WORD RECALL AS FUNCTIONS OF SERIAL POSITION AND REPETITION
This research examined the effects of serial position and repeated exposure on the recall of specific words by subjects. Several studies conducted in the mid- and late-1970s investigated the impact of serial position on recall. Huang, Scale, and McIntyre (1976, pp. 153-165) found that recall was greatest when the item to be recalled was located in central list positions, as opposed to peripheral positions. This finding was confirmed by Lippman (1978, pp. 697-706), who found that total list learning was facilitated when a specific item to be recalled was placed at the seventh position in a 12-item consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) list. A subsequent study confirmed that the greater isolation effect was attained through the location of isolated items at the center positions of a list (Huang & Wille, 1979, pp. 27-34). This study, however, failed to confirm the findings of a positive isolation effect on total list learning.
In the context of the impact of the serial position on recall, it is worthwhile to consider the earlier findings of Miller (1956, pp. 81-97) that most humans acquire information in bits through a process known as "chunking." Chunking means that an individual acquires groups of data at one time. It was found that the typical human can acquire approximately seven items of data at one time (plus or minus two). It is interesting to note that the studies finding that central-list serial positions increased the isolation effect on learning were all studies that relied on relatively small lists in which the central position would be at or within two places of the seventh item on the list (Huang & Wille, pp. 27-34; Lippman, pp. 697-706; Huang, Scale, & McIntyre, pp. 153-165).
Frensch, Buchner, and Lin (1994, pp. 567-584) found that serial position had an interactive effect with repeated exposures on recall. Frensch (1994, pp. 423-442) found that the spec...