Chapter 1. Serial Position

1.1 Introduction

Cognitive Tool Kit

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Serial Position

We often have to remember a list of items: a grocery list, a list of gifts to buy, a list of items for class. After doing the work to memorize a list, some items are just easier to remember. Mary Whiton Calkins (Madigan & O’Hara, 1992) examined how we learn lists. We will try to identify cognitive issues that play a role in allowing a person to recall some items in a list more easily than others. In this experiment, you will be asked to look at a list of words and then you will be asked to retrieve those words, either immediately or after a short break.

References:

Calkins, M. W. (1896b). Association: An essay analytic and experimental. Psychological Review Monograph Supplements, 1(2), 1-56.

Madigan, S. & O’Hara, R. (1992). Short-term memory at the turn of the century: Mary Whiton Calkins's memory research, American Psychologist, 47(2), 170-174.

1.2 Experiment Setup

1.3 Instructions

Instructions

You will need to press the space bar to begin the experiment. At the beginning of each trial, a fixation mark will appear. Please look at this mark. After it is removed, you will see a list of 20 words, with each word presented for 3 seconds. Your task will be to remember the words. At the end of the list, you will be asked to remember them immediately or after a delay. If there is a delay, you will be asked to perform a tracking task to distract you during the intervening period. A box and a dot will appear on the screen. Your task will be to use your mouse to move the box and to try to keep the dot inside of the square. Once this period is over, you will be shown a list of 40 words. You will need to click on the words you had been shown previously.

You will complete this process for two lists of words.

1.4 Experiment

Begin Experiment

1.5 Results

Results

1.6 Quiz

Quiz

Question 1.1

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Incorrect.

correct

The independent variable is the value that is changed by the experimenter. In this case, we are most interested in where the word appears in the list, so the correct answer is position of the word in the list.

Question 1.2

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Correct.

Incorrect.

The dependent variable is the value that the experimenter collects to indicate how you performed in the experiment. In this case, we determined how often you recalled a word in each position. So the correct answer is percent recalled.

Question 1.3

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Correct.

Incorrect.

Since we are dealing with how well we recall words at the beginning of the list, this effect has been termed the primacy effect.

Question 1.4

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Correct.

Incorrect.

Since we are dealing with how we recall words at the end of the list, this effect has been termed the recency effect.

Question 1.5

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Correct.

Incorrect.

Although all of these people are important psychologists, Mary Whiton Calkins is the discoverer of the serial position effect.