep for 7-hour duration, and the lights in their rooms were switched off. Meanwhile the subjects in the control group were asked to stay awake the entire night. They were given the any of the following tasks as suited their interests
1. Watch movies
2. Play Computer games
3. Listen to music
4. Watch a sport of their interest
5. Playing chess
6. Walking
The subjects will be told specifically not to remember the words intentionally or unintentionally.
In the morning at abut 8 am, the subjects from both the case group and the control groups, were tested of their knowledge of the 15 groups of words. They were asked to write down 4 unrelated words in a particular group after the 1st word has been prompted. Following this exercise, the subjects were given another questionnaire tool asking details about-
Previous night s sleep
Previous night s activities done
Unintentional remembrance of words
Intentional remembrance of words
Adequacy and quality of sleep of previous night
Any kind of anxiety or worry experienced
The subjects belonging to the control were then made to sleep for duration of 7 hours to ensure that they did not experience any sleep-related problems. The test papers were collected and the total number of right group of words were counted in the case group and the control group and tabulated
Table 1. Results
No. SubjectScore - Case Score - ControlComments111-20 yrs221-30 yrs331-40 yrs441-50 yrs551-60 yrs
Reporting the Results
In the events that come about in peoples lives, there is generally increased difficulty with memory, with the advancement of age and maturity, when discussing short-term and long-term memory storage. It is evident that not all dimensions of short-term memory are equally vulnerable to age-related changes (Sekuler, McLaughlin, Kahana, Wingfield Yotsumoto, 2006, p.633). However, source memory appears to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of aging, especially with regards to short-term memory.
Through this study it is anticipated that the individuals belonging to the higher age groups would have lower scored compared to the younger groups (Craig, Rhodes, Busey, Kewley-Port, Humes, 2010).
This is because temporary order memory during short-term learning would reduce with age due to the slower cognitive processing (Poliakoff, Shore, Lowe, Spence, 2006). On the other hand, the individuals in the case group would have higher scores with those in the corresponding individuals in the control group, as sleeping consolidates the recently acquired data from the hippocampus systems (Drosopoulos et al., 2007).
Conclusion
With aging the temporal perception would decrease with age. Older people would take longer time to perceive the temporal order as compared to younger individuals. The other part of the study would demonstrate that individuals who sleep following the learning exercise are able to memorize better as consolidation of recently acquired data from the hippocampus systems occur into the neocortical circuitry.
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