Multi-store Model Key study: Murdock (1962)

Aim

to show that memory has more than one store (STM and LTM)

to find support for the serial position effect

serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list

Method

asked to recall lists of random words.

shortest list was 10 items long and the longest was 40 items long.

then they compared each word the participants remembered/recalled to where it was in the list originally (i.e. its position in the list) to see if the words remembered were among the first or last items in the list

Results

the words at the start and the end of the list were remembered better than the words in the middle.

the longer the list of words to remember, the more words in the middle were forgotten

found support for the primacy effect (when participants remember the first few words on the list very well) and the recency effect (when words at the end of the list are remembered well

conclusion/implications

When there are too many words for them all to be remembered the primacy effect results in the first words being remembered because it has been rehearsed into LTM and the recency effect results in the last words being remembered as it is still fresh in STM

This shows STM and LTM both exist and are separate stores - i.e. memory is not just made up of a single store

strengths

lab experiment - highly controlled

can be applied to real-life - students could study for exams in small chunks to lessen the amount of information forgotten in the middle of their study sessions

limitations

lab experiment - lacks ecological validity

participants asked to remember random lists of words - doesn't generalise to memory of things on day to day basis - so has low mundane realism

real-life application

students could study for exams in small chunks to lessen the amount of information forgotten in the middle of their study sessions

students should incorporate rehearsal strategies to transfer info into LTM

Film directors should ensure films have an impactful start and ending to the film for the film to be remembered more

What concepts/studies does the study relate to?

STM - recency effect can be explained by this

LTM - primacy effect can be explained by this

Baddeley (1966) - information can also be transferred into LTM if it is semantically encoded; participants who forgot items at the start may have forgotten if they were acoustically similar to other words at the start; participants who forgot items at the end may have forgotten them if they were semantically similar to the other words at the end of the list