Summary
The article purposed to investigate and develop a model of short-term memory (STM) that combined the measurement of short-term memory in both time span and word chunks. Traditionally, the short-term memory has been measured in terms of chunks, following a study conducted in 1956 by George Miller, he concluded his findings of the study in the article "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two". The findings of the study indicated that the capacity of short-term memory for individuals remained constant when measured in terms of chunks. However, over time, new studies have emerged which focus on the measurement of the short-term memory not only in terms of chunks, but also in terms of the short-term memory time span, and through the number of symbols that could be produced at the time span. The authors conducted this experiment because they needed to address the issue of what method is suitable for measuring the short-term memory capacity. The need to investigate the method was informed by the fact that the traditional chunk-based method of measuring Short-term memory disagrees with the new time-span method on which is the best approach to measure Short-term memory. The studies proposing the use of time span as the most appropriate method of measuring short-term memory provides that when assessing the short-term memory in terms of the spoken duration, the average short-term memory remains approximately two seconds. Consequently, instead of measuring short-term memory in terms of chunks, these studies have proposed measuring the short-term memory in terms of the symbols produced within the two seconds duration, as opposed to using chunks. Therefore, the hypothesis the authors were trying to prove is that a combined model of chunk-based and time-based measures of short-term memory can be created to reconcile the two diverse points of view on the appropriate method of measuring Short-term memory. The authors studied the possibility of creating a short-term memory model that harmonized the chunk and time-span views of short-term memory through conducting an experiment, which measured the short-term memory span for Chinese language using native Chinese subjects. The finding of the experiment with the Chinese subjects was then compared with the existing data of short-term memory span on the English language, paying attention to the key differences between the two languages. The experiment was conducted in six stages as experiment 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The experiment study 1 applied 12 native Chinese participants for the study, comprising of six scholars and six graduate students. Experiment 2, 3, 4, and 6 applied six Chinese scholars as the study subjects, while experiment 5 applied Chinese bilingual participants, comprising of 5 scholars, and one graduate student.
The role of the participants during the experiment study was to watch Chinese symbols forming characters from a projector slide, and then the participants were required to write down the sequence of the symbols that were seen in the correct sequence order. The role of the study participants in the study experiment 2 was to read cards presented by the researchers at a specified speed, and then write down the content of the card as read in the correct sequential order. Before beginning the trials, the participants were allowed five practice trials for each of the sequence of the symbols required to be written down. The role of the participants in experiment 3 was to read aloud the stimuli content of a card at a required speed, and then write down the sequence of the stimuli content in the correct sequential order. The role of participants in experiment 5 was to recite the sequential order of Chinese language materials presented orally, while the role of study participants in experiment 6 was to read aloud the Chinese language stimuli, and then write down the sequences in the correct order.
The results of the study indicated that the short-term memory is not constant either in terms of chunks or in terms of syllables but can be measured in terms of a weighted sum of the chunks and syllables. The results of the study also indicated that there exists a small component of visual and semantic short-term memory, which is capable of retaining between two and three chunks.
The study concluded that there is a possibility of creating a model that combines and harmonizes both the chunk-based and the time-based short-term memory points of view, that is measured through a weighted sum of the chunks and syllables. The study also concluded that the short-term memory for chunks that do not comprise of common and pronounceable names remains constant at only two or three items. The study closes on the fact that there were certain instances that short-term memory span was meditated by a factor other than the homophony which was evident in experiment five where the span of Chinese digits of Chinese subjects was substantially greater than the span of English digits of English subjects, even though they resolve the instance with the fact that it can be explained through the differences in reading rates for the two encoding of the digits.
Analysis
The findings of this study are important because they address the controversy existing between the traditional and the new method of measuring short-term memory. The findings of the study have indicated that indeed, it is possible to harmonize and reconcile the chunk-based and the time-span-based points of view on the measurement of STM, so that a combined model employing both is created. The importance of the findings of this study is that the study has disproved the initially existing traditional theory of short-term memory, which held that STM remains constant when measured in terms of chunks. The findings of this study have indicated that STM indeed varies greatly, based on the nature of the language chunks presented were in. For example, while the STM for pronounceable words is high, the STM for the non-pronounceable words remains low, at only 3 items. The relevance of these study findings is that the findings presents varied ways and methods of measuring and proving the extent of short-term memory, as opposed to the previously held tradition of chunk-based and time-based short-term memory measurements.
The other finding of the study, is that there is a difference between the short-term memory of the Chinese language materials and the English language materials. This finding relates to my own life and experience in learning, because I have always found the Chinese language more challenging than learning the English language, both in spoken and written forms. Yet learning the English language itself was not as difficult as the Chinese language, this was one of the main reasons I choose this article upon many others is because of its simplicity and relevancy with short term memory and the Chinese language, and it shows how psychological terms such as STM apply in cases which you wouldn't imagine and associate it with. Most significantly, I have observed that Chinese students tend to perform better in exams once they are able to learn the English language and become bilinguals. This observation has been explained by the findings of this study, which holds that the short-term memory for the English language is higher than that of the Chinese language. Consequently, once the Chinese students are able to learn and comprehend the English language, their capacity to retain material in their short-term memories becomes higher. The study has hypothesized that the possible explanation for the existence of the difference in short-term memory spans for the Chinese and the English language is because of the differences in the digit encoding and reading rates of the two languages. Therefore, it is possible that the Chinese students finds it easier to read and encode the English language, thus being able to perform better while in English-based schools.
The study is logical and presents all the experiments in a very systematic manner. Nevertheless, the manner in which the six different experiments are conducted is diverse in both structure and procedure, such that it becomes confusing to understand each step of the six experiments. The outcome is that although this study and its findings are meaningful in adding to the knowledge and understanding of the capacity of short-term memory, the study is very difficult to replicate step-by-step.
The importance of this study however, is that it has established the knowledge that the span of short-term memory is primarily informed by homophony. Therefore, both the chunk and time-span short-term memory capacities are influenced by the homophony of the language materials in question. The study is also important because it opens new avenues and areas for which further research studies can be conducted. For example, the study opens an opportunity for future study and investigation into the possible explanation for the existence of the difference in short-term memory spans for the Chinese and the English language stimuli. The study has concluded by hypothesizing that such differences occur because of the differences in the digit encoding and the reading rates of the two languages. This is a new area of research study on which future research studies should be focused. Additionally, the findings of the study have also created the need for a research study to investigate the nature of the relationship existing between short-term memory capacity and a student's educational performance, in my opinion this research would be very helpful for students in achieving better educational performance and even in other aspects of everyday life. My hypothesis in this case would be that there is a difference in the short-term memory capacity of the native Chinese and native English students. The difference in their memory capacities accounts for the perceived difference in higher educational performance of the bilingual Chinese students. Even though I don't fully believe that in general being a native Chinese speaker shows that your STM capacity is greater than the native English speaking student, in my belief there are many more factors towards perceiving higher educational performance even though in the context of the research it is true that native Chinese students do have better educational performance than the native English student due to the homophony of the language which then leads to a higher capacity of short-term memory.