Comparative Study of Object Based Working Memory Between Older and Younger Adults.

Comparative study of object based working memory between older and younger adults.

Abstract

The aim of this experiment was to determine if there is a significant decline in, the object-based memory portion of, Working Memory in older adults compared to younger adults. Two groups of 60 participants, one of younger adults of age 18-29 and one of older adults of age 60-88. They completed a digit span forward, backward and addition test to compare working memory and a comparison was completed. The results found that both groups performed the same for the digit-span forward, younger adults performed better at the digit-span backward and older adults performed better at the digit-span addition. This made making a single conclusion very tough because the hypothesis that, younger adults would perform better at all except the forward test, was partially opposed. This means that there isn’t a single model that can be used for aging affects in working memory.

Comparative study of object based working memory between older and younger adults.

Working memory (WM) is believed to be the system of the central nervous system that allows for temporary storage and manipulation of information (Baddeley A, 1992). This information is then used for learning and language understanding, among others. As humans get older there is an obvious cognitive decline. Working memory is an extension of Short Term Memory (STM) which is just storage over a short period. Working memory comes into the equation when you have to manipulate the information (Hambrick, D. and Engle R., 2002). A digit-span test is a great way of testing object-based memory. A digit-span test comprises being told, or seeing, a sequence of numbers and then recalling them in order, or in reverse order.

The decline in aspects of WM, as age increases, is a debatable topic with various experiments being completed and repeated to test if the hypotheses and results were correct. As...