Primacy And Recency Effect Essay
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Student (s) Number as per your student card:
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Course Title: BA (Hons) in Psychology
Lecturer Name:
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Assignment Title: Research Report (Assignment 2) To ascertain if the serial position of a word, influences word recall by analyzing the primacy and recency effect.
No of Words: 2,259
Note technical support is available to student between 0930- 1700 hrs only. There is no technical support after 1700 hrs. It is your responsibility to ensure that you allow time to troubleshoot any technical difficulties by uploading early on the due date.
To ascertain if the serial position of a word, influences word recall by analysing the primacy and recency effect …show more content…
Abstract
“Memory does not comprise a single unitary system, but rather an array of interacting systems, each capable of encoding or registering information, storing it and making it available by retrieval” (Daddeley, 2013, p.
18). This study was designed to look more closely at the memory and in particular to investigate if our ability to recall a list of words is affected by serial position of the words. It will specifically analyse if recall is influenced by the primacy and recency effect. This information may have major consequences on the way we carry out a variety of tasks, e.g. prepare for an interview, study for an exam etc. The results of the study provided strong evidence that word recall is affected by the serial position of the words, however it indicated that the recency effect may not have as great an influence as previously thought. This study will document the steps involved in this experiment, as they were completed, as well as the results of the study, which were illustrated by means of histograms using SPSS. This study can be easily replicated by following the steps outlined in the following
pages.
Introduction
Each day each of us uses our memory, either in memory storage or memory retrieval. Many studies have looked at the processes involved in the retention of information, the difference between short term memory and long term memory and also the effect this will have on how we recall this information. The multi-store model has been fundamental to theorists understanding of memory and its functions. According to Atkinson & Shiffrin, (1968) there are three different types of memory storage;
Sensory Stores
Short term store
Long term store
Firstly there are sensory stores, which process modality specific information (e.g. hearing, smell) very briefly before they are developed by the short or long term stores. According to Miller (1956) the Short Term store has extremely limited capacity. He concluded that the maximum number units that an individual could recall without error, was normally “seven plus or minus two” (Eysenck & Keane. (2010). p.207). Miller expanded this by stating if we ‘chunked’ words into phrases or sentences, which are related, we increase our ability to hold information in our short term memories. Ebbinghaus (1885) was amongst the first to study memory with his study on forgetting. He proposed the serial position effect, which outlines that when recalling items on a list, the position of these items is hugely important.
Murdock (1962) conducted research on the serial position effect. He asked participants in his study to learn a list of words, varying in length from 10 to 30 words and then asked them to recall the words. What he found was, that participants were more likely to remember words in the beginning or end of the list, but those in the middle of the list were usually forgotten. Murdock maintained that those items at the start of the list had entered the individuals’ long term memory, as they had time to rehearse them and so became known as the primacy effect. Items on the end of the list are more easily remembered, as they are retained in the short term memory and are known as the recency effect. Murdock maintained that words in the middle of the list could not be retained by either the short or long term memory stores and so, were forgotten easily.
This study is designed to investigate, if in fact our ability to recall a list of words is affected by the serial position of the words. It will specifically analyse if recall is influenced by the primacy and recency effect.
Method Section
Participants:
Participants in this study consisted of both male and female, full and part time undergraduate students attending a Cognitive Psychology module in Dublin Business School. The experiment was conducted in class. Participants were from various nationalities and of a variety of ages.
Design:
A ‘within study design’ was utilized in this experiment and all participants were tested under the same conditions. No incentives were offered to participate in the study and all students attending the classes participated.
Materials:
This is a relatively simple experiment to carry out with few resources required. Two word lists were required, consisting of 21 words each. A table to record the data was also required. Subsequently an SPSS programme was required to compile the date and construct graphs illustrating results.
Procedure:
The lecturer, Dr Katriona O’Sullivan invited students in her class to participate in this study. The class split into pairs, A & B. They were given two word lists, comprising of 21 words each, word list A & B. Working together, participant A read and explained the procedure to participant B. Participant A then read a list of words (word list A) out to participant B. Participant B then wrote down as many words as they could recall. Upon completion, the pair swapped over and repeated the process using word list B. Participants were placed under no time constraints during the experiment.
