Category: Memory

Human memory processes are not as straightforward as technological processes, which sometimes makes them distorted. I have experienced this phenomenon myself, as I cannot always recall the events as they were or even remember certain situations in the first place. This misunderstanding causes not only psychological issues for abuse victims but problems in legal procedures (Loftus, 2003). In this paper, I will examine why my memory recollections are partially inaccurate and why it is necessary to utilize the eyewitness report and victim statements with care.

Memory is not fixed and is inherently changeable and malleable under specific circumstances. According to Loftus (2002), sometimes, products of imagination can become a memory. In my experience, I agree that I tend to misrepresent some events when describing them to others or even to myself. I easily forget what I ate for lunch and can mistake the menu for that of the dinner while remembering more critical events.

However, I know that memories of distant events can gradually deteriorate in their quality as well. I was once convinced that I knew a person I was talking to from meeting them in a restaurant they had never been in, as it turned out. I did not accept their denial of my claims about that night. It is possible that there was a reason behind this distortion, such as a stressful event, a lack of attention, or a planted memory (Loftus, 2003). Even after describing my encounter with them in great detail, they only looked at me with profound misunderstanding. I think that I might have met another person with similar features whom I somehow replaced in my head with a different individual. The reason why I believed that it was them might lie in the lack of notable events at that restaurant on that day or the unimportance of that person.

Such memories could become a source of malpractice in psychological therapy. Loftus (2002) describes one case of such a situation, &in Chicago for a woman and her two young children who were led to believe falsely that they were victims of satanic ritual abuse (p. 42). Under certain conditions, people can form imagined memories, which can profoundly impact their statements or even worldviews. It might be impossible for witnesses of horrific incidents to tell real memory and imagination apart, leading to extensive and complex psychological issues. It is not proper to take this memory into account in legal procedures (Loftus, 2003). However, studies in psychology have revealed methods of detecting falsified memories or preventing their generation. Other psychiatrists agree on the unreliability of eyewitnesses statements depending on their involvement in an incident, yet there are methods that can separate facts from fiction (Wulff & Thomas, 2021). There are ways of questioning people that can help psychiatrists to construct a complete picture of an event while avoiding becoming outside influencers, yet a single witness is unlikely to provide a reliable report.

In conclusion, memory is malleable and prone to mistakes in its formation and recollection stages. Knowing my tendency to forget and be mistaken about my memories, I realize that such distortions can be a result of stress, a heightened emotional state, or an outside influence. A psychologist that analyzes memories of eyewitnesses should expect such causes to make ones statements irregular and unsuitable for use as a valid account. A humans long-term memory storage is not perfect, yet it is a crucial source of self-realization when one understands how and why their memories might have changed.

References

Loftus, E. F. (2002). Memory faults and fixes. Issues in Science and Technology, 18(4), 41-50.

Loftus, E. F. (2003). Our changeable memories: Legal and practical implications. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4(3), 231-234.

Wulff, A. N., & Thomas, A. K. (2021). The dynamic and fragile nature of eyewitness memory formation: Considering stress and attention. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.

Together with surveys and text-based qualitative methodologies, experimentation forms a trinity of popular research approaches in psychology. The mechanism of experimentation is relatively simple for understanding and application. Firstly, a researcher predicts the relationship between two or more important factors that may affect a real-life situation. Once the prediction stage is over, a researcher conducts operationalization by turning the factors into measurable variables. At this point, they may design a special set-up for measuring the predicted relationship. For instance, a set-up may examine how the volume of sound relates to the perceived loudness of that sound.

In this example, the sound volume is operationalized objectively in decibels, whereas perceived loudness is operationalized via subjective detection thresholds. Likewise, experimentation can serve as a methodology for understanding how human memory works in real-world scenarios. However, successful experimentation for this purpose would require careful preparation, especially at the stages of variable operationalization and data analysis. This paper examines evidence from real-life memory studies to support that fundamental idea. In particular, memory experiments were critically evaluated in order to highlight the shortcomings of the pure laboratory approach and demonstrate solution for making experimentation applicable to real-world settings.

Studying human memory with experiments is more complicated than analyzing basic perceptions of reality. Physical stimuli (loudness of sound or brightness of light) are easier to understand because they have measurement standards. Memory falls into a different category of cognitive perception, so additional tools are needed to measure and operationalize variables. Anzures et al. (2014) assessed childrens memory of the faces of young adults of different races (cited in Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016, p. 110). The experiment did not yield positive results because other appearance parameters essential to remember in real life were not used (Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016).

This approach to studying memory is irrelevant because it does not account for the diversity of memory benchmarks. Using such an experiment will not reveal why memory is selective in remembering a race or a particular appearance. This experiment is not relevant and correct because it has many limitations and cannot be applied to real-world conditions. A narrow perception of appearance results in memory as a cognitive perception not being considered. Consequently, psychological experiments to determine memory benchmarks require using divergent variables rather than a single standardization.

The process of data collection and analysis is an additional stumbling block in experimental studies of the properties and features of memory under real-world conditions. Using one type of quantitative data allows for the standardization of the experiment to facilitate the interpretation of the results. Thirkettle and Stenner (2016) point out that time and distance are different categories of variables, and combining them will not lead to understanding the results. Anzures et al.s (2014) experiment confirm that scoring for memorization across age groups is meaningless (cited in Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016, p. 112).

Harrison, Ness, and Pike (2016) suggest that this is because memory does not work to a uniform standard in real-world settings. This study should be evaluated with a low level of evidence because there is no ontological relationship between the variables. Natural factors are not perceived, and experiments do not carry key information about how memory works. The actual conditions may affect the memory process, and the use of standardization is not justified. These data confirm that without multivariate analysis, it is impossible to determine the order in which information is perceived and remembered.

Experimental research has advantages over theoretical research because it has solid ontological attributes. According to Thirkettle and Stenner (2016), any experiment is based on positivist philosophy that incorporates four fundamental tenets of determinism, generality, empiricism, and parsimony. Experiments in memory research answer questions about the relationship between factors and consequences: for example, whether accompaniment with sound will help a persons face be remembered. The experimental approach is more evidence-based and more likely to produce positive results. For memory, the construction of experiments is related to how different variables (stimuli) affect remembering (response to stimuli). This approach is acceptable for research because it allows for a comprehensive study of memory.

Experimentation as applied research is highly valued because it establishes how response systems work under different conditions. Aspects of experimentation must continue to be explored to establish whether memory is a response system or a different cognitive mechanism. Consequently, experimentation as a type of research is the most convenient tool for analyzing memory and its capabilities, allowing for establishing the typical patterns of its operation outside laboratory settings.

An experiment is a reproduction of an actual situation under artificially created conditions, which can be challenging to achieve for memory research. Some experiments are unsuitable for memory research for this reason because they cannot be applied to real-life conditions. Anzures et al. (2014) used inappropriate research tools because they had no connection to reality (cited in Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016, p. 114). The artificial stimuli dominated the actual memory conditions, making the findings irrelevant. The experiment was far from using memory for face recognition in a real-world setting (Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016).

One can evaluate that experiments contribute negatively to perceptions of memory if they do not use real-world attainable research conditions. In the absence of accurate data and simulations of real-world conditions, the results of experiments will harm the evidence base about memory performance. The contribution of research will be limited, so the use of experimental work should be treated with caution. Thus, laboratory experiments must be structured with ecological validity and relevance to environmental conditions for the results to be relevant.

Environmental validity as a phenomenon refers to the applicability of an experiment to real-world environmental conditions. Ness, Kaye, and Stenner (2016) establish that it means approximating laboratory variables to actual environmental circumstances concerning memory. Simulation within an experiment must be possible in life; otherwise, the experiment will not be valid. Therefore, an ORE experiment by Anzures et al. (2014) has relatively low ecological validity since it ignores such real-life variables as hair and clothing cues (cited in Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016, p. 114).

Despite this, the idea of the experiment is not harmful, and its validity can be increased after revising the test conditions. Simulation of the natural world can be achieved with improved computer simulation, providing a high degree of kinship between the laboratory and life. For example, correct face recognition depends on memory and is vital for the criminal justice systems effectiveness. According to Lindsay et al. (1989), accurate eyewitnesses are believed about 68% of the time compared to 70% for inaccurate witnesses (cited in Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016, p. 128). Consequently, high ecological validity makes the experiment a reliable data source on memory mechanisms.

Finally, the rationale for the conditions of experimental activity, the results of which are complementary to reality, must be taken into account. The experiment ceases to be valid without a proper connection to reality because it cannot be applied to reality. A pure laboratory experiment limits the practical approach to memory research. Havard and Memon (2013) created realistic research conditions by adding three conditions to the standard design (cited in Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016, p. 136).

The researchers conducted only one trial for each participant, used a one- or two-day delay before showing suspects faces, and did not instruct participants to memorize faces (Harrison, Ness, and Pike, 2016). It can be assumed that correcting the analysis plan had positive results because ecological validity was improved. The experiment simulated the conditions in which children recognize offenders, so its results can be applied in forensic practice. This experiment can be evaluated as important because it was changed during the process and improved the results. Consequently, with the proper transformation of the experiment and its approximation to actual practice, it is possible to achieve reliable results and transfer them to everyday activities.

In conclusion, one can state that the positivist experimentation method can serve as a viable approach to understanding memory in real-world situations. However, such experiments must possess a high degree of ecological validity, which requires the authenticity of external factors, correct variable operationalization, and multivariable data analysis. The standard laboratory experiments yield results useful only as indirect evidence of memory operation patterns, but they do not provide the possibility of a deep understanding of the topic. While such a contribution may suggest promising directions for future studies, it does not provide a researcher with a sufficient understanding of memory in the real-world context. In this regard, standard laboratory experimentation limits the shape of findings due to the omission of important environmental factors and the introduction of artificial conditions. Only ecologically valid experiments are capable of resolving this issue, providing the findings applicable to understanding memory in real-world settings.

Reference List

Harrison, G., Ness, H. and Pike, G. (2016) Memory in the real world, in Ness, H., Kaye, H. and Stenner, P. (eds.) Investigating psychology 3. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 101-153.

Thirkettle, M and Stenner, P. (2016) Introduction: critical, creative and credible, in Ness, H., Kaye, H. and Stenner, P. (eds.) Investigating psychology 3. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 1-49.

Introduction

Memory is a psychological process that involves more than just remembering important facts. It is a perceptual process affected by a persons beliefs, expectations, fears, and hopes, just like other senses and an individuals sense of consciousness (Loftus & Loftus, 2019). There has been debate on whether memory is a rote retrieval or a matter of reconstruction. In rote learning, memory is obtained through repetition and is usually stored in short-term memory.

On the other hand, memory as an aspect of reconstruction has been supported by a series of theories. Reconstructive memory is assembling information from stored knowledge without a cohesive recall of certain occurrences (Anderson, 2018). For instance, an interviewer may assist a crime victim in recalling painful experiences. Therefore, memory is mainly a matter of reconstruction because schemas or cues influence remembering.

Cue-Dependent Forgetting

Cue-dependent forgetting or retrieval is among the psychological theories that show memory is reconstructed. The theory suggests that memory can be retrieved depending on appropriate cues that remind an individual of the original event (Haase & Thim, 2019). This indicates that if an individual is given a schema based on memory, they are more likely to retrieve or remember it when needed. Cue-dependent forgetting is the inability of an individual to recall a memory due to a missing cue that existed at the time the memory was encoded (Haase & Thim, 2019). For example, a student would sometimes forget what they studied in the classroom because the conditions did not resemble an examination. Therefore, the memory may be inaccessible because there are insufficient or the right cues to bring it back.

One crucial component of the cue-dependent memory theory is that retrieving a memory depends on retrieving and encoding information, not just one or the other. It is like the relationship between a lock and a key: neither can work on its own (Zhao et al., 2019). However, when they work together, they can do what they were meant to do. Based on this, retrieving a memory depends a lot on the information encoded to make sure that the cue present can make the mind remember the original information. Furthermore, Zhao et al. (2019) showed that retrieval scores increase when the cues match the information encoded and the cues for retrieval. As a result, for an individual to effectively remember something, there has to be retrieving and encoding information.

Tulving Theory

There is a relationship between Tulvings beliefs in semantic memory and reconstructive memory. According to the Tulving theory, individuals memories contain semantic stores, which are very similar to schemas and are the locations where people keep their grasp of the many laws and relationships in the world (Loftus & Loftus, 2019). Therefore, the notion that memory is nothing more than a reconstruction can be shown to be correct by the principles that Tulving presented. Additionally, because schemas influence how an individual rebuilds their memories, the experiences a person has, play a significant role in the degree to which they can remember information.

Tulvings theory is the key to understanding cognitive psychology, especially regarding memory and how we think about and process information. Psychologists tests on people with a certain level of brain damage have shown that memory is largely reconstructive instead of a replay system (Loftus & Loftus, 2019). However, most of them cannot remember how, where, or when they took these lessons. The memory trace and the retrieval cue are the two things that help bring back a memory. In addition, a memory trace is information stored in a persons brain because they first experienced an event. As a result, a retrieval cue is an information in a persons mind at the time of retrieval.

Tulvings encoding specificity principle theory demonstrates how cognitive psychology guides behavior, thinking, and memory retrieval. This discipline of psychology aims to improve a persons ability to pay attention, recall past events, solve problems, process languages, observe, and reason (Loftus & Loftus, 2019). As a result, it studies how humans perceive, retain, learns, and comprehend information. The four cognitive thought processes are perception, learning and memory storage, retrieval, and reasoning. Therefore, memory retrieval is a critical component of the cognitive process, further defined by the information processing theories and the encoding specialization concept assumption.

The Information Processing Theory

The information processing theory perceives the mind as where people process the information they get. The theory states that individuals process information during an episode, then store it in their long-term memory (Kmetz, 2018). After that, the conscious mind will always be able to remember this information. Encoding is the process of ensuring that the cues that help an individual remember to match with the specific information stored. This shows that the retrieval process will only work if the information encoded information matches the retrieval cues (Kmetz, 2018). However, if it does not, the memory will be lost at that time. The cue does not have to match all of the features of the encoded information; instead, it only needs to match a part of it in the environment.

Many psychologists believe there is a strong link between the depth of the information processed and the elaboration of the memory trace, which acts as a path to the memory when the right cue is present. With the help of complex information processing, it is easy to connect the memory trace to a large network of other similar traces of the same information (Kmetz, 2018). This makes it more likely that the cue and the encoded information will overlap. In addition, retrieving a memory involves how external and internal cues interact with the stored or encoded memory traces. This gives a very convincing explanation of how memory retrieval works, which is something that has been observed.

The Misinformation Paradigm

Misinformations effect demonstrates how simple it is to modify memories. It also makes people wonder how reliable memories are, especially when the memories of eyewitnesses are used to decide if a criminal is guilty or not (Abbasi & Hemmati, 2022). One reason is that the memory mixes up the original information and the false information that came after the crime. Another possibility is that false information erases the memory of what happened in the first place. Additionally, researchers think the false information is easier to remember because it is more recent. In other cases, the important details of the original event might not have been remembered. Thus, misleading information is added to the mental story to fill in the gaps.

The experiments on the misinformation effect have shown that memories of an event are not frozen in time the same way that the event itself. Instead, information that comes after an event can change how people remember them (Abbasi & Hemmati, 2022). When an individual tries to figure something out later, it is better if they have information that is consistent and not confusing. In addition, when people try to determine what happened in the past, they use the available information and tools. This means that the reported memory may include facts that were not part of the event but were added to it later. In practice, if people ask suggestive questions or put wrong information into questions they ask witnesses after the event, the witnesses memories and testimony may be tainted.

Schema Theory

The idea of schemas is one of the main theories to have emerged from Bartletts work. It is thought to help individuals understand how things work as they happen and help them remember how things work (Anderson, 2018). Reconstructive theories of memory show that schemas affect peoples ability to remember events in two ways. They make it easier to remember actions that do not fit with the schema. This is because it takes more work to fit these actions into the schema at the study time. Additionally, schemas can make us remember things that did not happen because they fill in the gaps. If an individual fails to remember what happened in an event, the schema tells them the expected default value.

However, rote retrieval or replay depends on the information stored in the brain after a series of repetitions. Replay is a matter of repeating them enough times until people remember them (Loftus & Loftus, 2019). It helps individuals encode, group, and locate information later when required. Memory and learning go hand in hand, which is important in schools and all other parts of life. In addition, the relationship between learning and memory is important because it helps people understand the information and grow. However, memorized concepts are not understood, and no effort is made to figure out what they mean. In memory as a reconstruction, learning is stored in long-term memory, while in rote learning, information is stored in short-term memory.

Conclusion

Human brain theories have proved that memory is primarily a matter of reconstruction because it is influenced by schemas or cues. Reconstruction in memory is the concept that remembering things is not like watching a video of a scene over and over again. On the contrary, remembering things is more like trying to piece together past events. Although reconstruction can be very accurate, the processes that do it can also make mistakes when retrieving the data. The main proof that memory is reconstructive is that it makes systematic mistakes. Therefore, to remember things, an individual must ensure that the information is linked to their environment.

References

Abbasi, M., & Hemmati, A. (2022). The effects of mood induction and situational-emotional load on false memory based on misinformation paradigm with emphasis on controlling emotional bias, attention, working memory and emotional factors. Shenakht Journal of Psychology and Psychiatry, 9(4), 153-169. Web.

Anderson, R. C. (2018). Theoretical models and processes of literacy. Routledge.

Haase, J., & Thim, C. (2019). An approach to model forgetting. AIS Transactions on Enterprise Systems, 4(1).

Kmetz, J. L. (2018). The Information Processing Theory of Organization: Managing technology accession in complex systems. Routledge.

Loftus, G. R., & Loftus, E. F. (2019). Human memory: The processing of information. Psychology Press.

Zhao, B., Sun, J., Zhang, X., Mo, H., Niu, Y., Li, Q., Wang, L. & Zhong, Y. (2019). Long-term memory is formed immediately without the need for protein synthesis-dependent consolidation in Drosophila. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-11. Web.

Introduction

Lawson, Chae, Noriega, and Valentino (2021) explore child-parent attachment in preschool childrens memory accuracy. In this study, over seventy children recollected autobiographical events associated with fear, anger, happiness, and sadness with their parents assistance. Then, parents assessed their relationships attachment security (AS), and all children underwent independent interviews with factual and misleading questions. The results suggest a positive connection between AS and childrens ability to recollect autobiographic events accurately, with parent-guided reminiscing acting as the variable that links the two concepts (Lawson et al., 2021). Additionally, childrens suggestibility when addressing misleading questions was lower in older interviewees and those with higher IQ scores (Lawson et al., 2021). Overall, the study is supportive of the attachment-based theories of autobiographical memory.

Research on Autobiographical Memories in Legal Contexts

In their article, Principe and London (2022) explore trends in childrens memory processes in forensic contexts by evaluating and systematically representing earlier findings. According to the identified tendencies, typical parent-guided conversations involve techniques used by biased forensic interviewers, including pressure and force-choice/repeated questions to elicit desired responses (Principe & London, 2022). Childrens suggestibility can manifest in both everyday and legal contexts. In one of their earlier experiments, Principe and colleagues also revealed that parental focus on eliciting accurate recollections could actually increase underage eyewitnesses propensity to provide false details (Principe & London, 2022). Childrens vulnerability to suggestion and manipulative tactics is especially worrisome in sex abuse investigations. As per national survey research, almost 70% of adults suppose that children tend to deny violence and should undergo lengthy interviews with questions formulated in different ways to provide accurate responses (Principe & London, 2022). This trend suggests parents readiness to use manipulative techniques until childrens responses align with their suspicions.

Discussion

Accuracy of Preschoolers Recollections

Considering the aforementioned research findings, preschoolers recollections are accurate in positive child-parent relationship scenarios and imperfect if manipulative questioning techniques are present in conversations with parents. Overall, the accuracy with which children in this age group recollect autobiographic events depends on a plethora of factors. Higher individual intelligence levels enable children to recognize obviously misleading and manipulative cues when recollecting events independently, suggesting more accurate memories (Lawson et al., 2021). Moreover, the quality of child-parent relationships affects preschoolers ability to memorize emotional events and retrieve them from memory without significant distortions. Specifically, in preschoolers securely attached to their parents, recollections tend to be more accurate if caregivers make no clear attempts to induce false memories (Lawson et al., 2021). Manipulations, including questions containing suggestions, as well as pressure, produce inaccurate recollections (Feldman, 2018; Principe & London, 2022). Thus, the accuracy of preschoolers memories varies depending on external circumstances.

Questioning Children to Produce Accurate Recollections

Research findings peculiar to the legal system suggest recommendations to make the results of child questioning more accurate. To start with, children should be questioned alone to prevent parental utterances or non-verbal signs of approval/disapproval from altering the direction of their responses (Principe & London, 2022). Moreover, to avoid inaccurate answers, police officers or other legal interviewers should refrain from questioning children if the latter have overheard their parents accounts or testimonies (Principe & London, 2022). The failure to observe this rule can invite underage participants to switch between two different narratives or versions of the events in question. Parents who wish to elicit specific responses from children can conduct conversations prior to interviews, and children deny that they have received new information if such questions are asked only once (Principe & London, 2022).

Conclusion

Therefore, to detect external influences, investigators should ask follow-up questions regarding any suspicious statements and clarify the sources of information that the child provides but without any emotional pressure.

References

Feldman, R. S. (2018). Child development (8^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Lawson, M., Chae, Y., Noriega, I., & Valentino, K. (2021). Parentchild attachment security is associated with preschoolers memory accuracy for emotional life events through sensitive parental reminiscing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 209, 1-17. Web.

Principe, G. F., & London, K. (2022). How parents can shape what children remember: Implications for the testimony of young witnesses. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(3), 289-302. Web.

Introduction

Cognitive development entails the development of different processes such as learning, perception, memory, and attention, which allow human beings to gain knowledge and understand their surroundings. As a result, these cognitive processes serve different purposes in the human lifespan developmental stages and cognition in particular. For instance, memory is a fundamental cognitive process, which is functional as early as when the infant is in the womb.

Over the years, research shows that memory allows human beings to store information for later usage. Memory can either be long-term or short-term whereby the former allows one to store information for longer periods while the latter allows information storage over short periods. Memory can also be declarative or procedural whereby declarative memory refers to the memory for specific knowledge, experiences, facts or meanings while procedural memory refers to the memory for remembering actions and motor series (Goswami, 1997, pp. 1-6).

On the other hand, perception refers to the ability to receive information using visual and auditory senses and processing it in many ways. Therefore, perceiving entails the construction of mental representations of the sensory inputs. Accordingly, perception allows human beings to stay in contact with their surrounding environment. As in the case of memory, research has also shown that visual and auditory perceptual skills and abilities are present in babies.

This cognitive process allows babies to organize their surroundings into a system of objects and relationships (Goswami, 1997, p.9). Conversely, attention is another fundamental cognitive process that allows one to attend to one specific environmental aspect while disregarding others. Research has also documented the development of adequate attention mechanisms in babies. Here, attention has been shown to allow babies to organize their behaviors relative to various perceptual events through developing expectations for predictable events (Goswami, 1997, pp. 9-10).

Therefore, it is no doubt that cognition and cognitive processes have received extensive research in psychology and other disciplines. In this paper, various research methodologies underlying the cognitive processes of memory, perception, and attention are summarized and evaluated relative to their adequacy and relevance in measuring the processes.

A summary of Articles

Perception

Object-context relations have been shown to play a major role in perception and cognition. Here, research studies note that perception of objects, and thus, their cognition takes place in various contexts, that is, the internal and external environmental aspects, which can influence object information processing. Therefore, the context includes the stimulations under which the object is entrenched, and thus, the context may determine the way one will sense or remember the object (Bornstein, Mash, & Arterberry, 2011, p. 364).

Furthermore, the physiological influence of the context has been studied, and it has been shown that when people look at an object embedded in a fearful context, the neural amplitude related to the object information processing mechanism is enhanced significantly. As a result, the context influences the way information is encoded in the neural system (Bornstein et al., 2011, p. 364).

Accordingly, Bornstein and his colleagues attempted to study the influence of object-context relations on the development of perceptions in adults and infants through the analysis of eye movements. In their experiment, Bornstein and his colleagues used a common eye-movement model to investigate attention to object-context relations among 24 infants (four months old) and 22 adults (20 years old).

Here, the participants were treated to 36 full-color digitized images of animals and vehicles categorized into congruent object-context and non-congruent object-context sets. Subsequently, the researchers tracked the participants eye-movements using the 504 eye-tracking system developed by the Applied Science Laboratories (ASL). The researchers found out that infants demonstrated equal preferences for animals and vehicles in both congruent and incongruent object-context relations while adults preferred congruent scenes more than incongruent scenes. Overall, the researchers concluded that object-context relations play a major role in the development of perceptions and allocation of attention to objects (Bornstein et al., 2011).

The methodology employed by the researchers in this study is appropriate and sufficient in answering the research question. Furthermore, the sample size was relatively large to eliminate the type-2 error. Moreover, the researchers managed to design their research methodology using the validity and reliability data from previous studies to ensure that their study reflects and builds upon what is already known.

Besides, the methodology allows for the control of confounding factors such as the socioeconomic status of the participants by including subjects from the middle and high classes. However, the methodology is not sufficient enough to account for the complex relationship between the eye and mind considering that what someone is looking at may not necessarily correspond to what that individual is mentally processing. Furthermore, the methodology cannot account for the influence of infant expectations for predictable events in object-context relations. Therefore, future studies should seek to address the same questions from the latter perspectives as well as improving on the current study.

Attention

As noted earlier, attention mechanisms develop early in life. Hence, visual attention in infants has been studied, and it has been noted that visual attention underlies the development of various cognitive processes including visual recognition memory (Reynolds, Courage & Richards, 2010, p. 886). Furthermore, different procedures have been used to measure visual recognition memory such as the paired comparison procedure, which is used to measure the infants look duration to new and known stimuli.

Here, research shows that visual attention to stimuli can be used to measure encoding, storage, and retrieval of information in children. However, Reynolds and his colleagues propose an improved method for establishing the relationship between the behavioral measures and event-related potentials (ERP) related to visual attention in infants and their recognition memory. ERPs are referred to as voltage oscillations measured as the electroencephalographic (EEG) data relative to time-locked events (perceptual or cognitive).

Hence, ERPs can be used to determine different waveform components (the Negative central, Nc) related to different stages of a particular event such as stimulus orienting or stimulus encoding. Furthermore, in their study, Reynolds and his colleagues attempted to measure ERPs in infants through the paired comparison trials. Besides, the experiment was designed in such a way that allowed the establishment of the exact cortical sources of preferences associated with infant visual attention and recognition memory (Reynolds et al., 2010, p. 887).

To achieve their goals, the researchers designed a developmental study to measure attention and recognition memory by comparing infant preferential-looking and ERP responses concurrently. The EEG/ERP model was used on 47 infants (4.5 months old) in a cross-sectional study involving five experimental phases. Computer-generated visual patterns were used as stimuli while Sesame street characters were used for fixation and maintenance of the infants attention.

Overall, the researchers found out that infants who showed new preferences for the stimuli in the paired comparison trials did demonstrate Negative central ERP components with greater amplitudes compared to their counterparts who did not show new preferences across tasks. Moreover, infant visual preferences were directly influenced by the type of stimulus and the infants attention. Finally, both the prefrontal (inferior and superior) and anterior cingulated cortices were linked to the infant visual preferences as their main cortical sources (Reynolds et al., 2010, pp. 888-898).

The EEG/ERP techniques utilized in this study are sufficient in determining the brain-behavior relations, which influence visual attention and recognition memory among infants. The approach used by the researchers in designing their study methodology is relevant because they employ validity and reliability data from previous studies to validate their study. Therefore, the methodology has different strengths such as its ability to allow the researchers to measure brain activity during the participants engagement in attention and recognition tasks.

Besides, the technique allows for cortical source analyses in order to identify the brain sections involved in processing attention and recognition information. However, the methodology fails to accommodate the measures for individual differences related to the infants responsiveness to the stimuli, and thus, it is notable that other infants may demonstrate overall non-preference. Moreover, this study is unique in that it attempts to relate behavior to brain functions, and thus, the reliability of its methodology cannot be determined until the study has been replicated.

Memory

As noted earlier, there are different kinds and types of memory mechanisms appearing at different stages in the lifespan development process. Among these varieties is the working memory, which has been shown to play a major role in the development of mathematical and word problem-solving abilities in children (Swamson, 2011, p. 821). Furthermore, the individual differences in the accuracy of solving word problems have been linked to the working memory (WM).

Here, the working memory is taken to represent a processing resource with limited capacity because it is involved in the preservation of information while processing it or other information. Therefore, considering that the process of solving mathematical word problems entails text comprehension and computation, the WM plays an important role in maintaining solution accuracy (Swamson, 2011, p. 821). Hence, proficiency of the WM is required in the process of understanding propositions, words, sentences, phrases, and the interpretation of word problems.

In order to study the WM proficiency, Swanson ran various tests on 127 children in Grade 1 in a longitudinal study. These tests were aimed at assessing different parameters and abilities including problem-solving, cognitive processing, and working memory. A follow-up was also done on the children in Grade 2 and 3 using similar tests. In the long run, the researcher found out that different predictors such as WM and naming speed observed in Grade 1 contributed to variations in the childrens performance in word problem-solving in Grade 3.

Furthermore, the growth of executive WM was directly related to proficiency in word problem-solving. As a result, the researcher concluded that the experimental results supported the widely accepted idea that executive WM is a predictor of the childrens growth in problem-solving compared to other possibilities such as inattention, knowledge base, and phonological processes (Swamson, 2011, pp. 824-834).

Considering the type of research questions that the study seeks to answer, the research methodology employed in this case is sufficient enough to produce reliable evidence. However, the methodology fails to include oral language as one of the possibilities contributing to proficiency in word problem-solving against the growth in the executive WM. Moreover, the methodology does not allow the researcher to account for the Mathew effects in that the gap between the children who score highly in the tests compared to those who score lowly in Grade 1 may increase across the grades.

Another problem with the methodology is that the word problems were presented to the participants orally while in the classroom setting, the children are supposed to read for themselves. This effect may influence the performance of the participants in different ways. On the other hand, the presentation mode allowed the researcher to control for the reading confounds. Therefore, besides putting the above-mentioned considerations into perspective, future studies should seek to determine the effect of WM training on academic outcomes.

References

Bornstein, M.H., Mash, C., & Arterberry, M.E. (2011). Perceptions of object-context relations: Eye-movement analyses in infants and adults. Developmental Psychology, 47(2), 364-375.

Goswami, U. (1997). Cognition in children. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press Ltd, Publishers.

Reynolds, G.D., Courage, M.L., & Richards, J.E. (2010). Infant Attention and Visual Preferences: Converging evidence from behavior, event-related potentials, and cortical source localization. Developmental Psychology, 46(4), 886-904.

Swamson, L.H. (2011). Working Memory, Attention, and Mathematical Problem-Solving: A longitudinal study of elementary school children. Journal of educational Psychology, 103 (4), 821-837.

Introduction

Sleep is a unique state during which several critical neurophysiological and chemical processes occur in the human body, affecting a persons physical and emotional state. There is a consensus in the scientific community regarding the benefits of healthy sleep. The consensus on the effects of sleep on humans is that adequate sleep helps the human body to recover, supports the immune system, and helps accelerate metabolic processes. Moreover, people should pay special attention to the quality and quantity of rest necessary to realize the productivity, safety, and efficiency of a persons daily life and minimize possible adverse effects on the health and condition of the body. A tremendous amount of research proves the negative impact of insufficient sleep on several human body functions. These studies affect all fields of medicine and psychology and are relevant for anyone of any age. As a result, sleep can be called one of the most critical conditions for maintaining brain performance, the violation of which can negatively affect human thinking abilities, health, and mental state.

Sleep Disturbance: Effects on the Brain

In the life of modern man, there are a considerable number of reasons why people suffer from insufficient amounts of sleep. The lifestyle of the twenty-first-century person often leads to sleep problems caused by much work, long hours on social networks, or other reasons. Forced or conscious sleep deprivation seriously affects a persons mental and physical health. Even after one sleepless night, which has happened in the life of almost everyone, fatigue appears, concentration is reduced, and difficulties arise with complex activities. Movement coordination and visual focus are impaired if a person does not sleep for 2-3 nights (Grandner, 2017). Later, irritability, slowness of movements, slurred speech, hallucinations, and odd behavior appear. The person cannot maintain a conversation, becomes indifferent to the world around them, and there are difficulties performing the most straightforward everyday skills. Moreover, chronic lack of sleep often turns into insomnia, requiring the help of a specialist, as it can lead to the development of several mental illnesses (Harrington & Cairney, 2021). All of this confirms that quality sleep is essential to the human body.

Thus, if sleep is lacking quantitatively or qualitatively, a person begins to experience physical malaise, headaches, and irritability. Moreover, most people do not even suspect that the cause of their ill health is insufficient sleep. Such people must make up for the lack of sleep as soon as possible and restore their bodies. Otherwise, lack of sleep can cause irrational decisions in a persons life, including crime (Engle-Friedman, 2018). Nevertheless, a logical explanation of this judgment requires an analysis of sleep disturbances impact on the brains elements: thinking, memory, and emotions.

Impact of Sleep on Thinking Ability

One should remark that sleep problems negatively influence some brain cells ability to function and interact, slowing down mental work in decision-making, information processing, focusing on vital details, and more. Lack of sleep disrupts the hormonal balance, changing the levels of serotonin, dopamine, and cortisol, which affects thinking, mood, and the amount of energy. According to Harrington and Cairney (2021), inconsistency of feelings and violation of the regulation of emotions, particular obsession, and persistence of destructive thoughts that exhaust the work of the brain are some of the consequences of lack of sleep, gradually weakening the downward inhibitory control over cerebrum regions. Insomnolence and restlessness violate prefrontal control over the medial structures of the temporal lobe, having long-lasting results  maintaining and exacerbating mental states within the framework of persistent unwanted reflections (Harrington et al., 2020). In this case, suppressing unpleasant ideas is one of a persons most challenging tasks (Harrington and Cairney, 2021). As a rule, fear and obsessions are manifested throughout the day, intensifying closer to bedtime. Patients begin to worry and experience the most robust nervous excitement, leading to the fact that they can no longer fall asleep at their usual time of day.

Moreover, for most, concentration is a critical element for efficiency and purposefulness both at work and outside, and lack of sleep makes it more challenging to achieve. The experts claim that prolonged sleep deprivation decreases accuracy and reaction time to various cognitive tasks, breaking control over attention resources (Peng et al., 2020). For example, lack of sleep reduces the ability of cells to assimilate visual information and translate it into conscious thoughts; with insomnia, the reaction rate is as slow as when drinking alcohol. Unfortunately, such indisposition often becomes chronic, which leaves an imprint on abilities to concentrate, study and work well. Therefore, chronic lack of sleep is the cause of mood swings, and some patients even notice nonexistent objects. Insomnia increases the concentration of stress hormones  adrenaline and cortisol- increasing blood pressure. The heart rate is disrupted, concentration is disrupted, and ordinary objects seem unusual. However, the consequences of such ailments are not limited to the effectiveness of cognitive abilities but also affect memory and emotions. Therefore, paying attention to these aspects in the following paragraphs is recommended.

The Effect of Sleep on Human Memory

Compromised sleep impairs the quality of learning and the capability to create new memories and reproduce them, regardless of when they were made  a month ago or a year ago. On the contrary, better sleep is associated with improved memory, knowledge acquisition, and learning. Even a short nap has a positive effect on productivity. Memory creation and reproduction occur in reality, but the middle stage, known as memory consolidation, starts in a dream. During sleep, data passes from short-term to long-term memory, a complex process with many stages (Peng et al., 2020). Besides, during sleep, the brain evaluates what happened during the day and decides what to leave in memory. Through this procedure, a human has an opportunity the next day to solve tasks of acquiring new memories through learning and exposure to stimuli.

As practice shows, sleep disorders do not allow a person to understand certain information better, reducing the likelihood of its assimilation and memorization. For instance, sleep problems can lead to the deterioration of short-term memory and a persons ability to remember faces. To a sufficiently vivid degree, sleep deprivation is associated with a violation of the volume of a persons working memory in terms of lower amplitude and prolonged latency (Peng et al., 2020). Due to the unsatisfactory quality of rest, the emotional valence of recollections suffers, giving rememberings negative affective shades (Tempesta et al., 2015). In this situation, insomnia may cause the most significant harm to episodic memory and the hippocampus, and their full normalization may require more than two nights of restorative sleep (Chai et al., 2020). Without getting enough nights rest, a person can forget the most important and everyday things. Consequently, sleep-deprived people often do not understand the danger they expose their bodies to. Constant lack of sleep leads to decreased activity and efficiency and makes a human irritable and inattentive.

Influence of Sleep on the Emotional State of a Person

Fundamentally, poor sleep and insomnia significantly influence emotional response and socialization. According to Saghir et al. (2018), there is a deep connection between sleep and emotions due to the dual role of the amygdala. Normal physiological sleep is the most critical anti-stress factor determining performance or fatigue. On the contrary, sleep restriction contributes to the development of emotional stress, which is the leading cause of sleep disorders. At the same time, a vicious circle develops: sleep disorders caused by stress become an additional provoking factor that aggravates stress. In this case, incorrectness in emotion management and control may be a long-lasting negative effect of sleep deprivation (Harrington and Cairney, 2021). For example, lack of sleep increases impulsivity towards negative stimuli. Noteworthy, impulsivity correlates with aggressive behavior  a tendency associated with lack of sleep. Hence, anger is characterized mainly by poor quality and insufficient sleep.

Chronic stress and traumatic events are known for their adverse effects on sleep, leading to chronic sleep problems and insomnia. Chronic sleep loss, in turn, affects mood, making a person emotionally unstable, irritable, and prone to dysphoria. The interaction between sleep and emotional processes can also play a role in affective disorders, many of which are associated with sleep disorders. In the past, such sleep problems were considered a secondary affective disorder symptom. However, today, such a statement of the question may be exaggeratedly simple. In some cases, insomnia impacts the occurrence and development of depression. Moreover, there is evidence indicating the presence of a common source of both depression and insomnia.

In addition, the prefrontal cortex is mainly affected by lack of sleep; this part of the brain is responsible for planning and making complex decisions and allows one to conclude subtle nuances and confusing situations, weighing risks and winnings. Thus, without getting enough night rest, a person risks making rash decisions that do not consider long-term perspectives. Due to failures in the work of the prefrontal cortex, which is engaged in self-control, people are more likely to commit risky actions that can negatively impact relationships, health, or finances. Therefore, sound judgment, proper planning, and thoughtful decisions are the most critical cognitive skills that help individuals succeed at work and in their personal lives, build a stable and prosperous life, and lead according to ethical guidelines. Insufficient sleep weakens them, creating difficulties in happiness and success.

Conclusion

Thus, sleep is one of the most critical processes in a persons life, directly affecting his thinking abilities, emotional state, and memory. In addition, healthy sleep affects the subjective mood of the person, who feels more awake, rested, and healthy. On the other hand, poor quality sleep leads to several problems in a persons ability to reason, remember information, and communicate with others. Moreover, the prolonged occurrence of these phenomena can aggravate overall physical and mental health and even cause irreparable harm to the entire human body. One of the primary and universal recommendations given by doctors, nutritionists, athletes, scientists, and sportspeople is the observance of a correct sleep regime, the effect of which on a person is proved empirically and practically.

References

Engle-Friedman, M., Mathew, G. M., Martinova, A., Armstrong, F., & Konstantinov, V. (2018). The role of sleep deprivation and fatigue in the perception of task difficulty and use of heuristics. Sleep Science, 11(2), 74.

Grandner, M. A. (2017). Sleep, health, and society. Sleep medicine clinics, 12(1), 1-22.

Harrington, M. O., & Cairney, S. A. (2021). Sleep loss gives rise to intrusive thoughts. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(6), 434-436.

Harrington, M. O., Ashton, J. E., Sankarasubramanian, S., Anderson, M. C., & Cairney, S. A. (2020). Losing control: Sleep deprivation impairs the suppression of unwanted thoughts. Clinical Psychological Science, 9(1), 97-113.

Peng, Z., Dai, C., Ba, Y., Zhang, L., Shao, Y., & Tian, J. (2020). Effect of sleep deprivation on the working memory-related N2-P3 components of the event-related potential waveform. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14(469), 1-9.

Saghir, Z., Syeda, J. N., Muhammad, A. S., & Abdalla, T. H. B. (2018). The amygdala, sleep debt, sleep deprivation, and the emotion of anger: A possible connection. Cureus, 10(7), 1-5.

Tempesta, D., De Gennaro, L., Natale, V., & Ferrara, M. (2015). Emotional memory processing is influenced by sleep quality. Sleep Medicine, 16(7), 862-870.

