Supporting Study 1 - Glanzer & Cunitz with the Serial Position Effect

Aim:

The aim of Glanzer and Cunitz’s (1966) study was to investigate the existence of separate short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) stores in the multi-store model of memory by examining the serial position effect—specifically, the primacy and recency effects.

• Primacy effect: Better recall of items at the beginning of a list (due to transfer to LTM).
• Recency effect: Better recall of items at the end of a list (still in STM).

Procedure:

• Participants were shown lists of 20 words, presented one at a time.
• They were asked to recall the words in any order (free recall).
• There were two main conditions:
  1. Immediate recall condition – Participants recalled the words right after seeing the list.
  2. Delayed recall condition – Participants waited 30 seconds before recalling, during which they counted backwards (to prevent rehearsal and clear STM).

Findings:

• In the immediate recall condition, participants showed a clear serial position effect:
  • Primacy effect – High recall of the first few words (stored in LTM).
  • Recency effect – High recall of the last few words (still in STM).
• In the delayed recall condition, the recency effect disappeared, but the primacy effect remained.

Conclusion:

• This supported the multi-store model of memory:
  • Words at the beginning were rehearsed and stored in LTM.
  • Words at the end were still in STM, but were lost when rehearsal was blocked.
• Conducted in 1966, their research on the Serial position effect PROVES Atkinson and Shiffrins theory that the STM and LTM are separate memory stores and information is transferred through rehearsal.
• The Serial Position Effect can be defined as the tendency to better recall the first and last items on a list better than the items in the middle.
• The Tendency to better recall the first items is known as the PRIMACY EFFECT, the Tendency to better recall the last items known as the RECENCY EFFECT, and the tendency to forget information in the middle known as the ASYMPTOTE
• In this study, Glanzer and Cunitz asked participants to FIRST memorise lists of words in an order given, followed by a FREE RECALL TASK, where they could recall the words in any order they remembered.
• In the FIRST CONDITION, 240 ARMY ENLISTED MEN were presented with multiple recordings of 20 word lists consisting of common single syllable nouns. After hearing the words, they’d do the free recall task for exactly 2 minutes. Results of the trials in the first condition explicitly demonstrated serial positioning effect, as they remembered the words at the start and end of the list better than the ones in the middle. The words repeated in the audio didnt matter
• In the SECOND CONDITION, researchers added a plot-twist, a DELAY between them listening to the audio, and the free-recall task. During the Delay, they were asked to participate in a FILLER Task, counting backwards from a random number they were given for exactly 30 seconds. They administered this plot-twist to see what their memory would be like without immediate rehearsal of the words. The data from condition two ALSO showed that participants could successfully recall words from the start of the list, but couldn’t recall words from the end of the list - only the primacy effect.