Following completion of the word lists, the data was compiled and each participant recorded which words their partner had recalled and also which they had forgotten. The results were then broken down even further, in that the words on the word lists were separated into the first 7 words, the middle 7 words and the last 7 words. The lecturer compiled all of this data from each participant. The dependant variable in this study was the ability to recall the words, whereas the independent variable consisted of the word order.
Results
Division of full and part time students undertaking the study
Statistics
Student type
N
Valid
138
Missing
0
Student type
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Ft
76
55.1
55.1
55.1
Pt
62
44.9
44.9
100.0
Total
138
100.0
100.0
Results full / part time - First 7 words
Results part/full time - Last 7 words
Results part/full time - middle 7 words
The results were compiled using SPSS computer software. 138 students in total took part in this study. 51.1% of them were full time students, while the remaining 44.9% were part time. The first three histograms above illustrate the three groupings, first, last and middle 7 words.
As we can seen, in the first 7 words; M = 3.2, while the Median is 3 and the Range is 7.
In the last 7 words; M = 3.2, the Median is 3 and the Range is 7.
While in the middle 7 words; M = 1.8, the Median is 2 and the Range is 5.
The majority of students remembered between 2-4 words in the first and last 7 word groupings, while in the middle 7, the majority of students remembered between 0-2 words.
These results can be further broken down into part time / full time results, as outlined in the graphs. The full time results illustrate the following; in the first 7 words M = 3.3, the median is 3 and the mode is 2. in the middle 7 words, M = 1.5, the median is 1 and the mode is 1. in the last 7 words, M = 3.2, the median is 3 and the mode is 4.
In comparison, the part time results illustrate the following; in the first 7 words M = 3, the median is 3 and the mode is 3. in the middle 7 M = 2, the median is 2 and the mode is 1. in the last 7 M = 3.3, the median is 3 and the mode is 2.
Discussion
As seen above, the results show that when treated as a whole group, the Mean is highest in the first and last 7 words, M = 3.2 in both cases. The middle 7 results are significantly lower, M = 1.8. To simplify, the majority of students remembered between 2-4 words in the first and last word groupings, while in the middle word grouping, the majority of students remembered between 0-2 words. These results support the hypothesis, in that participants recalled more words from the first and last word groupings, while very few managed to recall words from the middle word grouping. However one would expect that results for the last word grouping would be slightly higher than the first word grouping, supporting the recency/primacy effect, which is not the case in this study.
These results can be analysed further by dividing the study into full time and part time classes and looking at their respective results. The full time results indicate that the Mean is slightly higher in the first word grouping than in the final word grouping. The middle word grouping results however, do follow the expected trend and are much lower than the other two word groupings, indicating that these words had been hardest to recall by the participants, which is in line with the hypotheses. When analysing the results of the part time students, it is evident that these results support the hypothesis completely. The Mean is highest in the last 7 words, slightly lower in the first 7, but significantly lower in the middle seven.
This study was designed to ascertain if the serial position of a word, effects word recall. It set out to investigate if the ability to recall a list of words is affected by the serial position of the words. It specifically examined if word recall was influenced by the primacy and the recency effect. Overall the results support the hypothesis as they showed strong evidence that words at the beginning and end of the list were the easiest to remember, while participants were more likely to forget words in the middle word list as they had not long enough to enter a persons Long Term Memory but had been held too long to be held the Short Term Memory. The results indicate that the serial position of a word does in fact affect the order of word recall; however the recency effect does not appear to have as strong an influence as expected. The results point towards an equal influence of the recency and primacy effect.
Limitations
A number of limitations were experienced during this study. Firstly each pair of participants completed the experiment ‘in class’, alongside their classmates. This led to some disruption and noise which may have distracted the participant and may have affected their performance. As the participants were comprised of a variety of nationalities, difficulties may have been experienced with pronunciations and accents, which may have also influenced performance as participants may have had difficulty understanding some of the words. Also, this experiment was completed during class so time was limited to the class time. The experiment also never took into account the physical condition of the students, i.e. whether they were fatigued, sick, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, suffered from any disabilities etc.
