Vincent Vergara’s Memory Tests

Hello, Everyone! I took several memory tests today and found out that my memory is actually pretty good! I was surprised on some of the results because I didn’t think I was really good at retaining information and remembering them in detail. Today, I found out that my short term memory is above average through the following tests:

First Test: Remembering Common Words

In this test, I had to memorize 12 random words that are commonly used by the average person. The words that needed to be remembered were words like Tiger, Ice Cream, Vase, etc. I had a plan on remembering the words by saying them repeatedly in my head in a particular order. I even combined two words like orange and house into “Orange House,” to help me remember more words. In the end, I scored a decent 9 out of 12 words and forgot the words, spade, teapot, and cushion. I think this test was a good way of measuring the ability of a person to connect random words together to help memorize each of them, which is a good way of remembering information.

Second Test: Repeating Images

In this test, I needed to click on images that repeated or ones that I’ve already seen. The test  showed multiple images of animals that switched every ~3 seconds. I needed to memorize the photos fast to recognize if the next images have already been shown. After the test, I found out that I scored an impressive 92%. I was really shocked that I correctly recalled 92% of the images because I started to doubt my answers after being shown nearly identical images of some of the animals. But I actually did really good on it!

Third Test: Remembering Faces

In this test, I had to memorize the details of a face. I needed to remember the type of hair on the sides, hair in the middle, eyes, nose, mouth, and both left and right cheeks. There are 3 types of every single category/part and I had to choose out of the three to match the original face. The top picture is the original face and the bottom one is what I remember. I scored a 7 out of 10. As you can see, I perfectly remembered the type of hair, eyes, and mouth. I got the nose, right cheek, and chin wrong because I couldn’t remember how they looked like. In the end, I think this is a good test and even practice because it can help a person remember the details of the faces that they see after practicing this test.

Memory Research Article

According to this article by the University of Birmingham, when we remember a past event, our brain remembers it by reconstructing that particular experience in reverse order. This article is extremely interesting to me because I thought when something is being remembered by a person, the brain just remembers it instantly, instead of in reverse order. You can read more about it by clicking on the link below! 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190114082844.htm