Difference in short-term memory capacity depending on profession

Pavlinović, Ana. (2017). Difference in short-term memory capacity depending on profession. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Vranić, Andrea].

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Abstract

Memorization efficiency depends on many factors, such as gender, age, social status, level of education, personality, stress. The profession is definitely one of the factors which can have an indirect influence in everyday situations and memorization. Studies suggest that specific professions can be advantageous in memorization of new information. Therefore, to investigate short term memory capacity, two profession categories (students and waiters) participated in two types of memory task (serial vs. free recall). Also, they were asked to fill in a metacognition questionnaire which assesses metaconcentration and metamemory. The results showed that participants were more successful in free recall than in serial recall task. Contrary to the hypothesis that waiters are gonna be better at memory task because of their memory practicing during work time, students were more successful. As expected, correlations of self-rated metacognition and memory tasks scores were low. However, in students, metacognition was significantly related to scores in free recall task. Students are usually given feedback about their work and this might have led to a better self-assessment in comparison to waiters. Also, results showed that the most frequently used strategies in students were mnemotechnic, while waiters used the repeating strategy in words memorization.

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