An experiment to support the assumption that there are two distinct memory stores in the multi store model of memory as propos
An experiment to support the assumption that there are two distinct memory stores in the multi store model of memory as proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).
Candidate's Name: Samantha Aloysius
Candidate's Number:
Instructor's Name: Sarah Carter
School: United World College of South East Asia
Subject: Psychology, Standard Level
Date of Submission: 23.03.07
Word Count: 1422
Abstract
This experiment was conducted in order to gather evidence to support the assumption made by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) that there are two distinct memory stores in the multi store model. Two groups of students from an international school in Singapore took part in this experiment. The aim was to see how well participants were able to recall the words in a list and if the position of the words affected their ability to recall the words. The obtained results show that most participants tend to recall the first and last words in the list better than the words in the middle of the list and this is similar to the results obtained from Glanzer and Cunitz (1968) in the free recall experiment that they conducted.
Contents
Abstract...................................................................i
Contents..................................................................1
Introduction...............................................................2
Method....................................................................3
Design............................................................3
Participants......................................................3
Apparatus.........................................................3
Procedure..........................................................4
Results.....................................................................4
Discussion..................................................................6
References..................................................................7
Appendices.................................................................8
Appendix i.........................................................8
Appendix ii........................................................8
Appendix iii.......................................................9
Appendix iv.......................................................10
Appendix v........................................................11
Appendix vi.......................................................12
Appendix vii......................................................12
Introduction
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) proposed the two process model of memory, which suggested that information flows through two stores of short term and long term memory; it is also termed the multi store model of memory. Much research has been done to support the theory that there are indeed two separate memory stores in the multi store model of memory by many psychologists like Atkinson and Shriffin (1968), Glanzer and Cunitz (1966), Bruce and Papay (1970) and Craik (1970) to name a few. There are mainly two pieces of evidence hat support the multi store model's assumptions about the way information flows through two distinct stores, and that is through free recall experiments and studies of brain damaged patients with anterograde amnesia.
In the free recall experiments conducted by Glanzer and Cunitz (1968), participants were given a list of words and were asked to remember them and then recall the words in any order. The results fell into a pattern known as the serial position curve. Participants tend to recall the first words on the list well, however the words in the middle portion of the list was not as well recalled. The words at the ending of the list were also better recalled. This is due to the primacy and recency effect.
In the primary effect, participants ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
In the free recall experiments conducted by Glanzer and Cunitz (1968), participants were given a list of words and were asked to remember them and then recall the words in any order. The results fell into a pattern known as the serial position curve. Participants tend to recall the first words on the list well, however the words in the middle portion of the list was not as well recalled. The words at the ending of the list were also better recalled. This is due to the primacy and recency effect.
In the primary effect, participants tend to recall the first words in the list of words better. This therefore shows that the first words have entered the short term memory store and have had time to be rehearsed before being passed on to the long term memory. The primacy effect therefore involves recalling from the long term memory.
In the recency effect, participants tend to recall the last words in the list of words better. They also tend to be more accurate because the words have been recalled from the short term memory since those words were the last to enter the short term memory. Therefore they were not displaced by other words.
The reason the words in the middle portion were not as well recalled was because the increasing number of words entering the short term memory did not have enough time to be rehearsed and transferred to the long term memory, therefore it got displaced due to the limited capacity of the short term memory.
Aim: To see how well participants recall a list of words and if the position of the words affects their ability to recall as many words as possible.
Method
Design
A laboratory experiment was used because the manipulation of the independent variable indicates cause and effect. It also increases control and accurate measurements of variables thus there is more objectivity; There is also a greater ability for replication of the study. Independent groups were used so that it avoids order effects and this is also more convenient and saves time. Two groups were used because counterbalancing was needed to control for order effects.
The independent variable was the position in which the words were placed in the list. The dependent variable was how many words the participants recalled in the list. Counterbalancing was used to control the order effects by changing the position of the words in the 2nd group. This was done by putting the words in the middle portion at the beginning and ends of the list, and vice versa. By doing this, we were able to find out if the way the two groups recall the list was similar to the serial position curve regardless of the way the words were positioned. If both the graphs of the groups show similar patterns to the serial position curve, then that would prove that the primary and recency effect is reliable.
