Meeting and Research

Last Wednesday, I had a meeting with two professors, one from the mathematics department and one from the psychology department. The psychology professor had a lot to say in regards to doing a research project/experiment and what considerations I will have to take into account when preparing this project. After talking with both professors, I believe that my best experimental group would be elementary students because it is a homogeneous group with little to no specialization yet. We discussed the option of elderly people, but the variability of test subjects is too vast, especially when it comes to differences in memory disorders. We also discussed and experiment with college students, but the psychology professor didn't seem too keen on that because college students are specialized, so their brain already has specific functions and actions.
After this meeting, I felt a little more comfortable about working with elementary students as my test subjects. They asked me to do a little bit of research before our next meeting, which I have been doing this morning. As I was browsing through some of the sources, I realized that there is a lot more information on adolescents than young adults, so the elementary group may just be the way to go. I found a few articles and purchased a book for a bit of"light reading" over the summer. Out of four sources I found in PsychInfo EBSCO Search, I was able to find three of them. One book is called "The Learning Brain: Memory and Brain Development in Children."  This book talks about the neuroscience of the brain and focuses on working memory and its correlation to math and reading skills. I also found an article entitled "The Role of Mathematical Homework and Prior Knowledge on the Relationship Between Students' Mathematical Performance, Cognitive Style and Working Memory Capacity," and a dissertation discussing gender differences in math performance. Needless to say, I've got a lot of reading ahead of me, but these few works will get me a jump-start on where I want to be heading.

Thinking on Paper

So last class I made a plan to do some word vomiting to figure out where my project is headed, and I think it worked. I didn't know where to start writing, so I looked at my application for independent study. There is a section for the proposal and in the directions it tells you what needs to be included in the proposal. Those parts include rationale, scope, plan of study, procedure of evaluation, and plan for conferences with faculty instructor. I'm not sure about those last two parts yet, but the first three helped my organize my thinking process.

I had been torn between two paths - looking at thinking process through college students or memory capabilities and elderly people with memory disabilities, such as Alzheimer's and dementia. For each of these ideas, I started jotting down notes that would correspond to each of the sections of the proposal. At first I had only done it for the college pool because it seemed like the more reasonable option being on a college campus. However, this morning I realized that that's not what I want to do. After having it sit in my brain for a few days, I realized that I am more interested in the long-term effects and memory loss.

My only concern right now with this path is that there is not enough math involved. I want to look at mathematical procedures to maybe see if there is any relation to the way we process information into our memory. Math is repetitious and is always building on previous knowledge, so I thought that could play a role in the way we remember things, too. I also want to see what parts of the brain are working when we "use math" and then compare it to the parts of the brain where memory loss occurs.

My project is going to be very different from other math projects done in the past. Most projects use mathematical concepts in order to derive a solution to a particular, mathematical involved problem. However, mine is looking at the impact of mathematics and the long-term effects it can have on memory capabilities. I'm just worried that this isn't the type of project that the department is looking for, but it is something I have been dreaming of doing.

Getting Under the Umbrella

So, right now my topic is a little broad. I need to figure out how to narrow it down to one specific idea that I can research. I talked to my advisor yesterday about my topic and how to narrow it down. Luckily, she knows a professor in the psychology department who might be able to help us and possibly be a co-advisor, partly because not a lot of math professors know much about the brain. My proposal and application for independent study are due soon, so hopefully I can figure it out by then. Next task is trying to figure out how to fill out my application.

Choosing between thinking process and memory capabilities, I feel like I am leaning more towards memory, but then again, the way we remember information depends on how we process it in the first place. There may not be a lot of mathematical equations involved in this study, more informative than comprehensive, but for some reason I am enjoying planning it out because I know it's something I am interested in discovering.

Spit It Out

I realize it's been a while since I've posted and I apologize. However, since the last time I was on here, I have finally cleared out what it it I will be doing for my Honors Project. In class, we wrote on giant sticky notes and filled in the blanks of a general sentence that we could specify to our own projects.

This is what I did in class and all of my classmates put in their input to help me clarify what I will be doing.

I am researching/studying...the impact/influence of mathematics on the thinking process and capacity of working/short/long-term memory...because I want to find out...how influential mathematics is on the brain (through the uses of patterns and sequences, abstract thinking, application of theories, rules, etc.)...in order to help my reader understand...the importance of mathematics and how it can help/hinder your mental capabilities.

By looking at the three base phrases and trying to complete the sentence, it helped me finally spit out in words exactly what it is I am looking to do for my project. Once I got it out on paper, my classmates started to comment on it to help me either clarify it more for the audience or give me ideas that I might want to look into once I start doing research.

A few people were commenting that I should look at different parts related to the brain. They suggested looking at fluid/crystallized intelligences and brain lateralization, looking into mental disorders such as Alzheimer's. This gave me the idea to visit an assisted living facility and maybe see if I can do mathematical activities with some of the Alzheimer's patients and see if the activities do anything to help their memory capabilities. This would involve solving logic problems and puzzles like Sudoku.

As far as the thinking  process, I'm not sure exactly how I want to approach it yet, but i think it will involve doing an experiment in which I take students on campus from different majors, have them try to remember a series of numbers, patterns, etc, and see how well they are remembered and the strategy used to remember them.

It's a work in progress, but I am finally getting somewhere where I can start planning out where I want to go with my experiment and get helpful input/feedback from my classmates!

Mind Map

So, as I try to narrow down and figure out exactly what my project will entail, I came up with a few topics that I might come across as I start to do research. This was part of an assignment I was doing in class and this is the list of ideas I came up with. My project revolves around how the use of math influences the brain in terms of how we think and our memory capabilities.

Math/Psychology
     parts of the brain
     memory storage (short-term, long-term, schemes)
     knowledge transfer (applying previously learned material)
     types of thinking (logical)
     types of math - application (finances, banking, investing, etc)
     depth of field - how far someone is into studying math (hs, college, algebra, etc)
     person's interest in mathematics
     way math is taught (education)
     devices/techniques - acronyms, calculators, short-hand

I'm not sure what I'm expecting to get out of this list, but hopefully it will help me figure out different approaches to my project and lead me somewhere useful.

Just for Keeps

Just for my record, I am posting links to other blogs that are similar to what I plan on researching, but anyone can feel free to check them out as well. I'm just using it so that I can have easy reference to them later.

http://math-blog.com/category/math-education/

http://headinside.blogspot.com/

http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2012/09/03/why-memory-and-math-dont-mix-they-require-opposing-states-of-the-same-brain-circuitry/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-learning-brain/201211/working-memory-and-school-performance

http://mathfactsfluencyblog.mathfactspro.com/
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2013/01/good-math-students-use-rote-memory/

Here is also a website to check out that I found across my research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120903154002.htm

Welcome

As part of doing a Departmental Honors Project at Rhode Island College, I am creating a blog to document my progress and for everyone else to follow along as I make new discoveries. As a Mathematics major, I am leaning towards seeing how mathematics impacts the mind. I am curious to see how the use of mathematics affects the memory process and/or our thinking process. I know for me, I feel like math has made me more of a logical thinker - I think things through and think about the realities and consequences of certain actions. At my house, my mom and I used to love doing Sudoku puzzles, which are math involved and require a lot of thinking and deducing. I'm curious to see if this is just coincidence or if there is something about math problems that strengthens this type of thinking.