Strengths of Study
There were many positive aspects of this study. Firstly it was relatively easy to carry out the experiment in class and it was also extremely cost effective. The word list and table were provided in class and the results placed on Moodle, which all students have access to. As most participants were also undertaking a Data Analysis and Computing module, students had access to SPSS software and had been shown how to use this. This study could be easily replicated by others.
The study completed what it set out to do, however to achieve more reliable results it could be carried out in a more controlled environment to ensure noise, accent, time and the physical condition of participants were not a debilitating factor. The study could also be varied slightly to include slight delays before participants were invited to engage in word recall, which might be a more effective analysis of the recency effect and STM.
References
Anderson, J.R. (2010). Cognitive Psychology and its Implications (7th Ed). USA. Worth Publishers
Baddeley, Alan. (2013). Essentials of Human Memory (Classic Edition). Psychology Press Classic Editions
Eysenck, M.W. and Keane, M.T. (2010) Cognitive Psychology : a students handbook. 6th edition.
Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology (3rd Ed). Belmont, C.A: Wadsworth
McLeod, S. (2008). Serial Position Effect. Simply Psychology. Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/primacy-recency.html (Accessed 20/12/13)
Appendices
Word List A/B
Word Number
Word list A
Yes/No
Word Number
Word list B
Yes/No
1
Car
1
Accuse
2
Shot
2
Button
3
House
3
Coarse
4
Finger
4
Hail
5
Lose
5
Puzzle
6
Chest
6
Poison
7
Foreign
7
Slate
8
Drag
8
Conform
9
Forgotten
9
Unite
10
Picture
10
Pork
11
Dog
11
Thumb
12
Figure
12
Place
13
Chain
13
Doubt
14
Pigeon
14
Picture
15
Grass
15
Face
16
Boy
16
Drawer
17
Dreary
17
Cat
18
Television
18
Water
19
Point
19
Candle
20
Cup
20
Cheque
21
Sock
21
Flake
Results table
Word List
Total recalled first 7 words
Total recalled middle 7 words
Total recalled last 7 words
Word list A
Word list B
Please fill out and attach as the first page of Assignment.
Student (s) Number as per your student card:
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
Course Title: BA (Hons) in Psychology
Lecturer Name:
Module/Subject Title:
Assignment Title: Research Report (Assignment 2) To ascertain if the serial position of a word, influences word recall by analyzing the primacy and recency effect.
No of Words: 2,259
Note technical support is available to student between 0930- 1700 hrs only. There is no technical support after 1700 hrs. It is your responsibility to ensure that you allow time to troubleshoot any technical difficulties by uploading early on the due date.
To ascertain if the serial position of a word, influences word recall by analysing the primacy and recency effect …show more content…
Abstract
“Memory does not comprise a single unitary system, but rather an array of interacting systems, each capable of encoding or registering information, storing it and making it available by retrieval” (Daddeley, 2013, p.
18). This study was designed to look more closely at the memory and in particular to investigate if our ability to recall a list of words is affected by serial position of the words. It will specifically analyse if recall is influenced by the primacy and recency effect. This information may have major consequences on the way we carry out a variety of tasks, e.g. prepare for an interview, study for an exam etc. The results of the study provided strong evidence that word recall is affected by the serial position of the words, however it indicated that the recency effect may not have as great an influence as previously thought. This study will document the steps involved in this experiment, as they were completed, as well as the results of the study, which were illustrated by means of histograms using SPSS. This study can be easily replicated by following the steps outlined in the following
pages.
Introduction
Each day each of us uses our memory, either in memory storage or memory retrieval. Many studies have looked at the processes involved in the retention of information, the difference between short term memory and long term memory and also the effect this will have on how we recall this information. The multi-store model has been fundamental to theorists understanding of memory and its functions. According to Atkinson & Shiffrin, (1968) there are three different types of memory storage;
Sensory Stores
Short term store
Long term store
Firstly there are sensory stores, which process modality specific information (e.g. hearing, smell) very briefly before they are developed by the short or long term stores. According to Miller (1956) the Short Term store has extremely limited capacity. He concluded that the maximum number units that an individual could recall without error, was normally “seven plus or minus two” (Eysenck & Keane. (2010). p.207). Miller expanded this by stating if we ‘chunked’ words into phrases or sentences, which are related, we increase our ability to hold information in our short term memories. Ebbinghaus (1885) was amongst the first to study memory with his study on forgetting. He proposed the serial position effect, which outlines that when recalling items on a list, the position of these items is hugely important.
