Psychology Studies

All the studies needed for exam. Both ERQ and SAQ for Cognitive and Sociocultural. Only SAQ for Biological.

Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)

Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)

Aim: To investigate the serial position effect in free recall and examine the limits of the primacy and recency effect.

Sample: 46 undergraduate students from Harvard University.

Procedure: Participants were shown 15 fifteen-word lists. Each word was shown for 1 second with a 2-second interval between words. The experimenter read each word as it appeared. There were three different conditions for the participants: immediate recall, delayed recall (10 seconds), and delayed recall (30 seconds). In the delayed recall condition, they would get a distraction task - counting backwards.

Result: When asked for immediate recall, both primacy and recency effect were evident. With the 10-second delay, there was a significant reduction in the recency effect. In the 30-second delay condition, the researchers reported no trace of the recency effect.

Conclusion: The results showed that the recency effect is only present as long as the time is limited. The reduced effect on the long delay shows that STM and LTM are divided since the recent information is only temporarily in STM.

HM/Milner (1966)

Aim: To better understand the effects of surgery on HM and how that is connected to memory.

Sample: A man called HM who was hit by a cyclist when he was 7 years old, sustaining a serious head injury. At 27, he could no longer live a normal life due to epileptic attacks. He underwent surgery to remove tissue from the medial temporal lobe (including the hippocampus).

Procedure: HM’s memory was studied by Milner through various methods and tests.

Result: HM was unable to create any new information but could still hold a conversation and remember events from before the surgery.

Conclusion: HM’s condition shows how accuracy can be found in the multi-store model. The inability to create lasting information shows that there is a difference between LTM and STM.

Landry & Bartling (2011)

Aim: To investigate if articulatory suppression would influence the recall of a written list of phonologically dissimilar letters in serial recall.

Sample: 34 undergraduate psychology letters.

Procedure: The experimental group saw a list of seven phonologically dissimilar letters and recalled them while repeatedly saying '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers per second. The control group saw the same list but did not perform the articulatory suppression task. Both groups heard the letters, waited five seconds, and then wrote down the sequence.

Result: The scores from the experimental group were much lower than the scores from the control group. The mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was 76% compared to a mean of 45% in the experimental group.

Conclusion: The results supported the experimental hypothesis and were in line with the WMM since it showed that articulatory suppression prevents rehearsal in the phonological loop because of overload.

KF/Warrington & Shallice (1974)

Aim: To investigate the possibility that STM can be damaged without damage to LTM as well as the different compartments in STM being separated.

Sample: Patient KF, a man who suffered brain damage as a result of a motorcycle accident. KF’s LTM was intact, but he showed impairment in his STM.

Procedure: Throughout the case study, Warrington and Shallice found that although he quickly forgot numbers and words when they were presented to him orally, he was able to remember these words or numbers when presented to him visually.

Results: KF’s impairment was mainly for verbal information and his memory for visual information was largely unaffected. The researchers concluded that his accident had resulted in damage to an STM store that was auditory.

Conclusion: The study supports the theory that there are separate STM components for visual and verbal information. This supports the theory that STM is much more complex than suggested by the original MSM.