Memory, Age, Gender, and Psychomotor Proficiency

The purpose of this study is to investigate their primary hypotheses, which include the effect of age on one memory, the effect of gender on autobiographical remembering, and the effect of psychomotor abilities on recollection. According to the report, persons who have mastered the synchronized use of their hands and feet have an enormously improved capacity to recall experiences when compared to those with less physical capacity. As their cognitive qualities are constantly pushed, mixed-handed people gain better autobiographical capacities over time. Assuming all other conditions remain constant, such people have increased semantic and episodic retrieval and are less prone to suffer from memory loss. The paper also hypothesizes that females are significantly better at long-term episodic memory tasks. They are especially excellent at activities involving delayed recall and recollection. The paper will explore the theories and provide comprehensive evidences that either support or disapprove them. The gender and psychomotor perspectives are the major modifications that will be performed on Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur & Moscovitch’s “Aging and autobiographical memory: dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval.”

Ageing, Gender and Psychomotor Proficiency, and Memory

Introduction

Cognitive researchers observe that ageing significantly affects autobiographical memory. The diminished mental capacity is believed to significantly impact a person’s recollection of events. Individuals experience an altered capacity to recall certain occurrences earlier on in their lives. While there are a plethora of factors that may lead to affected memory recollection at any point in their lives, age is often considered a constant factor and transverses all other potential influences. Rensen et al. (2017) defines autographical memory as the processing of information on events and facts from person’s past. The occasions are often processed methodically beginning with the earliest or most significant to the ones with minimal influences within a given developmental stage in a person’s life.

As the authors explain, autobiographical memory is further distinguished into semantic and episodic memory all of which are immensely different in terms of how they are affected by ageing. Semantic memory is a declarative approach that deals with the recollection of general facts. Key occasions in an individual’s environment belong to this category. Any significant events that do not directly or significantly alter the person’s environment belong to this category. In semantic memory, variables in a person’s external life including general knowledge, concepts, meanings, and facts are stored. It is a silo where all non-personal experiences are kept and accessed and includes things such as the mastery of academic content, vocabulary, functions of objects, social customs, capital cities and foods. Semantic memory is majorly abstract and is concerned with the meaning of verbal symbols. Conversely, episodic memory concerns the recollection of personal facts, events, and experiences. It often occurs in a serials form beginning from the earliest manifestations or causes to the most recent implications or predicaments. Episodic memory is concerned with the sequential reconstruction of occurrences along with the key defining factors such as the contextual dynamics, associated emotions, places, and times. Individuals perceive themselves as key participants or actors with the emotional and physical perspectives being part of the memory and not just the actual facts of the occasion.

According to St. Jacques & Levine (2007), autobiographical memory is exceedingly reliant on naturalistic expressions which are extensively impacted by ageing. Retrieval differences have been noted between younger and older persons. The rate and comprehensiveness of autobiographical recollection varies according to age but the robustness of such activity depends on the nature of the memory. According to Melendez, Torres, Redondo, Mayordomo & Sales (2015), the quality episodic reminiscence reduces tremendously with age. While older persons were less likely to recall personal events or experiences in the order that they occurred. Their memory becomes tainted over time and may degenerate and parts of it replaced by biases. However, semantic memory is preserved and its retrieval is easily facilitated by age. Older adults were determined to effortlessly recall routine procedures with increased ease but were found to be tremendously troubled by the prospect of recalling episodic events.

Method

The research enlists two major methodological approaches. The two include analytic and descriptive research and autobiographical interview. The techniques were preferred based on their ability to comprehensively explore the research questions and present the most in-depth formation supporting the hypotheses.

Autobiographical Interview

The technique involves the stimulation of an individual’s ability to recall certain key personal and sematic experiences. The respondent is asked to describe an event from a select period in their existence. A person’s life is divided into five developmental stages including early childhood, adolescent-teenager years, early adulthood, middle age, and the previous year. Participants in young adulthood are requested to describe experiences from events in their recent passed as they may not have attained early adulthood yet. Three conditions were identified to support the memory retrieval including specific probe, general probe, and recall.

Specific probe entailed the interviewing of subjects with questions from various categories to provoke the recollection of specific facts or details that were not remembered originally. Participants are presented with more specified sets of questions to elicit deep-seated memories that were not originally easily memorable. Conversely, in general probe, respondents were requested to provide further clarification so as to remember critical details. Instead of the examiner providing the subject with additional information, the responsibility of memory retrieval lies with the respondent who presents more background or context to their recollections. Lastly, the recall condition involves subjects providing in-depth account of their experiences without any provocation or stimulus from the examiner. The respondents exhibit great retrieval even without being influenced by any factors around them. The memories are easily accessible and the process occurs effortlessly.

The categories considered include thoughts, emotion, other sensory data, place, time, and the event itself. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed. Episodic events presented qualitative perspectives including the richness of the experience, thoughts provoked and emotions felt. As such they could only be evaluated categorization and segmentation of memories. However, as semantic values included facts, rules, data and other discrete variables, quantitative techniques such as ratings on a scale of 1 to 3.