Murdock (1962) conducted research on the serial position effect. He asked participants in his study to learn a list of words, varying in length from 10 to 30 words and then asked them to recall the words. What he found was, that participants were more likely to remember words in the beginning or end of the list, but those in the middle of the list were usually forgotten. Murdock maintained that those items at the start of the list had entered the individuals’ long term memory, as they had time to rehearse them and so became known as the primacy effect. Items on the end of the list are more easily remembered, as they are retained in the short term memory and are known as the recency effect. Murdock maintained that words in the middle of the list could not be retained by either the short or long term memory stores and so, were forgotten easily.
This study is designed to investigate, if in fact our ability to recall a list of words is affected by the serial position of the words. It will specifically analyse if recall is influenced by the primacy and recency effect.
Method Section
Participants:
Participants in this study consisted of both male and female, full and part time undergraduate students attending a Cognitive Psychology module in Dublin Business School. The experiment was conducted in class. Participants were from various nationalities and of a variety of ages.
Design:
A ‘within study design’ was utilized in this experiment and all participants were tested under the same conditions. No incentives were offered to participate in the study and all students attending the classes participated.
Materials:
This is a relatively simple experiment to carry out with few resources required. Two word lists were required, consisting of 21 words each. A table to record the data was also required. Subsequently an SPSS programme was required to compile the date and construct graphs illustrating results.
Procedure:
The lecturer, Dr Katriona O’Sullivan invited students in her class to participate in this study. The class split into pairs, A & B. They were given two word lists, comprising of 21 words each, word list A & B. Working together, participant A read and explained the procedure to participant B. Participant A then read a list of words (word list A) out to participant B. Participant B then wrote down as many words as they could recall. Upon completion, the pair swapped over and repeated the process using word list B. Participants were placed under no time constraints during the experiment.
Following completion of the word lists, the data was compiled and each participant recorded which words their partner had recalled and also which they had forgotten. The results were then broken down even further, in that the words on the word lists were separated into the first 7 words, the middle 7 words and the last 7 words. The lecturer compiled all of this data from each participant. The dependant variable in this study was the ability to recall the words, whereas the independent variable consisted of the word order.
Results
Division of full and part time students undertaking the study
Statistics
Student type
N
Valid
138
Missing
0
Student type
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Ft
76
55.1
55.1
55.1
Pt
62
44.9
44.9
100.0
Total
138
100.0
100.0
Results full / part time - First 7 words
Results part/full time - Last 7 words
Results part/full time - middle 7 words
The results were compiled using SPSS computer software. 138 students in total took part in this study. 51.1% of them were full time students, while the remaining 44.9% were part time. The first three histograms above illustrate the three groupings, first, last and middle 7 words.
As we can seen, in the first 7 words; M = 3.2, while the Median is 3 and the Range is 7.
In the last 7 words; M = 3.2, the Median is 3 and the Range is 7.
While in the middle 7 words; M = 1.8, the Median is 2 and the Range is 5.
The majority of students remembered between 2-4 words in the first and last 7 word groupings, while in the middle 7, the majority of students remembered between 0-2 words.
These results can be further broken down into part time / full time results, as outlined in the graphs. The full time results illustrate the following; in the first 7 words M = 3.3, the median is 3 and the mode is 2. in the middle 7 words, M = 1.5, the median is 1 and the mode is 1. in the last 7 words, M = 3.2, the median is 3 and the mode is 4.
In comparison, the part time results illustrate the following; in the first 7 words M = 3, the median is 3 and the mode is 3. in the middle 7 M = 2, the median is 2 and the mode is 1. in the last 7 M = 3.3, the median is 3 and the mode is 2.
