Background Information:
Brain plasticity is when different parts of the brain create passages to each other. If you have an impairment, such as deafness, your seeing might be better than normal people because the passages go more to the other part of the brain rather than the hearing part. This enhances other parts of the body and allows those with impaired senses to compensate for their lack of hearing, sight, etc. In our previous experiment, the person who had impaired hearing memorized 96 of the 155 word paragraph, while the person whose senses were normal only memorized 78 of the 155 words. This is a small sample size, but shows the benefits of sensory deprivation.
Question:
Can impairing different senses enable students to retain information better?
Specific Experiment Question:
Can taking away ones smell enhance their concentration and ability to memorize?
Hypothesis:
If brain plasticity occurs for any sense and taking away ones hearing and sight allows for an increase in memorization and concentration in certain cases, then the person whose sense of smell was taken away will be more successful at memorizing the piece given due to having less distractions and their other senses being enhanced.
Procedure:
One person will block their nose by putting cotton balls up inside of them. Next, both individuals will read the speech below. They will read and try to memorize the lines from a portion of the speech for 10 minutes, and then they will recite the lines again to see how much each person memorized. We will measure the amount memorized and come to a conclusion based upon multiple experiments.
Piece to be Memorized:
Rocky Balboa Speech:
"You ain’t gonna believe this, but you used to fit right here.
I’d hold you up to say to your mother, “This kid’s gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid’s gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew.” And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching you, every day was like a privilege. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!"
Rocky Balboa Speech:
"You ain’t gonna believe this, but you used to fit right here.
I’d hold you up to say to your mother, “This kid’s gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid’s gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew.” And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching you, every day was like a privilege. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!"
Results:
Person with nose blocked: 91 words
Person with nose clear: 122 words
Person with nose clear: 122 words
We see here that the impairment of smell does not affect memorization skills. In fact the student that didn't have their nose blocked memorized more. One possible reason for this is that smelling certain scents release chemicals that stimulate the brain. Also this is the final step towards our goal, as we have finished each experiment that we have planned on. We have learned that the impairment of hearing and seeing when you are studying will help you memorize more, although you have to it one at a time. You cannot do both of those impairments together. Also, we learned that smelling certain scents may help stimulate your brain and help you learn easier. However, none of these are fully proven as we dd not take into account the personal health, mental health, or the physical health of each of our test subjects. However, we did fine information that could get is very close to answering our original question of whether impairment helps students retain information better.
