Neuroscience For Kids

Memory Experiments

Here are some experiments
and
games to test your memory. Also, don’t forget that there are some memory
tricks and techniques at the end of this section!

On-line Short Term Memory Games

Grades K-12

Think you have a good memory? Then take this little Short Term Memory Test. Also, test your memory for
pictures with this Short Term Memory Picture
Game

On-line “Simon Says” Memory Games

Grades K-12

Simon says, “Play These Games!” to test your memory. Both SIMON games
require that your browser is “JAVA-enabled.”

Try Game 1 with and without sound.
Do you do better with the sound on or with the sound off?

Face Memory Test

Grades K-12

How good is your memory for faces? Find out with the Face Memory
Test.

There are two versions of the test:

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Grades K-6

Let’s test short term memory. Get a tray or a large
plate. (The kind of trays from the cafeteria work well). Put 10 to 20
objects on the tray, then cover them with a towel or cloth. Tell your
subjects that you have a number of objects on the tray and that you want
them to remember as many items as possible. Also tell them that they will
have only one minute to view them. Then take off the cover from the tray
and start timing one minute. After one minute, cover up the tray. Have
your subjects write down all the items that they can remember. Could they
remember all of the items? Are there any items that were forgotten by all
the subjects? Teach your subjects some of the memory techniques (see
below) and repeat the experiment.

Materials:

• Tray or plate
• 10-20 small items (like an eraser, pencil, coin, marble, etc.)
• Cloth or towel to cover the tray
• Paper and pencils for your subjects to write down what they
  remember

What’s Missing

Grades K-6

This experiment is a variation of the previous experiment to test short
term memory. Get your tray and items and cloth ready again. This time
have you subjects view the items for 1 minute. Then cover the tray again.
Without the subjects seeing, REMOVE 1 item from the tray. Show the tray
and remaining items to your subjects again. Ask them, “What is missing?”.
Can they guess what you removed?

• Try it again giving the subjects more time to view all the
  items.
• Try it with less time.
• Try it with more objects on the tray.
• Try it with fewer objects, but have your subject identify the missing
  object feeling the remaining objects without seeing them.
• Try it again, but this time remove 3-4 objects.

Materials:

• Tray or plate
• 10-20 small items (like an eraser, pencil, coin, marble, etc.)
• Cloth or towel to cover the tray

Who’s Missing

Grades K-6

Think you know your classmates? Let’s see how good your memory for
them
really is. Have one student leave the room. While this student is out of
the room, have another student hide. Then bring the first student back
into the room. Can this student name the student who is missing?

Materials:

• None

Classroom Mix-up

Grades K-6

This game is a bit like “Who’s Missing”. This time a few students or
the
whole class can test their memory at the same time. Tell everyone to take
a good look around the classroom. Ask them to remember where objects are
located in the room. Then send a few students out of the room while you
change the location of various objects in the class. You could also do
this while the students are at recess or lunch. When the students come
back into the classroom, ask them to write down all of the things that
have changed. Make sure you keep a list of all the
things that you have changed!

Materials:

• None

Everyday Memory

Grades 3-12

Go to the
Exploratorium to see if you remember what this common everyday object
really looks like. What can it be? What can it be?

This experiment is based on a study by Nickerson, R.S. and Adams, M.J.
titled “Long-term memory for a common object,” Cognitive
Psychology, 11:297-307, 1979.

Eyewitness Game

Grades 3-12

Have you ever been an eyewitness to a crime? Is your memory of the
crime
the same as other people’s recollection? Here is a way to explore
eyewitness memory. Plan to have someone (a teacher or a student) come
into your class. Let’s call this person, “X”. X should plan on doing
several things in class such as:

• Change the time on the clock
• Take a book and put it in a bag
• Erase the chalkboard
• Close a window
• Talk to someone

Before X comes into the room, have all of the students working or
reading at their desks. When X comes into the room, most of the students
will be curious about what he or she is doing. After X leaves the room,
have the students write down all the things that happened. (You can do
this immediately after X leaves or sometime later). Once everyone has
finished writing, find out what everyone remembers and what they
did not.

What details do they recall? What did X wear? How long was X in the
room? What book did X take? Who did X talk to? What did X say? You may
even ask some leading questions to influence memory. For example, if X
was not wearing a hat, ask, “What color hat was X wearing?”.
Compare how everyone’s memory was the same and different.

