1.5 Exercises

1.5.1 An investigation of short-term memory

Consider how you might design a simple experiment to investigate the operation of short term memory, known to psychologists as “working memory”? How is a list of items recalled from memory? This is an experiment which can be caried out in a classroom or small group setting. It might surprise you just how extensive the list of detailed arrangements needs to be.

Once you have spent some time considering this, you may like tyo consult Bowman (1994) which describes some of the issues which arose in a classroom setting.

1.5.2 A survey of dental health

Imagine you have been commissioned to conduct a survey of the dental health of five year old children in England. Write down some of the things on which you will need to make decisions and sketch out some possible answers. This should include how a suitable sample of children will be selected, what measurements will be made, how this will be done, and another other issues which you think are relevant.

In fact, a survey of exactly this type is regularly conducted under the National Dental Epidemiology Programme (NDEP) for England. Once you have spent some time considering the issues, you can see the detail of what was done in the documents available here for the 2016-2017 survey. The protocol document describes the planning of the survey in considerable detail. The results of a further survey in 2022, using the same protocol, are also available.

1.5.3 Hearings aid and dementia

A Lancet paper studied the association between hearing loss and dementia, in particular examining the role of hearing aids. The interpretation of the findings were:

In people with hearing loss, hearing aid use is associated with a risk of dementia of a similar level to that of people without hearing loss. With the postulation that up to 8% of dementia cases could be prevented with proper hearing loss management, our findings highlight the urgent need to take measures to address hearing loss to improve cognitive decline.

Are there other possible interpretations? You may wish to look at this article published by the British Geriatrics Society which discusses the issue. The article also provides a link to a further scientific paper for the technical detail.