FACTORS THAT AFFECT MEMORY 1

How to improve short-term memory?

Nathadol Jomsiriwattana
Mahidol University Demonstration School
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Abstract
This paper focus on how to improve our short-term memory. Difference of age,
gender, and even food behavior were compared. Two methods were used to collect data for
this research. A survey was given out to participants (N = 23) at many public places in Siam
which has questions about their gender, age, alcohol/food behavior, and also the test about
their memory. In addition, observation was also conducted on participants (N = 26) while
they were taking the survey by focusing on their behavior. A little bit alcohol consumption
was found that it help improve memory. Vegetable are also tend to help improve memory.
Man and woman are also found that their brain tend to work differently.
Introduction
Brain, Many people know what it is, how important it is but how many people know
how brain work. Brain is the most important organelle in body because it is the only
organelle which control every parts of body. It decide us to be genius or fool, decide us to
success or fail. If we know how brain work or the trick to use it, we might could to choose to
be the next Einstein or Hawking. But the main problem is brain is also the most complex and
complicate organelle in our body then until now there is no scientist can exactly explain the
function of brain even though they have many advance and modern technology. This research
is attempt to find the factor that affect the brain and then that information might be used for
improving the brains ability in future.
Literature review
Short-term memory
In daily life when you memory things, it is usually remember in the short-term
memory then it is quite important to know some information about short-term memory.
Indiana University gave some definition about short-term memory that short-term memory is
the smallest part of memory which hold not too much information but very important because
people use it every moment (para. 1). McLeod (2009) reported that only about 7 items you
can remember in a time (line 2). Rogers (2008) mentioned that women tend to have
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advantage in recalling the phrase or word and men tend to have advantage in recalling the
picture (para. 3).
How memory is stored
The memory is very important for us in daily life. Everyone has to remember many
things at every time, but how many people actually know how it work, how your brain is
working. If you know that information, you can control your brain working. McLeod (2009)
has researched that data which normal people remember will primarily be translated into
sound before it comes in their brain (line 4). Phyblog (2012) reported that our memory in
your brain will not decay (para. 4). They also confirmed that people can forget something by
unable to recall your memory which is in their brain. They suggested that if people try hard,
they can still recall your lost memory (para. 13). They also warned that people can forgot that
they forgot something (para. 23).
Factors that affect memory
To know how to make your brain work more effectively, you need to know what the
factors that affects your brain function are. According to Smith (2014), age and memory are
not much related because there are Neuroplasticity which is chemical substance for helping
the old people to remember (para. 2). Phyblog (2012) also got research that the ability to
analyze is conflict to the ability to remember (para. 29).Smith (2014) confirmed that most of
healthy people have good memory (para. 3). Prof. Hanson (2013) also came out with very
surprise result that alcohol can improve your brain ability (para. 2).
Technique for remember
One of the biggest problem about memory is people cannot remember or forget
something. Then there are the several technique for people to remember something well.
According to Nelson (2011), there are three effective ways for remember some digits or
items. The first one is making the picture of the thing people wish to remember, the second
one is creating the relation of each items to make a story and the last one is finding the
relations of the first letter of each word which people would like to remember.

Methods
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Survey
A survey was conducted on every age and gender customers at True Coffee in Digital
Gateway on Saturday of 29
th
March 2014, students at MUIDS in Nakhonpathom on Friday of
4
th
April 2014, and customers at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Siam Center on Tuesday of
15
th
April 2014. Anybody of this place who appeared were asked to take this survey and
because this survey took quite a lot of time, participants first need to be checked that they had
enough time. Participants were asked questions about their demographics and took some quiz
about short-term memory test.
Observation
A observation was conducted on every age and gender customers at True Coffee in
Digital Gateway on Saturday of 29
th
March 2014, students at MUIDS in Nakhonpathom on
Friday of 4
th
April 2014, and customers at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Siam Center on
Tuesday of 15
th
April 2014 same as survey. Anybody who did survey would get observed.
This observation is about the behavior or reaction of participant who did the test on survey.