Materials:

• None

False Memories

Grades 3-12

Sometimes your brain makes up its own memories. Try to “implant” a
memory by asking people to remember the words on list 1. Wait about five
minutes, then probe their memory by asking them which words on list 2 they
remember.

List 1: read, pages, letters, school, study, reading, stories, sheets,
cover, pen, pencil, magazine, paper, words

List 2: house, pencil, apple, shoe, book, flag, rock, train, ocean,
hill, music, water, glass, school

Did they say that “book” was on list 1? Only pencil and school were on
list 1.

Try these words:

List 1: sheets, pillow, mattress, blanket, comfortable, room, dream,
lay, chair, rest, tired, night, dark, time

List 2: door, tree, eye, song, pillow, juice, orange, radio, rain,
car, sleep, cat, dream, eat

Did they say that “sleep” was on list 1? Only pillow and dream were on
list 1.

Make up your own lists and see if you can create a false memory.

Materials:

• None

Concentration

Grades K-12

Have you played the “game of concentration?”
Get a deck of playing cards (cards with pictures work well too). Get 15
matched pairs
of cards…so a total of 30 cards.
Mix up the 30 cards and then arrange them FACE DOWN in a 6 by 5 grid.
Play starts by having one player turn over 2 cards. If the number or
picture of the 2 cards is the same, the player picks up these 2 cards and
turns over 2 more. If the 2 cards are not the same, the cards are turned
back face down in the same place they were and it is the next player’s
turn. The object of the game is to remember where similar cards are
located and to pick up as many pairs as possible. The winner of the game
is the one who has the most cards at the end of the game. To make the
game more difficult, use the whole deck of cards (26 matched pairs).

Materials:

• Deck of playing cards

On-line Brain Concentration Game and Sensory Concentration
Game

Grades K-12

Test your memory with this on-line concentration game by locating the
matching brains of different animals and matching the senses. These games
require that your browser is “JAVA-enabled.”

PLAY BRAIN CONCENTRATION

PLAY SENSORY CONCENTRATION

The Memory Game

Grades 3-12

How good is your memory? I will present you with a table of 25
different objects. Look at them for 30 seconds, then close the object
window to return to this page. Then write down all the
objects that you can remember.

Here are the 25
objects.

How did you do? How many did you remember? Try some of the memory
techniques (see below) and see if you do better.

Materials:

• Pencil (or pen) and paper
• Stopwatch

There’s a Chunk

Grades 3-12

Does this chunking really work? Find out. Get a partner. Tell your
partner that you are going to read some numbers and you want him or her to
remember as many as possible. Don’t tell your partner how many numbers or
what range they will be in. Read these numbers in the following order at a
rate of about 1 every second:

9 1 5 11 2 4 6 15 10 3 7 13 12 8
14

Immediately ask your partner to write down the numbers he or she
remembers. Now tell your partner that you will read another set of
numbers and you want him or her to remember them. Read these numbers in
the following order at a rate of about 1 every second:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Immediately ask your partner to write down the numbers he or she
remembers. Was the second time easier? Did your partner remember more
numbers the second time? Both sets of numbers are exactly the same…it
is just that the second one can really be “chunked” into 1…one series of
numbers that is easy to remember.

More memory tricks
and mnemonics from “Mind
Tools”

A Trip to Memory Market

Grades K-6

Write a story about a trip to the grocery store. In the story include
many food items (10-20 items) that you bought. Read your story to the
class and see how many items they can remember. Use the memory tricks and
tips (see below) to increase the number of items that can be
remembered.

Materials:

• None

Phone It!

Grades K-6

Look up a random phone number in the phone book. Take about one minute
to memorize the phone number. Can you remember it 5 minutes later? 1
hour later? 6 hours later? The next day?

Materials:

• Phone book

Grocery Store

Grades K-6

Here is another grocery store game, called “Grocery Store” how
original).

Get everyone together. The first player starts the grocery list by
saying “I went to the grocery story and bought some ____.” The player
should fill in the blank with an item from the grocery store. For
example, the player could say “I went to the grocery story and bought some
apples.” The next player must repeat the list and add a second item. For
example, the second player can say, “I went to the grocery store and
bought some apples and a bag of potato chips.” The third player must
create a list using apples, bag of chips and add a third item. The game
continues until someone forgets one of the items.

