How Short-Term Memory Compares at Ages
Introduction
Storage, encoding, and retrieval entail the three stages of memory. Memory storage forms include long-term memory, short-term memory, and sensory memory. The sensory memory enables a person to retain an impression of sensory data immediately after the cease of the primary stimulus (Oberauer, Lewandowsky, Awh, Brown, Conway, Cowan & Ma, 2018). Short-term memory, on the other hand, stores information for a short period and can hold onto seven items of data at once. Long-term memory holds information for longer periods. Therefore, short-term memory involves a brain system that stores and manages data temporarily needed to perform complex cognitive issues like reasoning, understanding, and learning. The memory helps in the initiation, selection, and termination of data-processing function s like storing, encoding, and retrieving information. The paper seeks to how short-term memory compares with age.
There is no available evidence to support the increased loss of memory among children aged between 0 and 15 years than among older individuals between the ages of 25 and 65 years old (Oberauer et al., 2018). Previous studies indicate similar retention of information among children aged 0 and 15 years. Among individuals aged 25, 45, and 65, the rate of retention of memories increases with age. Available evidence indicates that short-term memory among the ages of 25 and 45 increases because individuals could rehearse in between the retention interval hence generating an equal recall on each interval.
Consequently, studies indicate that increased retention intervals on various aspects show decrease retention of short-term memory among all ages; hence there exists no relationship between the retention intervals and age; hence rate of short-term memory loss remains independent of age (Schwarb, Nail & Schumacher, 2016). Moreover, the level of loss of short-term memory only differs among ages only when an individual encounters difficulty, but it remains constant under normal circumstances. Such occurrence shows data loss remains similar across each stated age. Displacement causes increased loss of short-term memory among the ages of 15 and below, unlike it does between the ages of 25, 45, and 65.
Evidence also suggests that the limitation of short-term memory based on the capacity of apprehension span among all ages remains similar despite children having a slower apprehension capacity in certain circumstances (Schwarb, Nail, & Schumacher, 2016). Children aged 15 years have a limited short-time memory compared to individuals aged 25, 45, and 65 years because they have lower rehearsal capability. In this case, adults from the age of 25, 45 and 65 have a higher ability to recall, rehearsal has remained as a time-dependent process, and a person would engage in rehearsal only if they find time remaining between presentations of the stimulus.
In circumstances where time remains available, the rehearsal process remains at the discretion of an individual. In this perspective, children aged 15 might abandon the process of rehearsal provided with appropriate circumstances (Oberauer et al., 2018). The children might not have obtained the decision rule regarding cues that enhance the rehearsal process. Another limitation of the short-term memory based on age is that children aged 15 have a lower short-term memory because they could only rehearse of the seven items in the brain separately, unlike people aged 25, 45 and 65 who have the ability to rehearse them accumulatively at once. Such illustration indicates that people age 25, 45, and 65 have a long short-term memory compared to children age between 0- and 15 years old.
In conclusion, there exists no evidence that shows a clear indication that short-time memory decreases with age. However, some circumstances indicate that short-time memory increases with age. Children aged 15 years have no potential to rehearse on the seven items within the short-term memory at once, like adults aged 25, 45, and 65 do.
References
Oberauer, K., Lewandowsky, S., Awh, E., Brown, G. D., Conway, A., Cowan, N., … & Ma, W. J. (2018). Benchmarks for models of short-term and working memory. Psychological Bulletin, 144(9), 885.
Schwarb, H., Nail, J., & Schumacher, E. H. (2016). Working memory training improves visual short-term memory capacity. Psychological Research, 80(1), 128-148.