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The Living Environment Mind Matters: Animal Behavior
Memory Games
Grocery Store Trick
Sometimes it’s hard to remember everything you’d like to. Want to know a secret way to remember lots of information easily? Play this game to find out how!
One person will start the game by saying, “I’m going to the store to buy some bread.” The next person will add a grocery item to the list, saying, “I’m going to the store to buy some bread and milk.” Then the next person will add an item, and so the list will get longer and longer.
The trick to remembering the list is to make up bizarre visual images. Try picturing the item that each person names, and imaging them doing something funny with that item. Maybe you’ll imagine that your friend who said “bread” is in the middle of a giant sandwich, or that the person who said “milk” is sitting in a big bowl of it. Now when you have to say the list, just look around the circle and remember the images you made up.
Courtesy of Dr. Eric Chudler,
accessed via www.brainconnect.com
Using this technique, how long can your grocery list get? ________ items
You’ve just investigated WORKING MEMORY!
Working memory is a memory store (sort of like RAM in a computer) that allows you to hold information for brief periods of time. Working memory allows you to make sense of visual and auditory events that occur in rapid succession.
When you have a conversation with a friend, for example, you listen to the beginning, middle, and end of her sentence. In order to understand the whole sentence and grasp what she is trying to tell you, you use auditory working memory to remember what she has already said. Without working memory, you would forget each word as soon as you heard it. In fact, you would even forget the individual sounds before you could put them together to make a word.
Working memory is critical for learning. Solving math problems, for example, almost always requires you to keep several numbers in your mind at once. To calculate the price of a watermelon, you must remember both its weight and the price per pound. To determine the volume of a box, you must remember its length, width, and height. By tomorrow morning, of course, you will have forgotten the box dimensions or the event sequences that you remembered today. Working memory isn’t particularly loyal, and it quickly moves on to new tasks. But by storing small pieces of information for seconds or minutes at a time, it plays an important role in our everyday life.
Courtesy of Kumar Narayanan
accessed via www.brainconnect.com
For another way to test your working memory, try the online game “Bumper Cows”
n If computers are available, sign on to http://www.brainconnection.com/games/?main=cow/cow
n Follow the on-screen directions to play the game.
The Pre-frontal Cortex and Working Memory
Remember from yesterday that the cerebral cortex is responsible for sensory perception, learning, and memory. Working memory has been linked to a particular region called the pre-frontal cortex (PFC). A series of behavioral tests have been developed to test how well an organism’s working memory is functioning. One common example used with mice involves a maze and requires a rodent to remember a series of turns to earn its reward.
(www.brainexplorer.org/brain-images/prefrnt_crtx.jpg)
Now that you’ve tested your working memory, answer the following CHALLENGE questions in complete sentences:
1) Use the diagram to write a brief paragraph (4-6 sentences) that generally explains how the behavior of an organism can be influenced its genetic make-up:
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Image: http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/jpitocch/genbio/hierarchy.JPG
2) Based on your answer to #1, how could a mutation (a random change in the genetic code) in a gene that controls brain development affect behavior in the adult organism?
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3) If using a model organism to study a gene, why would it be important to evaluate the behavior of that organism?
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4) Why might it be important to learn about the nature of a behavioral test before you actually test the organism?
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5) If you are going to subject 20 model organisms to a behavioral test (like the one described for the mice on the second page of this handout), name/list at least 3 variables that must be kept constant. Next, explain why each of these factors should be controlled.
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