Ethical guidelines that have been taken into account:
* All participants were informed before commencing the experimental study that they could withdraw at any time.
* Participants were informed of the aims and objectives of the research.
* Participants were debriefed at the end of the experiment.
* Anonymity for each participant was guaranteed and all data collected was kept confidential.
Participants
Two groups of participants were used and chosen using opportunity sampling because it was more convenient as there were many students in the school. 30 students from an international school in Singapore with ages ranging from 16-17 years of age took part in the experiment.
Apparatus
* Consent form. (Included in appendix i)
* 2 lists of words. (Included in appendix ii & iii)
* Debriefing letter. (Included in appendix vi)
* Standardized instructions. (mentioned in the procedure)
Procedure
The first step was to come up with a list of 20 random words. After making a slide presentation of the list, (see appendix ii), a second slide with the same 20 words had to be made (see appendix iii), this time changing the position of the words. We showed the 2 presentations to 2 separate groups of students. We first told them that we were going to conduct an experiment on memory and asked them to read the consent form (see appendix i) and sign it. Students were told to start recalling the words in any order on a piece of paper after the presentation was over. We gave them 3 minutes to write down as many words as possible after which we collected the papers and debriefed them (see appendix vi).
Results
The result of the experiment showed that there was a tendency for the first and last words to be recalled more often than the words in the middle and this can be seen by the curve formed in graph 1. It is similar to the pattern known as the serial position curve that Glanzer and Cunitz (1968) came up with in their free recall experiment. By taking the average of both groups as shown in table 1, we can have a more accurate finding of the number of times each word was remembered and see how the positioning of the words has affected participants' memory recollection.
Table 1: Table showing the average number of times each word was remembered in the 2 lists.
Position of Words in List:
Average no. of times each word was remembered for both lists
0.5
2
7.5
3
9.5
4
8
5
8.5
6
6
7
2.5
8
5.5
9
4
0
6.5
1
6
2
2.5
3
8
4
7
5
8
6
1
7
7
8
0.5
9
9.5
20
0
Graph 1: Numerical presentation of the average no. of times each word was remembered by both groups of students.
Discussion
In graph 1, I have presented a numerical presentation of the average number of times each word was remembered by both groups of students. The graph shows two main peaks which falls in the beginning and the ending positions of the graph. This shows that there was a higher number of participants who recalled the beginning and ending words. There was a large dip in the middle of the graph indicating that a significantly lesser number of participants recalled the words positioned in the middle of the list.
In order to test if there was any effect in the positioning of the words on participants' ability to recall the list of words, the 2nd list of words were positioned differently as explained earlier. The results for both groups when used to find the average showed a pattern similar to that of the serial position curve that Glanzer and Cunitz (1968) came up with in their free recall experiment, The primacy and recency effect shown in the serial position curve by Glanzer and Cunitz (1968) can be seen in graph 1 and this therefore supports the assumption that there are two distinct memory stores, the short and long term memory store in the multi store model of memory.
The limitations to this experiment was that there may have been demand characteristics, however counterbalancing was used to control for order effects as explained earlier on. The results may tend to be biased because some of the participants that took part in the experiment have done similar experiments before, therefore they may already know what to expect even though the list of words are different and the aim and objectives differ. Changes that could be made in the future when carrying out this experiment could be ensuring that the participants have not done any experiment similar to this so as to ensure more validity of results. Also, the list of words could be lengthened to see how well people can recall the words, and this might make the graph more distinct in peaks and dips because of the number of words used. Repeats could also be done so as to increase the reliability of the results.
Conclusion
In this experiment, the obtained results tend to show that participants do recall the first and last words better than the words in the middle portion, so this supports the primacy and recency effect shown in the serial position curve obtained by Glanzer and Cunitz (1968) which thus supports the assumption that there are two distinct memory stores in the multi store model of memory as proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).
