Serial Position

Serial Position

Jennifer Mahr

Adelphi University

April 20, 2014

PIA 292-003

Abstract

Serial Position is a memory experiment in which participants are asked to recall a list of words. In this experiment, we will determine which effect comes first, the primacy or the recency. The primacy effect is when the students remember the first few letters and the recency effect is when the students remember the last few letters.  We used a sample of 31 psychology undergraduates that were tested to see which effect takes place first. Between the two effects, it was proven that the recency effect takes place first and then the primacy effect. An important limitation is that when there is more than one list, participants can become confused and mix up the lists.

Serial Position

                Serial Position is a memory experiment in which participants are asked to recall a list of words. There was no order in which the letters had to be recalled. It is predicted that the participants will recall the last few letters, which is known as the recency effect. It is then predicted that the first few letters come second best to being recalled, which is known as the primacy effect. The letters that fell in the middle will be recalled the worst.

        The primacy effect occurs because participants have more time to rehearse earlier words on the list. When the first word is presented, that is what our mind is focused on. When the second word comes along, attention becomes spread out over two words, and so on as more words are presented (Goldstein, 2011). The more words or letters that show, the less rehearsal is possible. But the recency effect proves this wrong. The recency effect shows the superior memory for stimuli presented at the end of a sequence. An explanation for this is that the memories for words at the end of the list are the most recently presented, and because of this they are still in short term memory (Goldstein, 2011).

        There has been previous research done on if these effects actually happen. Much of the work on serial recall has been pursued in the area of immediate recall, also characterized as short-term memory (STM) (O’Shea & Howes, 2014). Here, a string of items is presented, and the individual recalls them either at once or after a delay of only seconds. The items have not been learned; they are simply being held in memory for a brief span.

        Everyday actions like driving home from work and cooking dinner require action planning. We must decide what to do and when to do it. In some cases, we plan just a single action and in other cases we plan a sequence of actions. When we plan sequences of actions, we must hold some elements of the sequence in memory while we execute others (Logan, 2004). Research shows that executing an action plan can be delayed if it partly overlaps with an action plan maintained in working memory (WM) (Fournier, Gallimore, Feiszli & Logan, 2013). This delay is referred to as a partial repetition cost. These costs appear restricted to events in which action features maintained in WM are integrated into a single action plan and the current action plan imposes a demand on WM.

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