Ya Chai, Zhuo Fang, Fan Nils Yang, Sihua Xu, Yao Deng, Andrew Raine, Jieqiong Wang, Meichen Yu, Mathias Basner, Namni Goel, Junghoon J. Kim, David A. Wolk, John A. Detre, David F. Dinges & Hengyi Rao (2020). Two nights of recovery sleep restores hippocampal connectivity but not episodic memory after total sleep deprivation. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1-11.

With the recent advancements in the sphere of computer technologies and the advent of ICT translation productivity tools, translation can be regarded as not only craft, but also a rapidly growing industry. Whereas the translations are paid by the word count, the translator’s productivity is defined as the greatest number of words translated at the lowest price and within the minimal time period.

Translation memory (TM) is a software program aimed at enhancing the productivity of individual translators and translators’ groups through storing the segments of the translated texts in the computerized databases and retrieving hits during the following translations.

It allows not only not to translate the same or similar units twice, but also to achieve consistency in terminology within different projects or different translators. Wordfast as one of the world-known budget TMs has its strengths and weaknesses which will be reviewed in this report.

The main strengths of Wordfast

The budget price, the available demo version and understandable manual are recognized by most translators using it as the main advantages of Wordfast.

The 350 Euros as the price for downloading this CAT tool directly from Wordfast corporate website is significantly lower compared to its much more expensive analogues, such as Trados and Déjà vu, for example.

Another significant strength of Wordfast is the availability of not only a demo version which can be downloaded for free, but also the unlimited trial period which allows using this demo version for training purposes as long as the translator needs. Actually, it is possible even to use it in work because the request to pay for the software appears only after the program exceeds the limit of 500 translation units.

Thus, even after the TM is full, the translator can create a new one and continue working with a demo version. Moreover, a very large translation memory (VLTM) for Wordfast have created recently and can be downloaded for free so that to overcome the above-mentioned limitation. The learning curve is one of the most important advantages of Wordfast. Its manual is relatively brief, straightforward and easy to follow.

Regarding the technical characteristics, the TM editor, sentence-based segments, project management strength and the standards compliance can be regarded as the main strengths of Wordfast.

As to the TM editor criterion, it can be stated that working in Word documents as the accustomed environment allows the translator to reduce the time required for learning the main features offered by Wordfast. Moreover, this tool can also be used for working with Excel and Power Point documents.

The sentence based units used in Wordfast are more convenient as compared to the translational suites working with the whole texts. The compliance with the main standards allows sharing the TMs even with those who use other types of CAT software.

A set of tools called PlusTools included into Wordfast is another advantage of this software which allows simplifying the procedures of aligning the source and target texts before starting work on a particular project.

Opening the PlusTools and clicking on the Align button, the translator can process the source and target texts which will appear either in the table format in one document or in the two documents placed side by side on the screen.

The search engine of Wordfast allows finding not only exact, but also fuzzy matches with certain extent of deviation between the source and target units. The match rate indicating the degree of correspondence appears between the two segments and allows the translator to estimate the appropriateness of using certain matches in the context of a particular project.

It is also possible to use the * wildcard instead of the end of the term in case if various endings are possible. This feature is intended to make the search process more effective. It is possible to perform searches on both regular and background TMs so that to define whether a particular term is appropriate for the concrete text.

Wordfast not only allows accelerating the translation process, enhancing the translator’s productivity by economizing time and resources, but also allows preserving the consistency of terminology among the various projects which is usually appreciated by the customers.

Moreover, it is much easier to work with the colored text fields as compared to working with glancing back and forth between the white screen of the two documents with the source and target texts.

The sentence-based segmentation encourages a translator to concentrate efforts on only one sentence at a time which is les tiresome for the translator’s eyes. It means that working with Wordfast would enhance the productivity even if there are no many repetitions in the document.

The main weaknesses of Wordfast

Recognizing the variety of benefits of using Wordfast in the translation process, it should be noted that the use of this ACT program can have a number of unintended negative implications for the quality of the target text and the translation process in general.

One of the most significant disadvantages of working with Wordfast is the concentration on only one segment at a time which can become a hurdle for the high quality translation. Though this feature has been mentioned above as one of the advantages of this software it actually can cut both ways. Thus, concentrating on only one sentence, the translator fails to consider the whole context.

Moreover, in most cases the segment-by-segment approach would not allow creating cohesive texts in terms of their style and tone.

The problem is that changing the sentence and especially the paragraph structure will result in creating non-existing matches, whereas the TM tool is unable to indicate the changes which were performed for the purpose of improving the style and automatically matches the segments in the source and target documents.

Thus, the Wordfast interface is inappropriate for proofreading the target documents, and the translators to look for the ways out so that not to distort the created match units which can cause the errors in following translations.

The automatic application of a given translation found in TM within the whole text can result in error propagation. For example, when a customer provides the TMs before the beginning of the translators’ work on the project, the provided files can contain translation mistakes which would complicate the translation processes instead of optimizing it.

On the other hand, committing a mistake and incorporating it into the customer’s TM will result in further error propagation because this TM can be sent to other translators working with the customer in future. In general, the translators can never fully rely on TMs.

Regarding the use of the * wildcard at the end of the term while working with the search engine, it should be noted that it can be placed only after four characters from the beginning of the entry. However, there are lots of cases when the wildcard has to be placed earlier for enhancing the effectiveness of search. Thus, this feature is a bit incomplete and requires further consideration from developers.

Regardless of the fact that the initial version of Wordfast was developed for Windows and Macintosh, currently, most of the links to the software compatible with Macintosh are dead. Thus, the Macintosh version can hardly be found online.

The psychological aspect of depending upon Wordfast which can be developed after getting accustomed to working with the tool can be regarded as another drawback of using this software.

In general, most of Wordfast features cut both ways and can result in both positive and negative implications for the translation process, not only allowing individual translators and translators’ teams to enhance their productivity and preserve the terminology consistency within the projects, but also requiring translators’ advanced professionalism and concentration for preventing the error propagation.

Conclusion

Wordfast as one of the world-known TM software is appreciated for its budget price, unlimited trial period, the wide range of features and straightforward and easy to follow guidelines as compared to its analogues.

However, apart from all its strengths allowing the translators to enhance the productivity and convenience of the translation process, Wordfast has a number of features which can result in unintended negative implications and deserve the developers’ consideration.

In that regard, the interface of the program does not allow proofreading the target documents for style and tone and the automatic application of the translation match to the whole document can result in error propagation.

Introduction

Virtual memory is a section of a hard disk that is used when there is not enough physically installed memory. Programs are stored therein form of pages and only those parts that are necessary for their execution are loaded into the computer’s RAM. In this paper, we will consider two tutorials on the virtual memory subject: from the websites Studytonight and Tutorials Point. Those sources will help answer questions about the way virtual memory extends space available to applications and about the drawbacks of a page fault when a virtual memory page is not resident.

