Cheryl Willard - Lee College

Practice #8:
Memory
When discussing memory, I usually include about three short hands-on demonstrations, such as
the following:
• Depth of processing versus shallow processing of material is shown by giving students a list
of words with some directions at the top. This list of words is the same but there are two
different sets of directions. The directions for one half of the class (side A) instructs students
to rate the pleasantness of the words on a scale from 1 to 5. The directions for the other half
of the room (side B) instructs students to count the number of letters each word contains.
Students are unaware of the different sets of instructions and are asked to turn their lists over
when finished. I briefly distract students from the list while I talk about other aspects of
memory. After a couple of minutes, I ask students to write down as many of the words from
the list that they can remember. They then count the number of words recalled and I write
these numbers on the board, first asking side A. I then draw a line on the board to separate
these scores from the scores for side B and I make a prediction based on what I know about
how memory works. The prediction stated is that “this half of the room [motioning to side A]
was able to remember more words than this half of the room [motioning to side B]. I then
proceed to ask the side B students how many words they were able to recall and I write these
numbers on the board on the other side of the line.
This exercise has never failed and students are always amazed when one half of the class
remembers far more words than the other half. The discussion which follows focuses on why
this transpired and the fact that side A had to process the words at a deeper level than did side
B. This is because they had to think about the meaning of the words before they could rate
their pleasantness, whereas side B only had to engage in the mindless activity of counting the
number of letters the words contained. The importance of analyzing and understanding the
meaning of concepts (referred to as “elaborative rehearsal”) in order to encode them at a
deeper level in memory (as opposed to mindlessly memorizing definitions or only skimming
material) is then discussed. Students are asked their ideas about ways in which they can
engage in elaborative rehearsal. Many of the hands-on activities described herein are, in fact,
such methods.
• The serial position effect is the tendency to remember more items from the beginning and end
of a list and fewer items from the middle. This is demonstrated by simply reading a list of
words to students and then asking them to write down all the words they remember. The
words remembered tends to fit the pattern dictated by the serial position effect. The ensuing
class discussion is focused on the cognitive processes involved in why this pattern occurs.
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