Materials:

• None

Now or Later – The “Recency/Primary” Effect

Grades 6-12

Here is a memory experiment that requires a group of subjects to test.
Get 5 or more friends to serve as your experimental subjects. Tell them
that you will read a list of 20 words and that their job is to remember as
many of the words as possible. Read the following list of 20 words at a
rate of 1 word every second. Ask your subjects to write down the words
that they can remember immediately after you finish reading the list.

Here is the list of words:

cat apple ball tree square head house door box car king hammer milk
fish book tape arrow flower key shoe

Now analyze the results of
your memory study. You can collect the lists of words that your subjects
wrote or you can just ask them which words that they remembered.

• Find out if there was better recall of any particular words on your
  list.
• Was there better recall of words that were read first or last?

To do this assign a “position” to each word that you read. So, “cat”
was word #1, apple was word #2, ball was word #3,….,shoe was word #20.
Calculate the percent of recall for each word. For example, if you had 10
subjects and 7 of them remembered the word “cat”, then “cat” (word #1) had
a percent recall of 70%. Calculate the percent of recall for each of the
20 words.

Now plot your results: the X-axis will be word position and the Y-axis
will be % recall. Do you see a pattern? Does is look anything at all
like this figure?:

The results of this kind of experiment usually result in a graph
similar to this one. This kind of graph is called a “serial-position
curve.” Words read first and words read last are remembered better than
words read in the middle of a list.

This type of experiment provides evidence that there are 2 types of
memory processes. It is thought that memory is good for the words read
last because they are still in short term memory – this is the recency
effect. Memory is good for the words read first because they made it into
long term memory – this is the primacy effect.

It is also possible that some words in the list were very easy to
recall for other reasons. For example, if your teacher just dropped a
hammer on his or her toe, then everyone may find that the word “hammer”
was easy to remember. Or perhaps, the last name of someone in the group
of subjects is “King”, then everyone would remember the word “king”.

You can try this experiment again with a slight twist. Ask a new set
of subjects to remember the same set of words. However, immediately after
you finish reading the list, DISTRACT your subjects by having them count
backwards from 100 by threes (100, 97, 94, 91, etc) for about 15-30
seconds. Plot your serial position curve again. Do you see any changes?
Usually, distraction causes people to forget the words at the end of the
list. Did it happen to your subjects?

A Head for Numbers

Grades 1-12

Can you remember a long string of numbers? Try this game with a group
of people. The first person says a one digit number; the next person says
this first number and adds another number; the third person says the first
and second numbers and adds a third number; the fourth person repeats the
first three numbers and adds a fourth number. The game continues until
someone forgets one of the numbers in the string. Of course, one person
needs to be the recorder who keeps track of the numbers and stops the game
when a number is forgotten.

Concrete Words, Abstract Words and Just Plain
Nonsense

Grades 6-12

The ability to recall a word depends on how meaningful the word is to a
person. Along with the meaningfulness of a word, the “concreteness” of a
word is important for memory. Concreteness refers the ability of a word
to form a mental image. A word with high concreteness is easy to “see”; a
word with low concreteness (an “abstract” word) is difficult to
visualize.

Here are three lists of words: concrete words, abstract words and
nonsense words. See which list is easier to memorize. You could also
read these lists to other people to see how many words from each list they
remember.

Concrete Words

alligator – apple – arrow – baby – bird – book – butterfly – car – corn
– flower – hammer – house – money – microscope – ocean – pencil – rock –
shoes – table – window

Abstract Words

anger – belief – boredom – chance – concept –
effort – fate – freedom – glory – happiness – honor
– hope – idea – interest – knowledge – mercy
– mood – moral – theory – truth

Nonsense Words

ator – botam – crov – difim – firap
– glimoc – ricul- hilnim – jolib – kepwin –
leptav – lumal – mib – natpem – peyrim –
rispaw – stiwin – tubiv – vopec – yapib

The concrete words and abstract words were scored as
having high and low concreteness, respectively, in a paper by A. Paivio,
J.C. Yuille and S.A. Madigan, Concreteness, imagery, and meaningfulness
values for 925 nouns, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Monograph
Suppl., vol. 76, no.1, part 2, pages 1-25, 1968.

