My Subject's Recollection

With the opportunity to pick on somebody and test their memory, I choose to pick on my boyfriend, Ben. I should have known beforehand that it would come back to haunt me...

I read each list at a steady, rapid rate, hoping to successfully stump him. However, he successfully stumped me! No list I read stumped him, as he repeated back to me every list perfectly. Once, I even tried reading a long list really, REALLY fast in hopes he would not be able to recall the list, but I was unsuccessful.

As a livestock and meat judger, Ben has been memorizing numbers, letters and words nearly his entire life. He explained to me that his trick to memorization is to continually repeat the list in his head and continually add on to it. For example, as I was reading 8 7 0 3 1 4: in his mind, he was saying 8, 87, 870, 8703, 87031, 870413, continually adding the next part of the sequence to the end of what he had already memorized. It makes no sense to me that he can recall the lists I give him, but not a conversation from the day before

Since Ben pretty much ruined the experiment for me, I tried again with my sister and had much better luck!

Numbers
She successfully recalled the first 3 lists of numbers, but missed 3 and 2 numbers in the last 2 lists. The longer the list became, the harder it was for her to recall the numbers. When trying to remember the lists of numbers, she said it was easier if she lumped the number together in groups. For example, 870 314.

8 7 0 3 1 4...........................Recalled
7 1 5 0 5 4 3 6......................Recalled

2 1 6 6 8 7 2 5 4 5................Recalled
6 8 1 4 3 7 9 5 2 4 7 0..........6 8 1 4 3 7 _ _ _ 4 7 0

2 8 4 3 9 3 4 8 2 5 5 1..........2 8 4 3 9 3 _ _ 2 5 5 1

Letters
The same findings came about with the lists of letters...the first 3 she remembered successfully, the second to last list she missed 4, and the last list she recalled successfully. Even though the last list was still long, she was able to make words out of the letters that helped her recall it easier...LA BONNE MAISON.

T S Y L Q P...........................Recalled
C I M W O D X A....................Recalled
Q W E R T Y U I P..................Recalled
K W U C R A L N Y W G S J......K W U C _ _ A _ N Y _ G S J
L A B O N N E M A I S O N.......Recalled

Words
The first 2 lists of words she easily recalled, as well as the sentence. However, the two longer lists of random words, she missed 3 and 5 words. While listening to the lists of words, she said she made visual pictures in her head to help her remember the list. The third list had a lot of words that began with the letter B, which she said was helpful in remembering the "B words." Also, it is very obvious that if the words are put into a context that the mind has been trained to understand its meaning, such as a sentence, it is much more easily recalled.

Missed words are in black...

LEAF GIFT CAR FISH ROCK
PAPER SEAT TIRE HORSE FILM BEACH TREE BRUSH
BAG KEY BOOK WIRE BOX WHEEL BANANA FLOOR BAR PAD BLACK RADIO

LOVE EMOTION PLAN ATTEMPT RULE LAW ANALYSIS SYSTEM FINE PAYMENT

WHILE I WAS WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS A RABBIT RAN ACROSS MY PATH

Patterns and Conclusions
After looking over the data I collected from my test, I found that it was definitely easier to recall the shorter lists. Lists that came at the beginning were also more successfully recalled, most likely in the fact that it was fresh in the mind and there weren't prior lists still fogging up the brain. This also proved true with the part of the list that was most accurately recalled. The numbers, letter or words that were at the beginning and ends of the longer list were recalled most successfully. The middle proved to be a challenge.

Also, lists that had an obvious pattern in them, such as the sentence of words or the list 'labonnemaison' were more easily recalled. Because the brain is trained to put meaning to words, make words with letters, or even make use out of numbers (such as for a phone number), they are more easily recalled.