Participants
Survey
A total of twenty-three participants were observed for this study. All participants were
chosen with randomly.
Observation
A total of twenty-six participants were surveyed for this study. All participants were
chosen with randomly.
Result

Survey: 25 respondents
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Gender & Age: There are more men (n=15) than women (n=11) in this survey, also
almost all of participants age are in range 8 to 40 years old (n=19) else (n=7) have age more
than 40 years old.


Alcohols behavior: Most of them (n=13) drink alcohol but not often and very few of
them (n=3) drink very often else (n=9) are not drink.








Figure 1: It tell us amount of participants age and gender.
Figure 2: It tell us how much alcohol participants usually have
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Type of food: Most of them (n=22) like to eat protein else (n=4) like to eat vegetable.


Score, comparing between the first and second quiz and the result were that both two
have same score.
Figure 3: It tell us what kind of food participants usually have
Figure 4: comparing 1st and 2nd score
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Figure 5: Comparing men and women 1st score
Figure 6: Comparing men and women 2nd score
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Figure 7: Comparing how drinking affect 1st score
Figure 8: Comparing how drinking affect 2nd score
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Observation: 22 respondents

Behavior & Time











Behavior & Place

Figure 9: Comparing of many behavivor in different time (using this graph to eliminate the bias problems).
Figure 10: Comparing of many behavivor in different time (using this graph to eliminate the bias problems).
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Implication
The result of the survey & observation suggest many factors that affect the short-term
memory skill. For example; male have high standard deviation of tests score than female
(Some of them might got zero and some got full marks), too much alcohol do not help any
short-term memory skill but a bit alcohol can help. But one of the most unexpected result was
Figure 11: Comparing of many places and behavior (using this graph to eliminate the bias problems).
Figure 12:Comparing of many places and behavior (using this graph to eliminate the bias problems).
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that when you increase very few of sound surrounding you, your strain would increase very
huge amount. Another surprise thing was they were only four people who like to eat
vegetable and two of them got full mark in second test, only three people can get full mark in
second test. From these both survey and observation still cannot generalized at this time
because it is still very small sample size and there are some bias such as the age, gender,
alcohols behavior.
Limitations
They were some limitations found in this survey. First of all is about sample size, this
survey has quite few sample size, about only 26 respondents, then when some answers were
changed a little bit, the percentage may change quite a lot. Second thing is bias, almost all of
participants like to eat protein (84.5%) and other choose to eat vegetable and that is one kind
of bias. The other bias is the time that observations were observed, almost all of observations
were taken at noon. The other problem was participants were dishonest, they cheated while
taking the test on survey or some participants did not really understand instruction of how to
do test in survey.
Conclusion
The purpose of this research is to improve the ability of brain function, especially for
short-term memory. Even though there were only small sample size, it also provide many
quality information. For instance, alcohol tend to improve brain ability as long as it is not too
much, vegetable tend to help improve brain ability, human tend to forget something in which
seen in daily life. For suggestion, if there were more sample size, this research would be
much better.

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References
Rogers, K. (2008, Feb 27). Who Have Better Memories: Men or Women?. Retrieved from
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/02/who-has-a-better-memory-man-or-woman/

Psyblog (2012, Oct 31). How Memory Works: 10 Things Most People Get Wrong. Retrieved
from http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/10/how-memory-works-10-things-most-people-
get-wrong.php

Hanson, J. D., Professor Emeritus (2013). Alcohol problem and solution. Retrieved from
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AboutYourHost.html#.UzOwavl_uyV

McLeod, S. (2009). Short Term Memory. Retrieved from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/short-term-memory.html

Smith, M., M.A., and Robinson, L. (2014, Feb). How to Improve Your Memory. Retrieved
from http://www.helpguide.org/life/improving_memory.htm

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Appendix A

Survey