MS Proposal by Mary Bernhardt

Name: Mary Bernhardt

Master’s Thesis Proposal Meeting
Date: December 12, 2019
Time: 1:00 pm
Location: J.S. Coon Building, Room 148
 
Advisor:
Mark Wheeler, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
 
Thesis Committee Members:

Mark Wheeler, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Thackery Brown, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Audrey Duarte, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

 
Title: The Influence of Testing on Memory for Context

 

Abstract:

Early memory research credits the effectiveness of remembering information to the level of mental elaboration that occurs for that information (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Morris, Bransford, & Franks, 1977). Elaboration often involves adding related (or even unrelated, see the method of loci) features to the mental representation of an event in order to better remember it. These features provide context to support the memory structure. Past attempts to study context have done so by associating elaborative information (e.g. font color) with items at study. Typically, the success of retrieval is determined by how well people are able to remember an item (item memory), and not how well they are able to remember the context in which that item was studied (context memory). Items are a certain piece of concrete information (e.g., a word or a sequence of numbers) whereas context can be a variety of types of sensory information in both the internal (e.g., thoughts and mood) and the external (e.g., sights, sounds, time of day, etc.) environment. Context information allows memories of events to be rich and multi-faceted. When recalling a certain moment, like perhaps the first time you met your significant other, memory for context is what allows you to recall the details like where you were, the time of day, the music that was playing, and even the way you felt in that moment. The study of context memory is an attempt to understand how to best retain the details of life.

Event Details

Date/Time:

  • Friday, December 13, 2019
    1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

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