MURDOCK'S SERIAL POSITION STUDY *

AIM:

To investigate whether there are separate short-term and long term memory stores

OR

To see if the likelihood of recalling a word depends on its position in the list

METHOD:

103 participants were given 20 lists of words to learn. The lists were 10-40 words long and the participants listened to the lists, writing down any words they could remember when the list was finished in the order they were read

RESULTS:

Regardless of the length of the list of words, the pattern of recall looked the same - participants remembered more of the words at the beginning of the list (primacy effect) and at the end of the list (recency effect) with less words in the middle being remembered

CONCLUSION:

The results give evidence for there being two distinct memory stores and an item’s position in a list affects its likelihood of being recalled

EVALUATION: