WORD RECALL

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 seria

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is section. Participants, materials, and design and procedure are addressed. Participants A total of 52 subjects participated in this experiment. All subjects were members of an introductory psychology class at Skagit Valley Community College. The gender distribution of the subjects was 32 females and 20 males. Materials Two word lists were used in the conduct of this experiment. One list contained related words, and was designated as the "meaningful word list." The second list contained unrelated words, and was designated as the "random word list." A overhead projector and a screen were used to present the word lists to subjects. Recording sheets were provided to subjects to record the words they recalled from the lists. A stop watch was used to time the duration of word list presentations, and to time the duration of recall periods. Design and Procedure The researcher read a set of instructions to the subjects. The instructions informed subjects that they would be sown multiple presentations of two word lists from which they would be asked to attempt to recall the words presented in the order in which the words were presented. The recording sheets were provided to subjects. Subjects were informed that entries we

Category: Psychology - W