Memory Loss In Memory

Memory problems are usually the most obvious symptom in people with dementia. For example, a person with early stages of dementia might go to the shops and then cannot remember what they wanted. It is also common to misplace objects. As dementia progresses, sometimes memory loss for recent events is severe and the person may appear to be living in the past. They may think of themselves as young and not recognise their true age.

Selective memory retrieval is research to try and recall events that occurred in your past life. In their studies, they used sixty-four participants between the age of (20-35) for the younger generation and for the 64 participants their age was over sixty. They then proceeded to show each group certain images to remember. Both groups showed a very poor retrieval to the images portrayed. For the most part, this initial test between the young and older ages was unsuccessful. Since, this experiment didn’t go as planned they came up with a new process. That process being to have a much wider group is participants. Having the participants between the age of (40-85) drastically changed the results of the experiment. Critically, the size of the beneficial but now the detrimental effect of retrieval decreased with age and this age-related decline was mediated by individuals working memory capacity, as measured by the complex operation span task. (Aslan, A., Schlichting, A., John, T., & Bauml, K. T., 2015) In this study it showed that there was an early decline in the older generation memory compared to the younger

There is nothing more remarkable, then understanding how longevity has increased through the years. Even more so, how some are aging gracefully in a cognitive sense. Can certain measures be taken in order to delay future decline in memory to progressive dementia? Most doctors recommend aging patients to read or complete word searches in an effort to keep the mind active for as long as possible. In Mary Ziegler’s book, Adult development & aging, she stated “Good healthy habits contribute to longevity” (Ziegler, 2014, para. 1).

However, an increased loss of memory, which impacts the personality by which the person becomes irritable, depressed, anxious, angry, delusional, paranoid, and has problems with speech, orientation, planning, and has an inability to carry out the normal activities of daily life must not be conceived of as a normal part of the aging process. Profound memory loss is an indication of Alzheimer disease, and it is not a manifestation of old age.

When the recent focus is mainly on studying memory decline that is caused by diseases, memory decline that occurs with normal aging is being disregarded. According to Daselaar and Cabeza, it is important to confine between normal age-related memory decline and the one that is caused by a disease, such as Alzheimer’s, so the person can be provided with the proper treatment at the right time (Daselaar and Cabeza 2008, 577). In my point of view, the main focus of these studies should be on episodic memory, because it is affected the most by aging in comparison to other long-term memory components such as semantic and implicit memory. Denice C. Park and her coworkers have shown in their research (2002) that as verbal knowledge increases across the life span, processing-intensive tasks start to decline since we are on our 20’s. These include for example long term memory, speed of processing, and short term memory; with long-term memory being significantly the most responsive to decline. Since long-term memory has been found to be the most sensitive to age-related cognitive changes, the onset time of this decline has been studied

The author of this article hypothesized that, as individuals grow older memory retention declines, however, not all characteristics of memory are weakened. This article is made up of three sections; Review of Empirical Findings, Aging and Memory: Theoretical Perspectives, and Aging and Memory: Neuropsychological Underpinnings. The first section will inform the reader by using examples that were used to study different parts of memory and conclusions that the researchers have agreed

This study was conducted on a college campus, where students are routinely expected to recall when tested on previous lecture material. As explained by Bartlett (1932), there is a difference in how memories are formed and retrieved. If the student has not committed the information to memory, it can easily be altered if there is pressure placed on the student to recall.


Salthouse, T.A. (2004). What and when of cognitive aging. Current Directions in 
 Psychological Science, 13, 140-144.

Students were an average of 20 years old with a standard deviation of 2.44. About 46.5 per cent of the participants were in their second year of university with a few students in their third or fourth year. Out of the 142 participants, 26 were female and 78 were male. Not all students reported their information, and as a result, there may be discrepancies. Since this experiment was a requirement for the Cognitive Psychology course, the participants were not specifically selected for the study.

Memory is a brain function that allows us to retain information and retrieve it when necessary (Nevid, p. 212). Considered as the storage of the past life, memory constitutes our internal biographies and defines who we are as human beings. Obviously, no one wants to experience memory loss. However, occasional memory failures are commonly seen in aging adults. This research paper, therefore, is devoted to understand what kinds of memory loss are associated with normal aging, why memory impairment is age-related, and what we can do to retain and improve our memory.

Right off the bat, I can tell you that it relates directly to the unit on biological sciences, as well as our developmental psychology unit. We all learned that some memory loss is normal as we age, almost everyone experiences it in some point in their life. That being said, there have been some rare instances where octogenarians, or people in their 80’s, retained better working memories than people in their 20’s (which is often associated as the peak of human mental capacity).

This type of Amnesia a person has brain trauma that has affected the hippocampus, the fornix which is located inside and continuing on the outside of both sides of the hippocampus or the mammillary bodies which are connected by a nerve path to the fornix. It can also temporarily be drug-induced, by alcohol intoxication, brain surgery, heart attack, concussion, shock and even an emotional disorder. This type of Amnesia affects the patient by not being able to store memories caused after the Amnesia for more than a few minutes. For example the patient is unable to remember the name of a person that he or she encountered 5 minutes ago. (healthline), (medindia), (wisegeek), (Human)

The Hippocampus may be weak for old P but it is stronger in some other places of the brain, for example, “older adults showed weaker activity than young adults in the hippocampus but stronger activity than young adults in the retrosplenial cortex.”(Avery) Many old people have a weak hippocampus but have a better retrosplenial cortex. Elderly may have a weak hippocampus but the retrosplenial Cortex is stronger than a young adult’s .Older people have worst recollection, for example, “The hippocampal reduction is consistent with age-related deficits in recollection.” (Avery)\Memory gets worse as aging goes on and aging will affect the hippocmapus. Older people have a weaker Hippocampus so that affects memory loss. Older people’s left temporal cortex is stronger than a young person’s Hippocampus, for example, “During incorrect recognition of critical lures (false memory), older adults displayed stronger activity than young adults in the left lateral temporal cortex.” (Avery) Younger people may have stronger activity in their hippocampus but older people showed stronger activity in their left temporal

The relevance of these results to both the sample population and previous theory’s and studies as mentioned in this introduction is quite significant. It is now more clearer when students recall information the most. This information may be used for teachers all around the world so they can get the most out of whom they may teach. The information conjured from this investigation also helps validate previous case studies, such as the Murdock experiment mentioned in the

About Mnemonics: Mnemonic devices are useful memory aids that can be applied to many different aspects of daily life. There are always certain tidbits of information that people just can’t seem to remember in the form they are presented. People rely on mnemonics when they create some association between that information they wish to remember and other concepts that they already know, or find easier to remember. The use of mnemonics has also been shown to be of significant value in the field of education. Manalo has shown that instruction using a specific type of mnemonics known as “process mnemonics” produced improvements of mathematical ability in students classified as learning disabled [3].Process mnemonics are used