The Effects Of Stress On An Individual 's Memory Retrieval

This analysis persists of key points, about The article “Stress and the brain by Janet Elder”. The author forged an excellent informative piece to educate the reader on the effects of stress on the brain. The author states that “Stress can be both good and bad. It is part of life, and your brain and body respond to it”. The author clarifies that, "Whether stress is harmful or helpful depends on the amount of stress, how severe it is, and how long it lasts".

According to research, learning is negatively affected by cortisol. Cortisol is introduced when stress enters the system. Cortisol is a hindrance to learning because it directly prevents any new concepts to sink into the brain. Our brain reacts this way because the brain runs at a high speed. Therefore, Bergland states that,

The results of the studied showed that stress induced SP participants recalled fewer items on test 2 than non-stressed SP participants, whereas there was not a difference in the RP group. Memory impairment caused by stress only resulted in the SP group. In addition, the stressed RP participants showed the performed equally to the non-stressed RP implying that stress has no affect on memory when retrieval practice is used to learn material. The researchers also found that stress had no immediate effect on memory for either group of

Post -traumatic stress can affect learning due to difficulties with their memory and concentration. According to J. Douglas Bremner, “Recent studies have shown that victims of childhood abuse and combat veterans actually experience physical changes to the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as in the handling of stress. The hippocampus also works closely with the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that regulates our emotional response to fear and stress. PTSD sufferers often have impairments in one or both of these brain regions. Studies of children have found that these impairments can lead to problems with learning and academic achievement” (Bremner, n.d.).

The interference of the stress response with memory consolidation is what often leads to repression of memories or repression of details regarding traumatic experiences. Some individuals may forget significant details surrounding the traumatic event, while others may forget the entire experience (MentalHealthBlog)’’.

Smeets et al. (2006) studied acute psychosocial stressor and the corresponding cortisol levels to see the effect on source monitoring. In their research study, 82% of their subjects had a cortisol in response to their stressor. Like Buchanan and Tranel they split the subjects into high and low cortisol responder groups, 185% and 75% cortisol increases respectively. Despite the large difference in cortisol response, they found there was little to no change in results for the two groups. They had high performance in correct choices, low false alarms, and high recognition memory score. Stressed subjects showed superior performance in determining verbalized internal sources, recognition, telling distracters apart, and had less false alarms. There was not a significant difference in performance between low and high cortisol responders. So Smeets

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.

2011, pp. 28-29). The findings of the study show a strong “interaction” between stress and

Individuals remember best when facts and skills are embedded in natural, spatial memory, real life activity, and experimental learning (Donald, 2002). Interaction of the brain with the environment suggests that the more enriched the environment, the more enriched the brain (Gardner, 1991). An enriched environment can contribute up to 25% increase in the number of brain connection both early and later in life (Wolfe, 2001). According to Cram and Germinario, (2000) every single brain is totally unique (Cram & Germinario, 2000). Threat or high stress can alter and impair learning and even kill brain cells (Wolfe, 2001). Individual’s emotions drive their attention, memory, learning, health, and meaning and are

It is known that stress has a strong affect on individuals. A great deal of research has focused on how stress affects cognitive abilities. Sometimes the effect is impairment of ability to perform tasks within working memory (WM), which has received much less research. The current research proposes a study on how stress induced psychosocially affects college students abilities to perform an n-back WM task at both high and low loads. It is expected that stress will significantly impact performance on the task in both the low workload and high workload levels. Expected analysis will be a two-way ANOVA with planned comparison t tests. This research will advance current understanding on how WM is affected by stress and provide a basis for

Manic Depressive Disorder on Memory as it Relates to Romanticism and Existentialism: Restoration through Enlightenment

A memory foam mattress is a mattress made from visco elastic foam. The word visco means that it reacts to temperature much like molasses and so when you lie down on the mattress, your body temperature causes it to soften in the area under you. This provides unequaled support and pressure relief which encourages proper blood flow while you’re sleeping. The word elastic means capable of returning to it’s original shape after being deformed. When you lie down on your memory foam mattress, it gently conforms to the shape of your body. When you get up from your mattress, the memory foam returns to it’s former shape.

Situations in which the pressure is very high, your working memory may diminish. Brain power is almost lost when under a stressful situation, such as test taking. Working memory originates in the prefrontal cortex. Ways to better your working memory under stress can be to meditate or practice taking tests under stressful circumstances. Also, it is proven that chewing a certain flavor of gum while studying specific material and then chewing the same flavor of gum while taking a test on that material, showed significantly higher test scores. Finding a way to “close the gap between practice and performance” (Harms, 2010) will greatly benefit you when performing in certain

Adequate respite between the study time will help building up the memory synapse and facilitate memorization. Without cramping all the stuff together will reduce the stress build up. Another important way to manage my stress is to get good quality sleep. During State three and four deep sleep, the stress response is turned off. It is not so much of quantity of sleep, but the quality of sleep that counts.

There has been research on performance and stress from the work of psychologists Robert Yerkes and J.D. Dodson. In 1908, they came up with the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which says performance increases as pressure increases (pp. 1). They said stress-related hormones actually improve concentration. The improvement in concentration