Running head: SERIAL POSITION EFFECT 1

A Serial Position Effect on El Camino College Students

YuWen Kao
El Camino College




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Abstract
Serial position effect plays a key role in memory process which influences humans cognitive
abilities and events of lives. The present study was to test serial position effect on short-term
memory in verbal setting. It was tested by 82 El Camino college students who were read 18
words per second from a word list then recalled the words on papers for two minutes. The result
showed that the serial position effect do appear in short-term memory in verbal setting.
Keywords: serial position effect, memory, primary effect, recency effect

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A Serial Position Effect on El Camino College Students
Memory-related topics have been widely study by lots of scientists which have
significant contributions to the real world. One of which surprises many of researchers is serial
position effect. Serial position effect is a phenomenon that recall performance is greater for items
from the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) ,but most events in between are
remember more poorly (Capitani, Della Sala, Logie, & Spinnler, 1992; Atkinson & Shiffrin,
1968, as cited in Azizian & Polich, 2007). Farthermore, Unsworth, Brewer, and Spillers (2011)
found that recency effects tended to dominate primacy effect when longer lists were presented to
the participants, then suggested that recency effects would be much larger than the primacy
effects. For the reason of why serial position effect occurred, Page and Norris (1998) suggested
that primacy effects was resulted by people that gave more attention allocation for items
presented earlier on a sequence compared with later items. Furthermore, they also suggested that
recency effect was produced by that people sensed the end of the events then again gave more
attention allocation for the items on the end (As cited in Azizian & Polich, 2007). Other
suggestion was given by Rounder and Gomez (2001) who stated that primacy and recency effect
were caused by the involvement of different memory processes in different part of brain.
After knowing the cause and the effect of serial position effect, we now can understand
the reason for why many of serial position related researches exist: this kind of memory process
has a significant impact on life. For instance, serial position effect has a big impact on personal
preference. From the experiment which tested whether there were order effects on choice,
Mantonakis, Rodero, Leddchaeve, and Hastie (2009) found that early items in a sequence always
had the advantage for people to remember. For late items, they had advantage in longer sequence
of memorization, especially for choosers who were knowledgeable about the options they chose
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(Mantonakis, Rodero, