Tag: cognition

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Go Test Yourself – Serial Position and Testing Effect

By Jeileen Belen and Veronica Rzepniewski

College is a difficult time for people; you’re adjusting to a new environment, taking difficult classes, and surrounding yourself with people that you don’t know yet. Though it may seem stressful, college is a great time as long as you find your balance.

If I could go back in time, I would have listened to older college students who told me that the techniques used for studying in high school is not an effective way to study in college. To all of the first-year college students, the best way to study for a test is to ACTUALLY STUDY; studying the day before or the day of is a sure way to fail a college test. There are expectations of college students to have a fun and active social life while maintaining a good academic standing, and these expectations can be overwhelming. It is important to enjoy your college years, but it is more important to understand your boundaries and find a good social and academic balance. Sources say that having good study skills improves academic self-efficacy and achievement motivation which are the two constructs that best influence GPA (1). College is a whole new ball park, so developing great study habits from the bat will help you succeed. Continue reading “Go Test Yourself – Serial Position and Testing Effect”

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Stress Well to Test Well? How Applying State Dependent Learning Can Lead to Better Test Results

By Nina Relias and Madeline Rockhold

Ever heard of the expressions “dress well to test well” or “I only study well when I am under a lot of stress”?  Most college students have their own theories or myths about their study habits which may or may not be accurate. We will be addressing these myths by exploring the nature of state dependent memory and learning.  Psychologists have determined that outside factors influence how one studies.  By definition, state dependent learning is a type of learning that is associated with a specific state.  People have better memory recall when information is retrieved in the same state that it was learned in. Especially when referring to mood. This occurs because human’s brains are comprised of a network of interconnected units or nodes, which activate other surrounding emotional nodes. These nodes are connected to certain events and stimuli in one’s environment that are associated with a specific emotion.  These emotions are spread to other association nodes that then are able to interpret stored information along the pathway of activation with more accessibility (1).  In short, someone will have better memory retrieval if that person’s mood or physical state is the same at both encoding and retrieval.

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Listening to Music While Studying

By Emma Hartmann and Hannah Menz 

In a world of technology, many people listen to music. With Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify, at our fingertips, it’s difficult to unplug. College students especially listen to their favorite songs walking to class, working out, or even while writing papers. Often, the flow of music is non-stop, continuing as they wander into the library to study for exams. Music is known to have many effects on the brain that alter mood and arousal states, yet, could these changes in cognitive functions help or hinder the productivity of student’s precious study time?

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