Hannah Pohlmann Grade 9

 Does one’s environment and age affect how well they study/memorize?  Something I use every day  Parents and rules

 Memory in General  Short-term (used in this experiment) ▪ Part of brain is the hippocampus, which is located inside the temporal lobes ▪ Things remembered (such as words) and then quickly forgotten ▪ Easily disrupted ▪ Information is converted into long-term from short-term ▪ Amnesia if there isn’t enough time to convert

 Effects of Distraction on Memory–Tyler Jewett  Hypothesized that “the ability to recall words decreased as distraction increased”  Ability to ignore increases with age ▪ Adults did about the same but children did worse with a distraction  Do social factors and age affect memory?-Oxford ▪ Hypothesized that: Memory/ Cognitive function is affected by lifestyle, family and other relationships, and a person’s feeling of control over their life ▪ The young, healthy, educated, and people who feel they have control over their life did the best ▪ Most memory is based in confidence

 WSJ and Wiley Online Library  Music and random digits hampered results ▪ Preference made no difference  Did better with repeated digit and silence  Philly. Com  Hearing half of a conversation distracts much more than a whole conversation  Random occurrences cause distraction, not just words by themselves

 Science Direct  Noise from elevated train affects reading skills of children  Access Excellence-Brenda Brown  Similar to my project  Designed experiment using different conditions to test effects on memory

 If one’s environment and age changes, then how well they study or memorize will change too.

 Stopwatch  Informed consent permission slips  Volunteers  Lists of words  Music  TV  Chairs  Quiet rooms  Blank paper  Pencils

 Wrote up 4 different lists of 30 words  Found 15 volunteers  Had volunteers memorize words for 2 minutes under different conditions  Using a different list every time  After each 2 minute interval, saw how many words the volunteers remembered  Giving them 2-3 minutes to recall what they memorized and write it down on provided paper  Correct lists  Checking for errors and or any patterns in memorization  Compared results to see how the volunteers were affected

 Teens are the best  Teens and children were not affected by environment  TV affected adults  All environments-teens are better than children but children and adults are the same  TV-Teens are best  Partially supports hypothesis  Results may have differed with a larger study  Subjects also got tired as the tests continued

 Those listening, Teachers, Parents, and the following sources:  Avril, Tom. "Half a conversation is worse than none." Philly.com. Philly.com, 27 Sept Web. 26 Jan  Bronzaft, Arline L. "The effect of a noise abatement program on reading ability." ScienceDirect. Elsevier, 8 July Web. 26 Jan  Brown, Brenda. "Effects of Environment on Memory." Access Excellence. National Health Museum, n.d. Web. 26 Jan  Jewett, Tyler. "Effects of Distraction on Memory." Associated Content. Yahoo, 26 Nov Web. 1 Feb

 Perham, Nick, and Joanne Vizard. "Can preference for background music mediate the irrelevant sound effect?" Wiely Online Library. JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd., Web. 26 Jan  Scott, Jerry. "Zits." Comic strip. chron. The Houston Chronicle, 25 Jan Web. 26 Jan  Singer-Vine, Jeremy. "Music Impairs Certain Acts of Memorization." The Wall Street Journal 9 Aug. 2010: 1. The Wall Street Journal. Web. 26 Jan  Stevens, Fred C.J., et al. "How ageing and social factors affect memory." CBS MoneyWatch.com. CBS Interactive Inc., July Web. 1 Feb