References
Atkinson, R. C. and Shiffrin, R. M. (1968) Human memory: a proposed system and its control processes, in K. W. Spence and J. T. Spence (eds) The Psychology of Learning and Memory. Vol. 2. New York: Academic Press
Craik, F. I. M. and Lockhart, R. S. (1972) Levels of processing: a framework for memory research, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 671 -84
Ibo/Diploma Programme Psychology: Ethical Guidelines for Internal Assessment
Murry Glanzer and Anita R. Cunitz, "Two storage mechanisms in Free Recall", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, (1966)
Richard D. Gross The Serial Position Curve, Key Studies in Psychology
Appendices
Appendix i: Consent form that was given to participants.
I ____________________, agree to participate in this experimental study conducted by Jessica Fuh and Samantha Aloysius as part of their Psychology Internal Assessment. I am aware that I can withdraw from the experiment at any time and that all data collected will be kept confidential and anonymous.
I have listened to and understood the aims and objectives of this experiment, and that I will be debriefed after the study has been carried out.
I am also aware that the results of this experiment will be available to me through Jessica or Samantha if I wish to find them out later.
Signed, Date:
_____________________ __________________
Appendix ii: First list of words used.
Position:
Words:
Frog
2
Chair
3
String
4
Hand
5
Screen
6
Shoe
7
Plant
8
Lift
9
Pole
0
Ship
1
Glue
2
Door
3
Cream
4
Grass
5
Face
6
Cash
7
Egg
8
Glove
9
Spoon
20
Pink
Appendix iii: Second list of words used.
Position:
Words:
Shoe
2
Plant
3
Lift
4
Pole
5
Ship
6
Frog
7
Chair
8
String
9
Hand
0
Screen
1
Cash
2
Glue
3
Egg
4
Glove
5
Spoon
6
Pink
7
Door
8
Cream
9
Grass
20
Face
Appendix iv: Table of raw date results for the first list of words used.
Position of Words in List:
No. of times each word was remembered:
8
2
9
3
7
4
7
5
9
6
3
7
2
8
7
9
5
0
3
1
6
2
2
3
0
4
9
5
1
6
9
7
1
8
2
9
1
20
0
Appendix v: Table of raw data results for the second list of words used.
Position of Words in List:
No. of times each word was remembered:
3
2
6
3
2
4
9
5
8
6
9
7
3
8
4
9
3
0
0
1
6
2
3
3
6
4
5
5
5
6
3
7
3
8
9
9
8
20
0
Appendix vi: Table of raw data for the average number of times each word was remembered in the 2 lists
Position of Words in List:
Average no. of times each word was remembered for both lists
(8 + 13) ÷ 2= 10.5
2
(9 + 6) ÷ 2 = 7.5
3
(7 + 12) ÷ 2 = 9.5
4
(7 + 9) ÷ 2 = 8
5
(9 + 8) ÷ 2 = 8.5
6
(3 + 9) ÷ 2 = 6
7
(2 + 3) ÷ 2 = 2.5
8
(7 + 4) ÷ 2 = 5.5
9
(5 + 3) ÷ 2 = 4
0
(3 + 10) ÷ 2 = 6.5
1
(6 + 6) ÷ 2 = 6
2
(2 + 3) ÷ 2 = 2.5
3
(10 + 6) ÷ 2 = 8
4
(9 + 5) ÷ 2 = 7
5
(11 + 5) ÷ 2 = 8
6
(9 + 13) ÷ 2 = 11
7
(11 +3) ÷ 2 = 7
8
(12 + 9) ÷ 2 = 10.5
9
(11 + 8) ÷ 2 = 9.5
20
(10 + 10) ÷ 2 = 10
Appendix vii: Debriefing letter that was read out to participants.
We carried out the experiment in order to find out how well you were able to recall the words that were shown earlier on. According to an assumption made by some psychologists, the first and last words tend to be remembered best as compared to the words in the middle. Therefore with this experiment, we hope to gather evidence to support the psychologists' assumptions.