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A psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh is conducting a study involving short-term memory and how it correlates to Morse code. Julie Fiez, the study's principal investigator, said she got the idea of using Morse code in her studies from a family member who is an Amateur Radio operator. She said she liked the idea of using CW in her experiments to see how people process audio tones.
"Our interest is in verbal working memory," she said, "which is the ability to keep 'on-line' for a short time, information you can access later." An example of short-term memory retention, Fiez said, is when people look up a number in a phone book, then close the book and a minute later dial the number, remembering a number they've seen in the book. "We use neuro-imaging and behavioral studies to try to understand what brain areas contribute to a person's ability to perform a task," she said.
Two hams, John Shannon, K3WWP, and Tom Mitchell, WY3H, both of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, took part in the study. Shannon said that while he never considered short-term memory ability in relation to Amateur Radio, a study of the idea has merit. While most CW operators can copy 20 words per minute, or even 35, Shannon says he can copy 55 words per minute.
"You don't hear letters," he said. "You hear words or sometimes short sentences. You have to use a keyboard to copy because no one can write that fast and you always copy 'behind,' meaning that you are typing in what was sent several seconds earlier, so you're definitely using short term memory."
To date, Fiez and two assistants, Maryam Khatami and Sara Guediche, have tested nine radio amateur volunteers. Khatami said, "At the moment, we are specifically seeking people with expert knowledge of Morse code. They should be able to receive and send Morse at 15 words per minute or above. The experiment will consist of two parts and will last approximately 2 hours."
She said the experiment is broken up into two parts: "Part 1 of the experiment is an assessment of the participant's Morse proficiency. First, participants will be asked to accurately copy sentences as they are presented in Morse at three different rates (16, 19, and 25 words per minute). Then they will be asked to listen to the entire Morse sentence and recall the sentence from memory. This part of the experiment may be unusual and difficult for participants; however, we believe that it will provide an additional measure that we can better relate to the memory performance in the second part of the experiment."
For the second part, she said, "Participants will be asked to recall lists of letters from memory. The letters will either be in English or in Morse. Participants will either hear the letters through headphones or see them on a computer screen. We will be looking for differences in memory performance between Morse lists and English lists. We believe that differences between these conditions will be useful for improving our understanding of certain aspects of short-term memory."
The research study is expected to continue through the fall. If you would like to participate, please contact the research team via e-mail.
Thanks to Tom Mitchell, WY3H, and the Leader Times, part of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review family of newspapers for some information.
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