How to measure memory process

Preface

This experiment is a collaborative project with Professor Zengxiang Fei from the Department of Psychology at National Taiwan University. It aims to assess the degree of memory decline in Parkinson's disease patients at different stages. I assisted in developing the front-end and back-end programs for testing and recording subjects' responses. Brainwave data from the subjects is also collected and interpreted during the testing process.

Memory Stage

Memory can be divided into three stages, namely "encoding," "storage," and "retrieval." The brain's ability to recall things owes much to these three stages, each of which is indispensable.

1. Encoding Stage: It involves transforming external sensory stimuli into information that the brain can store.

2. Storage Stage: Memories encoded in the encoding stage are stored in the brain, which can be further categorized into three types (sensory, short-term, long-term).

3. Retrieval Stage: It occurs when we need to use stored memories.

In this experiment we assume patient who has bad memory of something is because one of these three stages may not working properly

Change Detection task

The change detection task is a psychological test designed to assess an individual's ability to detect changes in visual scenes. In this task, participants are required to observe two images or scenes, where most details are the same, but there are differences in one or more details. The participants' task is to identify these differences.

What make this experiment validate to test memory stage

1. Hint patient what position would display special color
2. randomly change result from scene 2 and test them whether they are still remember scene 2

Experiment Stage

each experiment stage have

1. no-hint stage : test the memory threshold of the patient, in this stage we will decide how many color code remain in following stage
2. Hint before scene 2 : test the encoding stage
3. Hint before scene 3 : test the storage stage
4. Hint before scene 4 : test the retrieval stage

and each stage have four scene (based on change detection task)

1. Scene1 : cross scene
2. Scene2 : color code scene
3. Scene3 : cross scene
4. Scene4 : color code scene2 (this scene will randomly change one of colors)

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