Interference with Memory by a Suffix. Review of literature and report on an experiment.
by
cgordillo (student)
A suffix effect
Interference with Memory by a Suffix
Christian A. Gordillo
Rochester Institute of Technology
Abstract
Memory refers to the processes that are used to acquire, store, retain and later retrieve information. The three major processes involved with memory include encoding, storage and retrieval. The ability to retrieve is different in every human and psychologists have tried to identify the ability of retrieval through interferences. While information can be retrieved through a primary effect, remembering recent numbers or letters on a list and the recency effect, remembering the last few numbers or letters. Interference occurs when something else intrudes or disrupts retrieval therefore unable to retrieve the number or letter. A suffix usually acts as this interference, it is an additional item to a list similar to items on the list but the suffix does not need to be recalled.
A Suffix Effect
Multiple studies have been conducted where psychologists have tried to exceed the capacity of short-term memory. Typically, a bell curve would be shown otherwise known as the serial position function. The serial position function describes how recall is significantly better in the first few (primacy effect) or last few (recency effect) items of a list. In auditory conditions, the addition of an extra item at the end of a list usually debilitates recall for the concluding items, even as instructed to ignore the suffix. The elimination of the recency effect is known as the suffix effect (Crowder, 1967; Crowder & Morton, 1969).
Many researchers assume that working memory can be divided into separate components for the storage of visual and verbal materials (Baddeley, 1978). Moreover, within the visual modality, working memory can be divided into a high-capacity sensory memory and a relatively limited-capacity short-term memory (Phillips, 1974). Kathryn T. Spoher and William J. Coring conducted a study to identify whether or not the recency effect was caused by the subject’ ability to use the information from the final list of items in PAS or if it was due to an increase likelihood that codes for final list items appear in the STM (short-term memory) during recall. The precategorical acoustic store, or PAS is a sensory storage system that lasts for as long as two seconds and contains auditory information in an unprocessed form. Throughout procedure, subjects were exposed to eight digits auditorially within six suffix conditions. In the no-suffix control condition, lists were presented without a suffix at the end, In the zero card condition, a suffix was supplemented to the list and was presented visually on a card with the word “Z-E-R-O” printed out. In the 0-card condition, the suffix zero was presented visually on a card showing the single digit. In the auditory condition, the suffix was spoken aloud but the experimenter’s lips were covered with a blank card, this created an acoustic input but no visual input. In the visual condition, the suffix was said silently giving the subjects no acoustic suffix information but conveying visual articulatory cues. In the auditory visual condition, the suffix was spoken aloud with the experimenter’s lips in full view, giving subjects both acoustic and visual articulatory suffix cues. According to the results, subjects were able to identify the suffixes zero on all suffix trials. According to the graph attached in the article representing the results, the serial position lies on the x-axis and the percent of errors lies on the y-axis. For all suffix conditions, serial positions 1-7 appear to be highly similar with significant difference in Position 8. The graph reveals that the zero-card condition was higher in showing errors at position 6, and the only other grand significance occurred in position 8 where the auditory, visual, and auditory-visual conditions showed more errors than the remaining of the suffix conditions. In position 1, the visual suffix condition had a higher percentage of errors as opposed to the other conditions. Primary and recency effect are still in play as those that are in the beginning of the serial position curve tend to remember the beginning of the lists and those at the end of the lists tend to remember recent items on the list.
