Memory Process Serial Position Effect Lab Report

Memory Process Serial Position Effect - Lab Report Example Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) tried to explain the primacy serial position effect as a result of the greater attention allocated to the first and last items on a list. This improves the probability of recalling such items in long-term memory. They explained recency serial position effect as being recalled by short-term memory as last items were last viewed through the list. Rundus (1971) proved that participants devoted more rehearsal to items first in list. Welch & Burnett (1924) further proved that primacy effect was reduced and items first in list were not stored in long-term memory when participants were asked to only rehearse items while they were being presented. Glanzer & Cunitz (1966) showed that items presented at faster rates provides less rehearsal time by participants which reduced primacy effect. The recency effect was also proved to be related to short term memory by requesting participants to do something else before testing their memory of items. Both, Glanzer & Cunitz (1966) proved that the recency effect is explained by short-term memory account by introduction a distracter activity after last items on a list such as a small arithmetic question. They found that recency effect was reduced by such distractors. The following experiment investigates the serial position effect.This is accomplished by recalling of alphabet letters using a software simulation program. Hypothesis to be tested was that structural retention occurs faster than semantic and phonemic retention. Method Participants The participants in the experiment consisted of University undergraduates enrolled in a Cognitive Psychology course. Apparatus The experiment was conducted by use of computers install in Lab. Each computer ran the simulation psychology program Psyktrek 3.0. Participant used a standard mouse to enter their input in the computer. during the experiment. Procedure Participants were positioned in front of a computer which ran the simulation program Psyktrek 3.0. Once the CD was loaded on the computer, a selection of different types of experiments is displayed on the screen. The Memory Processes Serial Position option was pressed using the mouse.The program presents a page with one side of blank space and the other side with buttons representing each letter of the alphabet. Each trial consists of a sequence of six letters which are presented separately. Each letter was displayed for one second. All letters on the side become clickable once the letters are hidden. Each respondent uses his mouse to click on the letters he recognize in any order. The program waits for participants to select six letters then it stops receiving participants input. The program records the time taken to enter all choices. Participants then pressed the Next trial button to go to the next sequence of letters until six trials are conducted. After participants complete all six trials, results of correctly recognized and recalled lettes are displayed. These results include tabular and graphical presentation of the percentage of correctly recalled items together with a list of presented letters. Results Data for participant number 7 and 8 were removed due to procedural error in recalled results. Recall and Recognition: Descriptive analysis of the data shown in appendix I, reveals that the mean average of recalled letters was (9.3) with standard deviation of 4.4. This accounts to 22.4% of all letters displayed. The mean average of