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Quiz Whiz
How does the age of a person
affect the ability to recall information?
Brenna Schattenkerk
Mrs. Kerlee
Period 2
3/31/16
Special Thanks
Thanks to my parents Wayne and Shirley Schattenkerk for helping me on every step of
the way. Also thanks to my brothers Jared and Connor Schattenkerk for helping me if I ever had
a problem. Another thanks to Jessica Krall for helping me come up with my project name. A
huge thanks to Connor Schattenkerk, Wayne Schattenkerk, and Jackson Scheibner for being my
test subjects. And also thank you to all the people who peer edited all my work, I couldn’t have
done it without you.
Table of Contents
Field Introduction………………………………………………………………………...Page 1
Experiment Introduction…………………………………………………………….……Page 2
Materials List……………………………………………………………………………. Page 4
Procedure…………………………………………………………………………………Page 5-6
Data Table………………………………………………………………………………...Page 7
Observations……………………………………………………………………….….... Page 8
Graph………………………………………………………………………………..…...Page 9
Experiment Conclusion……………………………………………………………….... Page 10
Engineering & Design…………………………………………………………………... Page 11
Work Values……………………………………………………………………………. Page 12
Personal Reflection……………………………………………………………………...Page 13
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………. Page 14
Field Introduction
Neurology is the study of the nervous system and disorders affecting the nervous system.
I chose this field because I am very interested in the brain and how it works. A neurologist
makes about $180,000 - $183,000 per year. Having an undergraduate major in biology,
chemistry, or physics will give you a better chance in graduating medical school. You must pass
a multiple choice exam to get a certificate from the ABPN which gives you a better chance of
getting a job because most jobs prefer that you are certified by the board. If you are a neurologist
you can work in clinics, hospitals, doing research and etc.
Specific Experiment Introduction
The investigative question that is being asked is: How does the age of a person affect
their ability to recall information? The hypothesis being made is if the age is increased then the
ability to recall information will decrease because the older a person gets the more difficulties
that occur while processing information and storing the information into the hippocampus. This
experiment will give information on how age can affect how well and how much information
people can remember. For this experiment, understanding how and why age can affect memory
is very important.
For this experiment, we are testing
how memory can be affected by age. There
are three types of memory, sensory memory,
short-term memory, and long-term memory.
Sensory and short-term memory are things
you remember when they first happen and
SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1This diagram shows
can only hold about 4-7 memories in each
how the different types of memories progress
type. These memories
be very vague after a while or even be altered after a period of time
and can
work
Picture
Creditsmemories
– Candelatypically
Learningfade quickly after the memory happens.
has passed.
Sensory
When sleep happens, the hippocampus goes through all of the memories of that day and
processes some of them into long-term memory where they are stored in the hippocampus, or a
person’s long-term memory. The long-term memory uses up a larger part of the brain which
enables the hippocampus to hold and store more memories. Long-term memory can hold
memories all the way back to childhood.
As a person ages, the brain is very vulnerable, especially the hippocampus. The
hippocampus loses about twenty percent of the nerve cells by the age of eighty. That causes the
brain to shrink which makes turning shortterm memories into long term memories
harder. When people are younger, cells
SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 22 This picture
shows how the older
the brain gets, the smaller the brain grows.
Picture Credits – Brandeis University
keep making stronger connections with
each other. When people grow older
their cell connection slowly decreases
and cells begin to weaken which causes retrieving information and memories to become more
difficult tasks. One theory why the ability to recall information slows down as a person gets
older is that major cell loss in the front part of the brain causes a drop in the production of
acetylcholine which is neurotransmitter important to learning.
Materials List
·
A quiz that tests your memory on Beyoncé
·
A quiz that tests your memory on Stephen Curry
·
A quiz that tests your memory on Jaime King
·
A male 5-10 years old
·
A male teenager or young adult 16-25 years old
·
A male adult 35-60 years old
·
A 5 star notebook to take notes
·
Sharpened Ticonderoga pencils
·
Information on Beyoncé
·
Information on Stephen Curry
·
Information on Jaime King
·
A iPhone to use as a Timer
Procedure
Safety Step: Make sure that you quiz people you know, not strangers that you do not.
1. Get (or make) a test/quiz that tests your cognitive ability on Beyoncé.
2. Collect 3 males, one 5-10 years old, one 16-25 years old, and one 35-60 years
3. Sit down the child under 10 years old. Read a script that has information about Beyoncé
and her life, career, and success. (As seen in Fig. 1)
4. When you are done reading wait 15 minutes for them to take the test.
5. After 15 minutes quickly read over the information again and then give them the quiz.
6. When they are done with the quiz take it away and grade it. Any questions they did not
complete mark wrong. (As seen in Fig. 2)
7. Find the percentage.
8. Repeat steps 3-6 but with the young adult.
9. Repeat steps 3-6 but with the adult.
10. Repeat steps 1-9 but with information on Stephen Curry. Make sure there is the same
amount of information.
