Memory

I took a quiz to test my ability to remember a set of numbers with the given time of 10 seconds. I was doing pretty well until the 10-digit number appeared, and I couldn't remember the last digit. The quiz gave me a chance to try a 9-digit number again to work my way back up to a larger number. However, with the amount of concentration I had while taking the quiz as my younger sister continued yelling in the background, I moved on to the next quiz. Perhaps if I had focused more, I would be able to make it to the 11-digit number. The test was fairly valid with the different levels for the number of digits to gradually get harder and push my brain to work. It tested my true ability to memorize numbers in a set amount of time.

With another quiz, I was tested on my ability to recall words after seeing them for a few seconds. It was all to test my short-term memory. I could recall 6 words out of the 12 given, and I scored about average for my age group. I was able to recall the first and last few words of the list, relating to the phenomenon of recency effect. Overall, the test was fairly valid, but I believe it had some flaws. There should be a countdown for the exact amount of time one should have to review the terms because people may not be true to themselves and not take the quiz seriously. They might even take about five minutes to memorize the entire list before taking the quiz.

On another note, I took a quiz about picture memory. After being shown a set of pictures for 30 seconds, I was asked to write down as many objects as I could remember. I was only able to recall 10 of the 20 objects that were shown. Technically, I got an average score again like the previous quiz. This quiz was pretty valid in which it had a timer to countdown before completely switching my screen to another page to ensure that I had only 30 seconds to review the pictures. It truly tested my ability to memorize and recall pictures in my mind.

Another quiz that fascinated me was the one to test my ability to memorize and recall faces. When the play button was pressed, random face structures were shuffled together to create a new face. With that, I had as much time as I needed to memorize the face. Thus, I believe it is not certainly all that valid because the person taking the quiz can perhaps spend like an entire day to memorize the face to ace the quiz. However, I took the quiz seriously and spent about 30 seconds on reviewing the face. I completed the quiz with 9 correct features out of 10, which according to the program was pretty impressive.

A quiz to test my ability to memorize and recall letters was very interesting. For the first 4 rounds out of 6, I was able to recall all the letters in the exact same order. However, as the difficulty of each round increased, I could only recall the first and last few letters in the sequence. It also contributed to the recency effect like shown in the second quiz that I took. The test was valid because it clearly tested my short-term memory to memorize letters in a certain amount of time before moving on to the next screen ensuring every test taker the same amount of time to memorize.

Photo URL: http://publish.uwo.ca/~craven/504/504seq.gif