Memory and Language

Memory Sentences You are going to see a list of sentences. Each one will be presented for 3 seconds.

Memory Sentences After each sentence, you will be asked a question. Write the answer. You have 5 seconds to answer each one, so work fast. You may shorten the answers to one key word for most of them. Number your paper from 1 to 24.

1. The girl broke the window on the porch.

Broke what?

2. The tree in the front yard shaded the man who was smoking his pipe.

Where?

3. The hill was steep.

What was?

4. The cat, running from the barking dog, jumped on the table.

From what?

5. The tree was tall.

Was what?

6. The old car climbed the hill.

What did?

7. The cat running from the dog jumped on the table.

Where?

8. The girl who lives next door broke the window on the porch.

Lives where?

9. The car pulled the trailer.

Did what?

10. The scared cat was running from the barking dog.

What was?

11. The girl lives next door.

Who does?

12. The tree shaded the man who was smoking his pipe.

What did?

13. The scared cat jumped on the table.

What did?

14. The girl who lives next door broke the large window.

Broke what?

15. The man was smoking his pipe.

Who was?

16. The old car climbed the steep hill.

The what?

17. The large window was on the porch.

Where?

18. The tall tree was in the front yard.

What was?

19. The car pulling the trailer climbed the steep hill.

Did what?

20. The cat jumped on the table.

Where?

21. The tall tree in the front yard shaded the man.

Did what?

22. The car pulling the trailer climbed the hill.

Which car?

23. The dog was barking.

Was what?

24. The window was large.

What was?

Now for the test… Cover up your answers to those questions, or get a new sheet of paper. The test will be based on the sentences that you just read.

Now for the test… You are going to see some more sentences. For each one, write down “old” if it was on the list you just read, and “new” if it was not. You have 4 seconds per sentence, so you may write ’O’ or ’N’ to go faster. Number your paper from 1 to 30.

1. The car climbed the hill.

2. The girl who lives next door broke the window.

3. The old man who was smoking his pipe climbed the steep hill.

4. The tree was in the front yard.

5. The scared cat, running from the barking dog, jumped on the table.

6. The window was on the porch.

7. The barking dog jumped on the old car in the front yard.

8. The tree in the front yard shaded the man.

9. The cat was running from the dog.

10. The old car pulled the trailer.

11. The tall tree in the front yard shaded the old car.

12. The tall tree shaded the man who was smoking his pipe.

13. The scared cat was running from the dog.

14. The old car, pulling the trailer, climbed the hill.

15. The girl who lives next door broke the large window on the porch.

16. The tall tree shaded the man.

17. The cat was running from the barking dog.

18. The car was old.

19. The girl broke the large window.

20. The scared cat ran from the barking dog that jumped on the table.

21. The scared cat, running from the dog, jumped on the table.

22. The old car pulling the trailer climbed the steep hill.

23. The girl broke the large window on the porch.

24. The scared cat which broke the window on the porch climbed the tree.

25. The tree shaded the man.

26. The car climbed the steep hill.

27. The girl broke the window.

28. The man who lives next door broke the large window on the porch.

29. The tall tree in the front yard shaded the man who was smoking his pipe.

30. The cat was scared.

The analysis… Count the number of times you said a sentence was old (this will be a rough way to test your memory). After you’ve had a moment to count, I will ask you to report how many you recognized.

The big reveal… How many “old” sentences were there? The answer is…

The big reveal… How many “old” sentences were there? The answer is… Zero. They were all new.

The explanation… There were four topic sentences: The girl who lives next door broke the large window on the porch. The scared cat, running from the barking dog, jumped on the table. The tall tree in the front yard shaded the man who was smoking his pipe. The old car pulling the trailer climbed the steep hill.

The explanation… Each sentence contained four propositions (a proposition is basically one idea unit). For example: The girl who lives next door broke the large window on the porch. The girl lives next door. The girl broke the window. The window is large. The window is on the front porch.

The explanation… The original sentences introduced all four propositions for each of the four topic sentences, but never all four propositions at the same time. However, because memory is constructive (you create the memory when you try to retrieve it), you combined the propositions into one unit in memory.

The explanation… Because of this, I predict that it should be hard to tell exactly which ones you’ve seen before. Also, the more propositions a sentence has, the harder it should be to reject that sentence.

The explanation… The four-proposition sentences were numbers: 5 (scared cat) 15 (the girl next door) 22 (old car) 29 (tall tree) I predict that those were “recognized” by the most people.

The explanation… This relates to language comprehension as well. There is a lot of evidence that what you remember from something you read is the “gist” (basically, the ideas), but not the exact words that were used. Any questions?

The End