Main body

When comparing two tutorials, a researcher can see that they both give good and clear explanations about the mechanisms of virtual memory usage. Both sites provide useful schemes that picture the most important principles of transferring the data to virtual memory from a standard RAM and the other way around. The tutorials give a good explanation of the term “demand page” which is a fundamental idea that makes these processes possible. The basic principle of demand paging is that the pages are not loaded all simultaneously when a process is swapped in. as it is swapped in “only on demand, not in advance” (Tutorials Point, para.13). The guide from the website Tutorials Point gives a wider look at the demand paging term and provides its advantages and disadvantages. The positive points here are the extension of the memory, its more efficient use, and limitless opportunities for multiprogramming. Although, there is an important disadvantage: the number of interrupts is bigger than with simple techniques of page management.

The explanation of the demand paging term leads to the concept of a page fault. It is a phrase that characterizes an invalid memory reference that occurs as a result of a program addressing a page that is not available in the main memory as it was swapped out before. Here, the tutorial from Studytonight gives more detailed instruction on the steps that are required to be taken when encountering a page fault. This guide also mentions the term “Pure Demand Paging” (Studytonight, para.19) that is used to call a situation when no page is loaded into the memory initially, the processor loads pages only on demand by generating page faults.

In the last part of the tutorials, both guides explain algorithms of page replacement, the techniques that are used by an Operating System to determine the pages needed to be swapped out when they need to be allocated. The Tutorials Point provides 6 different algorithms that could be used to replace pages, some of which are more recommended than others. Studytonight does not mention all those methods but gives a detailed video about LRU (Least Recently Used) page replacement.

The tutorial from Studytonight also clarifies the technical term of trashing. It is a process that spends more time paging than executing, meaning that the process frequently swaps pages in and out to keep the program working. Sometimes it has to swap out the pages that will soon be required. The article shows the dependence of multiprogramming and CPU utilization and settles that to prevent trashing processes required frames must be provided.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be noted that both chosen tutorials have their advantages. Some of the important points are missing in one guide and present in the other one. Besides, each of the two articles gives more detailed information about different sections, thus, it is better to study a few sources to gain more knowledge about such a unique subject as virtual memory that is a very important idea for software engineering. It serves two principal purposes: extending physical memory usage with disks and having memory protection, by translating each virtual address to a physical one. This is the reason that makes knowing everything about this technology essential.

References

Tutorials Point. (n.d.) Operating System – Virtual Memory. 2020. Web.

Studytonight. (n.d.) What is Virtual Memory? 2020, Web.

Summary

Implanted medical chip technology can help to reduce the amount of medical misdiagnosis that occur in hospitals and can also address the issue of the amount of money that Jones Corp. (a fictional company) pays out to its clients due to accusations of medical malpractice or their subsequent death.

Introduction

Based on data examining the prevalence of deaths in the U.S. as a result of medical errors, nearly 195,000 people die every year in hospitals due to some symptoms that were unforeseen from the onset of treatment (Wania and Cliadakis, 16-19). In fact, it was noted that a large percentage of deaths from some form of treatment error came about as a direct result of a misdiagnosis by doctors as well as unforeseen consequences when using particular methods of treatment due to the apparent lack of information regarding a patient’s medical history. From this alone, it can be seen that there is a distinct necessity in ensuring that accurate medical information can be obtained by health care professionals so as to reduce the number of deaths that come about as a result of a lack of information. Within the context of the daily operations of Jones Corp. (fictional insurance firm), this death rate is unacceptable because of the high amount of medical malpractice lawsuits that the company has to pay for as well as various financial problems associated with having to release the life insurance premiums of clients that died as a result of misdiagnosis.

Addressing the Issue

The RFID chip, a small innocuous device no bigger than a grain of rice, was debuted as being a safe and efficient way for hospitals to access the medical history of a patient so that they can speed up treatment and recovery (Grebb, 16). In a way, the advent of this particular type of technology could be thought of as a medical milestone, the future of medicine, so to speak, wherein doctors, EMTs, nurses, and other medical personnel can quickly and accurately diagnose a patient’s current condition based on their medical history. This can be accomplished even if the patient is unconscious, unable to speak, or is relatively unaware of their own history of medical care. In the case of Jones, Corp. requires all its clients to be implanted with these chips, this should increase the rate of proper medical diagnosis resulting in fewer instances of death as a result of a misdiagnosis.

Possible Issues

The prevalence of hacking-related crimes of any form of personally identifiable information creates a certain level of risk for people with embedded medical chips. Hackers can potentially access the information contained inside a chip resulting in a severe compromise of personally identifiable private information. With implanted medical chips, people may not even realize that their medical information can be accessed, copied, and used, as a way for others to pose as them in order to receive free medical treatment.

Recommendation

From the point of view of this paper, it can be seen that, despite the issue of privacy violation and identity theft, the implanted medical chips, such as the RFID chip, can help to reduce the number of deaths as a result of medical error and, as such, should be utilized by Jones Corp. for all its clients.

Positive Public Impact

The utilization of implanted medical chip technology would be able to provide the necessary information doctors need especially if implemented on a region-wide scale. In fact, utilization of the technology is rather cheap when compared to the possible complications that may arise as a result of a misdiagnosed medical condition and, as such, proves the importance of utilizing this particular technology as a possible health care standard that can be implemented by Jones Corp.

Works Cited

Grebb, Michael. “It’s Okay For Fluffy.” Bank Technology News 19.(2006): 15-16. Print.

Wania, Xerxes, and Steven Cliadakis. “Dealing With the Limitations Of Flash Memory. (Cover Story).” Portable Design 14.1 (2008): 16-19. Print.

Draw It or Lose It memory management relies on two known constants: the size of each necessary image is 8 megabytes, and only one image is being used at any one time. Because of this, one can deduce that the client-side application only needs as much memory space to store the current image. Additionally, a smaller amount of memory will be required for image-related data, such as how much of it should be revealed. Since the size of the biggest component of this data is known and the additional component can be reasonably estimated, memory for it can be assigned at load time (Silberschatz, et al., 2008). This block of memory will also be cleared out after each round, thus preventing internal fragmentation (Silberschatz, et al., 2008). As the game relies on relatively fast reactions as players compete to guess the image first, ensuring that the image is completely loaded into memory and can be accessed quickly and reliably is crucial.

The server-side database requires 1600MB of storage space for the existing images, though if new ones are ever added, this space will have to be expanded. On the client side, since it is known that a game lasts 4 rounds, each with one image, a minimum of 32 megabytes of storage space will be required per game. This storage can be implemented as a single archive file for convenience (Silberschatz, et al., 2008). An important consideration is whether the client should only download images for the current game, keep the ones already downloaded for possible reuse in a later game, or permanently store all the possible images. In any case, speed of access is not a priority in this application due to the relatively small file size and the time allowed by breaks between rounds.

Overall, memory management considerations focus on short-term resource storage where access speed and reliability are prioritized. Due to the game’s short duration, fragmentation does not become an issue as memory is only assigned for a single launch of the client application. Conversely, storage considerations focus on medium and long-term storage of resources. At this scale, speed of access is less of a concern than consistency, efficiency, and the possibility of expansion as the game’s image database grows.

Reference

Silberschatz, A., Galvin, P. B., & Gagne, G. (2008). Operating system concepts (8^th ed). Wiley.