Keeping Track
I am very interested in seeing how I score on a test in comparison to some other person. And I am a bit disappointed to find I have not done as well, as happens often. People are like this. It's part of living in a competitive world. Or is it just me?We do offer a gauge on the site to show relative levels of performance so users can get some indication of their relative performance. But, performance relative to others is less important than performance relative to our own previous performance. The idea of long term memory testing is to develop a baseline for comparison with your own future tests.
This raises a number of much more interesting issues. The most immediate concerns the "baseline of performance". What if my scores vary from test to test by a significant margin, how can I find a baseline? Some of this variation comes from the learning effect. As you learn a given test your results tend to improve. But that’s just part of it. A good deal of the changes you see in performance comes from your own mental condition when you take the test. If you are tired or depressed, you do poorly, as do most people. The test measures this along with its target trait - memory.
Another source of variability has to do with the design of the tests. As you may have noticed, each time you take one of our tests, it is different - sometimes very different. This can have an effect on your score for better or worse. So why don't we just make all the tests exactly the same? Two reasons: 1. you would learn the test after a few repetitions and, 2. you would be horribly bored. If you are bored, you lose motivation and that, in itself, can lead to variation in results.
We have used scoring systems within each test that help to stabilize your results over time, particularly as you take the tests and learn how they work.
One final issue - really a topic for another entry - has to do with changing the tests. If we make a change to, say, Test 3, what happens to the test results from the previous version? A member might ask "How can I compare my results today with a previous version of the test, if you keep changing the test." Our response is quite simple: while we will make minor improvements to the tests, we will not change them. This is a long term committment to our members.
MemoryMigrations
posted by Henry Bowles @ 12:03 PM
1 Comments:
Thank you for your visit to my MSN Space and your kind comments. You're right about your tests driving a cognitive tester nuts, but only because I would usually be looking for specific abnormal results which would require standardized norms. I would have said a test should be so simple on the low end that nobody could miss it unless they are faking bad or really impaired. The high end of the curve, then, should reflect a level of ability which none can reach. What you are doing, however, is quite different and interesting. I imagine you will get performance differences based on "extraneous" variables such as time of day, perceived wellness of the subject, motivation, any mind altering drug/medication, hunger, need to urinate, etc., etc. I tried your free test a couple of times and noticed immediately that the first time I was slow, but fairly accurate. when I got a tiny bit more familiar with which keys to push, my overall reaction times were about 1/3 that of the previous trial with a slight increase in accuracy. You've also given me an idea for a post on Spaces. I have a Blog here - Solo Shrink, which nobody seems to have noticed. If you don't mind, I would like to include a link to your blog and to Memory Migrations on my Space. A little free advertising never hurts, right? Thanks again and drop by anytime. Peace, Doc
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