Analytical Descriptive Research

The methodology entails the analytical study of secondary literature on the topic of concern. Relevant literature is identified and studied extensively to reveal to present data that supports or disapproves the hypotheses being investigated. In analytical descriptive research, six references were identified. The articles were selected on the basis of relevance and comprehensiveness of their coverage of the effect of ageing, psychomotor activity, and gender on autobiographical retrieval. The six sources have been critiqued extensively by numerous peers who have reviewed and determined them to be useable research references. Additionally, the paper are studied for reliability and validity.

According to Clause (2014), reliability is the virtue of claims made in a given report to be reproduced or established when a similar project sis conducted with similar set of conditions in a totally different setting. It is the ability of two or more scholars to find similar sets of results when the research is repeated in other contexts. In descriptive research, sources are selectively identified. Those with high levels of reliability that support the student’s point of view are identified. As they are already highly reliable, the paper will inadvertently contains reproducible claims. Validity is the characteristic of perspectives contained in a select report to present factual assertions. Ideally, research articles can offer any kinds of arguments they desire. There are no restrictions on free expression. However, the usefulness of such material depends on the amounts of known and verifiable aspects it contains.

The report discusses the impact of gender, psychomotor activity and ageing on autobiographical memory, a problem that can both be verified by the analysis of previously written literature and through experimental examination. Other key reasons for adopting the research methodology is its eases of operationalization and convenience. The scholar only has to identify the relevant sources and determine that they contain the information required and that there are various other major publications that identify them as valid research sources. Additionally, the methodology is inexpensive to potentiate.

Predicted Results

Ageing and Autobiographical Retrieval

Ford, Rubin & Giovanello (2014) suppose that ageing significantly impacts memory recollection. As the authors explain, ”Cognitive aging research indicates age-related deficits for epi-sodic information, such as temporally specific contextual details whereas semantic information, such as general knowledge and understanding of narrative meaning, is preserved or even facilitated in older adults…younger adults produced more episodic details than did older adults in autobiographical recall, whereas production of semantic details was unimpaired or enhanced in older adults.” The findings are supported by Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur & Moscovitch (2002) who explained that due to the diminished cognitive functioning among older adults, their ability to reproduce new facts is reduced. However, due to continued subliminal collection and processing of facts and sensory data, the individuals are subconsciously prone to gather environmental information and recall it without much effort. Even under specific probe, older adults found retrieval exceedingly challenging.

Gender and Autobiographical Memory

According to Ford, DiGirolamo & Kensinger, (2016), females perform significantly better than males on episodic-related long-term memory exercises across all ages. When compared to males, females exhibit far better delayed recognition and recall. The authors note that while the women may demonstrated slightly better semantic and working memory, the results are often marginal. Ford, DiGirolamo & Kensinger, (2016) explain that there is demonstrated evidence of negative recall bias in females. As such, they are far likelier to remember their mistakes than males.

Psychomotor Proficiency and Autobiographical Memory

In the article, Effectiveness of follow‐up reminiscence therapy on autobiographical memory in pathological ageing. Melendez, Torres, Redondo, Mayordomo & Sales (2015) explore the prospect of psychomotor proficiency impacting autobiographical retrieval. They explain that person with better mental and physical coordination accomplish semantic and episodic memory tasks more effortlessly. The authors illustrate their perspectives by using handedness as an example. They maintain that mixed-handed persons typically show better autobiographical memory than strong-handed persons who use one hand. Their hypothesis is supported by fact that there is better and more communication between the brain hemispheres for mix-handers.

References

Clause, C. (2014). Descriptive research design: Definition, example & types. Educational Portal Video Lessons. Retrieved on April, 12, 2014.

Ford, J. H., Rubin, D. C., & Giovanello, K. S. (2014). Effects of task instruction on autobiographical memory specificity in young and older adults. Memory, 22(6), 722-736.

Ford, J. H., DiGirolamo, M. A., & Kensinger, E. A. (2016). Age influences the relation between subjective valence ratings and emotional word use during autobiographical memory retrieval. Memory, 24(8), 1023-1032.

Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J. F., Winocur, G., & Moscovitch, M. (2002). Aging and autobiographical memory: dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and aging, 17(4), 677.

Melendez, J. C., Torres, M., Redondo, R., Mayordomo, T., & Sales, A. (2015). Effectiveness of follow‐up reminiscence therapy on autobiographical memory in pathological ageing. International Journal of Psychology.

Rensen, Y. C., Kessels, R. P., Migo, E. M., Wester, A. J., Eling, P. A., & Kopelman, M. D. (2017). Personal semantic and episodic autobiographical memories in Korsakoff syndrome: A comparison of interview methods. Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 39(6), 534-546.

St. Jacques, P. L., & Levine, B. (2007). Ageing and autobiographical memory for emotional and neutral events. Memory, 15(2), 129-144.