The type of articles I wish to address is one which falls under the research kind of material. This is because the concept being handled by the authors are those which are aiming at coming up with a justification on the argument within the public domain. In regards to this, a crucial topic on psychological concepts of human life is being dealt within the article. The topic that is being discussed is one which is touching on the relationship between sleep and memory. And the discussion which is being brought on board is one which is trying to deduce on the number of hours one can require to sleep for he/she to store information (Kalat, 2013). The two research articles that cover this idea are “Sleep Can Eliminate List-Method Directed Forgetting” in the peer-reviewed Journal of Experimental Psychology and “Want to Boost Your Memory? Try Sleeping on it” in the popular press Time. From the mentioned article, a lot can be obtained to justify any argument which surrounds such a subjective topic on memory and information storage.
What we can deduce from that article concerning the experiment done, it is evident that, in the analysis done in 2013 by Abel and Bauml in the peer-reviewed article “Sleep Can Eliminate List-method Directed Forgetting”, a concept which can come out undoubtedly is that the research question is if sleep reduces or amplifies LMDF, which stands for list-method directed forgetting. In the hypothesis surrounding the research clarifies that people who obtain more sleep will forget less than people who receive less sleep. This may be argued against by any individual but what we can realize from the works of Abels and Baumls. It’s evident from their study they carried out using some students who could be used to justify the argument. Abel’s and Bauml’s (2013) study involved 192 students who acted as a sample to represent the target population. The average age of the participants was 22.5 years with a range of 18-30 years. The participants were initially asked to remember a list of 16 nouns.
From what could be noted about the experiment carried out, memory performance was tested in two delay conditions: a 12-hour wake condition and a 12- hour sleep condition. Based on what could be obtained from the mentioned conditions, is that, in the 12-hour wake condition, participants studied the list in the morning and they were tested after 12 hours. While in the case where the 12-hour sleeps condition, participants reviewed the little (Abel and Bauml, 2013). The results are that the participants in the 12-hour wake condition showed more directed forgetting than the participants in the 12-hour sleep condition. People in the sleep condition remembered the initial list of nouns regardless of the instruction to forget them. All these were the information which was gathered when the two situations were carried out with the same samples of an individual. Therefore, a conclusion could be obtained from the study which gives an affirmation that, with the number of hours an individual can sleep, this may be providing an improvement to their memory storage of information. This conclusion can be deduced from Abel’s, and Bauml’s (2013) study is that memory consolidation increases with sleep.
What has been given by the research by Abel and Bauml is given an affirmation in the popular press Time, the article “Want to Boost Your Memory? Try Sleeping on it”. This was an article which was done by Narayan (2009) whose main aim was centered on explaining how getting more sleep can strengthen memories. Based on how the argument has been placed in its context, it’s evident that there is a correlation with what Abel and Bauml were saying. This is because the article in its setting is giving an elaborate mention on a study which had been done in the journal Science. In regards to what the study gave is that the test on the sounds whereby if played during sleep there are notable effects which are seen that, the sound would have an impact on increasing the memory of information obtained when awake. What the participant in the experiment was told is that they will have to memorize the location of 50 images on a computer screen. The manner in which the images were shown was in a dive kind of articles which was ideally in a random location and with an associated sound to the image.
During the participants’ sleep, the sounds associated with 25 images were played. This kind of experiment had its challenges in trying to achieve the objective, and this was evident in the case where the participants could claim to have heard nothing. But this could not have a negative impact to what was being required in the study because, their ability to recall the images with the sounds played during their sleep “slightly better” (Narayan, 2009). What could be deduced in such a scenario is that there is a general relation between memory and sleep even though there was no direct evidence that could justify the concept. Based on this argument, it’s clear that the study has been done, Narayan (2009) claims that neuroscientists have come up with more evidence for this correlation between memory and sleep. They discovered that during deep sleep, the brain runs through what happened during the day and strengthens those memories. Based on this theory, the 2009 article by Narayan concludes that learning before sleeping improves the memory of the information. Both of these articles cover how sleep and consciousness are related but differ in the way they present the material.
What we can note about the peer-reviewed article is that it uses a study which was done on memory during the day and night, while the popular press article uses research which was done on mind during sleep. Furthermore, what could be noted as a complementary relation with the two materials is that they both reached a conclusion which was attained after looking at the studies which were carried out in the two articles. In regards to the outcome of the two articles is that they both gave a conclusion that sleep and memory had a complementary relationship in human psychological life. The link that is provided is centered on the fact that, with more sleep, an individual memory will automatically have an improvement.
Even though we may have seen how the two articles have championed their ideas towards obtaining a common conclusion, we can realize that there is a difference in how the two articles have been structured. The peer-reviewed article has a clear and organized structure with section headings, such as the method, results, and conclusion, to explain concise information and data, whereas the popular press article is a little less rigid and more informal than the peer-reviewed article, using a storytelling style with a hook, background, conflict, climax, and conclusion to go over the evidence. Furthermore, more technical terms are used in the peer-reviewed article that an ordinary person would not know, such as list-method directed forgetting and delay condition (Abel and Bauml, 2013). In the popular press article, more commonly understood terms are used to accommodate the general population. Another difference is that the popular press article provides only brief summaries of the studies that are used as evidence. For instance, when describing the results of the study done on sounds and images, the author of the article vaguely states that for the images with the sounds played during sleep were remembered “slightly better” (Narayan, 2009). On the other hand, the peer-reviewed article includes much more specific details that were not used in the popular press article when describing a study, such as a year that the study was done, the quantitative results, and the background of the participants (Abel and Bauml, 2013). When an advisory comment is made concerning the type of article which should be read by the people is given, then people should be advised to read a popular press article if they want a quick and simple explanation of an event or phenomena which they may be having some curiosity about. But for the case where people may wish to have highly detailed and well-supported explanation for a research paper or report, they should read a peer-reviewed article.
References
Abel, M., Bauml, K.H. (2013) Sleep Can Eliminate List-Method Directed Forgetting. Journal of Experimental Psychology, volume 39 (no. 3), 946-952. doi: 10.1037/a0030529
Kalat, J. W. (2013). Introduction to Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Narayan, A. (2009). Want to Boost Your Memory? Try Sleeping on It. Time. http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1943283,00.html