11. Repeat steps 1-9 but with information on Jaime King. Make sure there is the same
amount of information.
Data Table
How does the age of a person affect their ability to recall information?
Age of a person (Years)
Quiz Score (Percentage)
Levels of IV
Trial 1
Trial 2 Trial 3
Average
9 Years old
15%
40%
25%
26.6%
18 Years old
75%
70%
45%
63.3%
53 Years old
70%
70%
55%
65%
Observations
Experimental Set-Up
● One observation during the experimental set-up was that it is very hard to
rely on people. When you have dates that you need to get things done by
and you have to rely on other people do be able to get it in by that date, it
can be a struggle and frustrating too.
Performing The Experiment
● One observation that was greatly noted was that the nine year-old had a
very short attention span which is to be expected of a child. It becomes
harder to quiz someone when it is clear they are not paying attention.
Measurement of the DV
● One observation for measuring the DV is that it is much harder to grade a
paper than someone would expect. It was hard to decide tricky answers
like if the correct answer is L.A., CA and their answer is California, is that
a half point off for at least getting California correct or should it be a full
point off.
Graph
Experiment Conclusion
The purpose of this experiment is how does the age of a person affect their ability to
recall information. My hypothesis was if the age is increased then the ability to recall
information will decrease because the older a person gets the more difficulties that occur while
processing information and storing the information into the hippocampus. My hypothesis was
not supported by the outcome. The data shows the older the person the higher the percentage of
quiz score. The nine year-old scored an average of 26.6% on the quiz, while the fifty-three yearold scored an average of 65% on the quiz. The fifty-three year-old scored an average of 38.4%
higher than the nine year-old.
One observation that might have impacted the data was that the nine year-old and the
eighteen year-old seemed to be less focused than the fifty-three-year-old. One reason for this
could be that younger kids and especially males have shorter attention spans than older people.
Another reason could be that maybe the younger child cared less about the quiz and was not as
worried about it and did not understand what was happening as well as the older adult who knew
this was for a scientific experiment. Lastly researchers have used MRI scanners to study both
children and adult brain activity. The found that children do not have the set brain regions than
adults do in their brain. This might mean adult brains are more organized then children brains.
Engineering & Design
To further improve this experiment instead of giving them three different quizzes and one
person you could do one quiz and three different people. This could help the experiment because
one person could be more intelligent than another and that could possibly make the data become
faulty. This could also help because it could accurately measure the average quiz score for a
person of that age.
For a future experimental design, you could test how does the hours of studying for a
quiz affect the quiz score. This could help because you could use this to help kids know at least
how long they should be studying for, a certain test or assessment. With this experiment design
and the old one you could approximately see what age of a person does the best when studying
for a certain amount of hours.
A real world application that can be connected to this experiment could be writing.
People usually write things down when they are writing a book because they know that their
memory is faulty and on average they will only remember about half of the book that they are
writing. Especially if they want to publish a book they need to make sure everything is just how
they remembered and not that they had to start all over again because they forgot the plot of their
book.
Work Values
1. Friendship: This means that I have a close relationship with the people I work with, so
that I enjoy going to work with my colleagues. For example, if I resented my boss and the
person I work next to then I wouldn’t be happy because I would hate being at work and
always be negative. With friendships I could laugh and have fun at work.
2. Creativity: This means that I can be creative and invent new ideas that may be able to
help others in the future. Without creativity I would be doing boring work that I do not
enjoy. With creativity I have the freedom to create new ideas and inventions.
3. Help Society: This means that I can help make the world a better place. Why waste time
on things that won’t help others or won’t even make an impact on others? I want to help
others and know that I am making a difference in the world.
Personal Reflection
For this project, I learned and studied the field of neurology. This field is the study of the
nervous system and disorders affecting it. After researching this field and conducting an
experiment related to it, I have learned about how memory works and how age can affect your
memory. One advantage of working as a scientist in this field is you get to learn all the different
disorders of the brain. It is an advantage because then you know how you can prevent brain
injury. One disadvantage of working as a scientist in this field is you have to rely on people. It is
a disadvantage because relying on people is not always easy and especially when you have a due
date.
I would choose this field of study in the future because it does match my work values.
The field does match my work values because I can make friendships with my co-workers and
also it will help society learn about brain disorders. I would like to work in this field because
every day you get to do something new and work on a new case.
Works Cited
"Age Associated Memory Impairment - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory." Age
Associated Memory Impairment - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory. N.p., n.d. Web. 19
Jan. 2016.
"Does Age Affect Memory?" Does Age Affect Memory? N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2016.
"Science Explains Why Your Memory Gets Worse As You Get Older." Lifehacker. N.p., n.d.
Web. 19 Jan. 2016.
"Study.com -." Study.com. Glossary of Career Education Programs, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.