Discussion
As seen above, the results show that when treated as a whole group, the Mean is highest in the first and last 7 words, M = 3.2 in both cases. The middle 7 results are significantly lower, M = 1.8. To simplify, the majority of students remembered between 2-4 words in the first and last word groupings, while in the middle word grouping, the majority of students remembered between 0-2 words. These results support the hypothesis, in that participants recalled more words from the first and last word groupings, while very few managed to recall words from the middle word grouping. However one would expect that results for the last word grouping would be slightly higher than the first word grouping, supporting the recency/primacy effect, which is not the case in this study.
These results can be analysed further by dividing the study into full time and part time classes and looking at their respective results. The full time results indicate that the Mean is slightly higher in the first word grouping than in the final word grouping. The middle word grouping results however, do follow the expected trend and are much lower than the other two word groupings, indicating that these words had been hardest to recall by the participants, which is in line with the hypotheses. When analysing the results of the part time students, it is evident that these results support the hypothesis completely. The Mean is highest in the last 7 words, slightly lower in the first 7, but significantly lower in the middle seven.
This study was designed to ascertain if the serial position of a word, effects word recall. It set out to investigate if the ability to recall a list of words is affected by the serial position of the words. It specifically examined if word recall was influenced by the primacy and the recency effect. Overall the results support the hypothesis as they showed strong evidence that words at the beginning and end of the list were the easiest to remember, while participants were more likely to forget words in the middle word list as they had not long enough to enter a persons Long Term Memory but had been held too long to be held the Short Term Memory. The results indicate that the serial position of a word does in fact affect the order of word recall; however the recency effect does not appear to have as strong an influence as expected. The results point towards an equal influence of the recency and primacy effect.
Limitations
A number of limitations were experienced during this study. Firstly each pair of participants completed the experiment ‘in class’, alongside their classmates. This led to some disruption and noise which may have distracted the participant and may have affected their performance. As the participants were comprised of a variety of nationalities, difficulties may have been experienced with pronunciations and accents, which may have also influenced performance as participants may have had difficulty understanding some of the words. Also, this experiment was completed during class so time was limited to the class time. The experiment also never took into account the physical condition of the students, i.e. whether they were fatigued, sick, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, suffered from any disabilities etc.
Strengths of Study
There were many positive aspects of this study. Firstly it was relatively easy to carry out the experiment in class and it was also extremely cost effective. The word list and table were provided in class and the results placed on Moodle, which all students have access to. As most participants were also undertaking a Data Analysis and Computing module, students had access to SPSS software and had been shown how to use this. This study could be easily replicated by others.
The study completed what it set out to do, however to achieve more reliable results it could be carried out in a more controlled environment to ensure noise, accent, time and the physical condition of participants were not a debilitating factor. The study could also be varied slightly to include slight delays before participants were invited to engage in word recall, which might be a more effective analysis of the recency effect and STM.
References
Anderson, J.R. (2010). Cognitive Psychology and its Implications (7th Ed). USA. Worth Publishers
Baddeley, Alan. (2013). Essentials of Human Memory (Classic Edition). Psychology Press Classic Editions
Eysenck, M.W. and Keane, M.T. (2010) Cognitive Psychology : a students handbook. 6th edition.
Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology (3rd Ed). Belmont, C.A: Wadsworth
McLeod, S. (2008). Serial Position Effect. Simply Psychology. Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/primacy-recency.html (Accessed 20/12/13)
Appendices
Word List A/B
Word Number
Word list A
Yes/No
Word Number
Word list B
Yes/No
1
Car
1
Accuse
2
Shot
2
Button
3
House
3
Coarse
4
Finger
4
Hail
5
Lose
5
Puzzle
6
Chest
6
Poison
7
Foreign
7
Slate
8
Drag
8
Conform
9
Forgotten
9
Unite
10
Picture
10
Pork
11
Dog
11
Thumb
12
Figure
12
Place
13
Chain
13
Doubt
14
Pigeon
14
Picture
15
Grass
15
Face
16
Boy
16
Drawer
17
Dreary
17
Cat
18
Television
18
Water
19
Point
19
Candle
20
Cup
20
Cheque
21
Sock
21
Flake
Results table
Word List
Total recalled first 7 words
Total recalled middle 7 words
Total recalled last 7 words
Word list A
Word list B