1
Aim
to investigate whether serial position influences recall and if there are two separate stores of memory (STM, LTM)
2
Method
a lab experiment with 240 US army enlisted males
3
Procedures
Participants were presented with a list of 15 words to memorize
- condition 1: participants were asked to recall the words immediately
- condition 2: participants were given a 30 second distractor task before recalling the words
4
Results
- Primacy effect: tendency to recall first words of list
- Recency effect: tendency to recall words at end of list
- delayed recall by 30 seconds destroys recency effect, however it does not influence primacy effect
5
Conclusio
- Primacy effect occurs because words from the beginning of list get rehearsed and stored in long-term memory
- the distractor task destroys a recency effect since it interferes with rehearsal within short-term memory and in turn isn't store in long-term memory
- offers evidence for two separate memory stores, short-term memory and long-term memory, supporting the multi-store model