Memory Methods and Techniques

After you learn some of these methods, try to memorize a list of words.
See if you can remember the list the next day. How many can you remember
the next week!

Technique 1: Visualize It! – Visualization

When you have an item to remember, “see” it in your
mind. The more absurd you make the image the more likely you are to
remember it. For example, if you go to the mall and park the car
on the level C in space #5, you might imagine that there are 5 Cats
waiting in your car for your return. The Cats is for the level “C”; the
5 of course is for the space #5.

Technique 2: Chain It! – Chaining

Chaining is a form of visualizing, but now you might have to remember
several items in order. This time you must link the items together by
thinking of images that connect them. While a grocery list does not
necessarily have to be remembered in order (although it sometimes helps to
find things faster), let’s use it as an example: milk, bread, eggs,
cheese, orange juice. Now, chain them with images:

• A carton of milk pouring onto bread.
• A sandwich (the bread) with raw eggs on it.
• Eggs stuck in the holes of a Swiss cheese.
• Pieces of cheese hanging from an orange tree.

TRY IT!

Here is a longer list of words to try:

shoe – piano – tree – pencil – bird – bus – book – dog – pizza –
flower –
basketball – door – TV – rabbit – spoon – eye – chair – house – computer –
rock

You may find that bizarre and wild associations are easy to remember.
Here is an example of chaining for the first three words (shoe – piano –
tree) of this list.

Technique 3: Place It! – The Method of Loci

Location, Location, Location. Devised during the Roman Empire, the
method
of loci uses the chaining method with a twist. Now all the items
to-be-remembered are linked to specific places in the order you would
visit them. For example, you might think of the route you take to
school:

• Your room (you wake up)
• Your kitchen (you have breakfast)
• Front door of your house
• Bus stop
• Bus seat
• Friend’s house that you see from the bus
• Gas Station that you see from the bus
• Market that you see from the bus
• School

Now you must link the items that you want remembered to each of these
places. You have to remember the places first, of course, but this should
be easy. Then chain each item to the places…remember, the more wild
your idea the better. Using the
grocery store example again: milk pouring on you in your room, bread
that you can’t get out of the toaster (kitchen), eggs splattered on your
front door, etc.

Technique 4: Chunk It! – Chunking

Ever wonder why phone numbers are really one 3 digit number and one 4
digit number and NOT one 7 digit number. It’s 999-9999, not 9999999.
Or what about those social security numbers. It’s 999-99-9999, not
999999999. They are a lot easy to remember in small chunks.
Remembering things is easier when they are in pieces.

Technique 5: Acrostic It! – Those Catchy Phrases

An acrostic is a phrase that uses the first letter of a word to
remember
it. In neuroanatomy, one of the most familiar ones is:

On Old Olympus Towering Top A Famous Vocal German Viewed Some Hops.

“What does this mean”, you ask. Well, the first letters of each of
these words in this little phrase stand for the first letters of each of
the cranial nerves, in order:

Olfactory nerve (I), Optic nerve (II), Oculomotor nerve (III),
Trochlear nerve (IV), Trigeminal nerve (V), Abducens nerve (VI), Facial
nerve (VII), Vestibulocochlear (VIII), Glossopharyngeal nerve (IX), Vagus
nerve (X), Spinal accessory nerve (XI), Hypoglossal nerve (XII).

Here’s another one:

My Very Early Morning Jam Sandwich Usually Nauseates People

OR

My Very Excellent Mom Just Served Us Nine
Pizzas

These two phrases represent the order of planets from the Sun:

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto

One last one…do you know the order of colors in a rainbow? Just
remember this person’s name: Roy G. Biv

R=red; O=orange Y=yellow G=green B=blue; I=indigo V=violet

Learning

Simply “A-maze-ing”

Grades K-6

Let’s see if we can demonstrate some fast learning.

Print out (or download) any of these mazes:

(Click on the maze, then “save” the big maze or just print it out). Get
at least 3 copies of each maze. When you have the maze, have a friend
keep track of the amount of time it takes you to complete the maze…go
from “START” to “FINISH” on the maze. Record the amount of time it takes
you. Then, do the SAME maze over again on a new copy of the
same maze. Record the amount of time it takes you to
complete it. Then do it a third time and even a fourth time if you want.
Does it take you less time to complete the maze on the second, third and
fourth time? I hope so…you are learning!! By the way, you could do
this same experiment with a jigsaw puzzle.

Materials:

• Maze 1
• Maze 2
• Maze 3
• A stopwatch or clock with a second hand
• Pencil and paper to record times

The Space Place

Grades 3-12

This experiment involves BOTH memory and learning. Get a small object
like a ball, book, block or even a crumpled up piece of paper. Put a
blindfold on your subject. Place the small object on the floor about 10
feet away from your subject, but don’t tell your subject where it is.
Tell your subject that he or she must find the object on the floor when
you say “GO”. When you do say “GO”, start a stopwatch and measure the
amount of time it takes your subject to find the object. Don’t let your
subject get too far away from the object and don’t let your subject bump
into anything dangerous, but let your subject find the object without too
much help. Once your subject has found the object, stop the stopwatch and
record the amount of time it took to find the object.

Repeat your experiment with the same subject. Bring your subject back
to the exact same spot where you started and place the object in the exact
same spot as it was the first time. Say, “GO” and start your stopwatch
again. Did your subject take less time to find the object? You may want
to repeat the test several more times and plot the amount of time it took
to find the object for the different times you ran the test. Do you see a
decrease in the amount of time to find the object in later tests? What
would happen if you tested the same subject the next day?

Materials:

• Small object (such as a ball or book)
• A stopwatch or clock with a second hand
• Pencil and paper to record times

Concentration Game – Learning

Grades 3-12

Have one person (the “setter”) set up matched pairs of playing card
like in the concentration game. Have this person “map” where each of the
cards was located at the start of the game. Have another person (the
player) play the concentration game as fast as he can. Time how long it
takes the player to finish the game. Record the time. Have the setter,
use the map and place the cards back in their original positions. So the
cards will be in exactly the same locations for the second game. Have the
player match the cards again and record the time. Reset the cards and
play again. Play a few more times…does the time it takes to finish the
game get shorter?

Materials:

• Deck of playing cards
• Stopwatch

Shape Up!

Grades 3-12

Have you ever wondered how they train animals to do tricks in the
circus or on TV? One way that trainers teach animals to learn new things
is through a method called shaping. This
technique involves reinforcing each behavior that looks like the final act
you want. In other words, the trainer gives the animal a treat each time
the animal does something that looks like the final behavior.

Now it’s your turn to shape a friend. First, get a collection of
“treats”…these could be little candies or pennies or buttons. Without
telling your friend the exact behavior you would like to see, just say
that you will give him or her a treat when they do the right thing. The
FINAL right thing may be to turn off a light or pick up a pencil or open a
book.

Let’s say the final behavior you are looking for is to have your friend
turn off a light. Start giving treats when your friend gets up. Give
another when your friend starts to walk. Give another one when your
friend gets close to the light. Give another when your friend touches
the light. Give another when your friend turns off the light. Do not
give treats for behaviors that are not related to turning off the
light.

You can shape almost any behavior as long as your friend is interested
in getting the treat.

Motor Learning

Grades 3-12

Use this easy-to-build device to test motor learning. It’s like the
old “operation” game. Follow the diagram below to build the wire maze.
Your wire maze must be a material that is electrically conductive. A coat
hanger works as long as it does not have any paint on it. Attach a loop
of a hanger to a wire, then attach the wire to the battery. Attach the
battery (9 volt) to the buzzer (or light) using wire. Attach the buzzer to
the wire maze using more wire.

Thread the loop of the metal hanger through the wire maze. Measure
the
time it takes to get from one end of the maze to the other. Also count the
number of errors (buzzes) during each trial. Go through the maze several
times and plot the amount of time and number of errors vs. the trial
number on a graph.

Materials:

• 9 Volt battery
• Buzzer or small DC powered light
• Hanger (for the maze and the loop)
• Wire (to create an electrical circuit)
• Wood Holder (or other material to hold the maze)
• Stopwatch

More Resources

• Memory:
  A five-day unit lesson plan for high school psychology teachers from the
  Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (American Psychological
  Association, 2013).

Copyright © 1996-2017, Eric H. Chudler All Rights
Reserved.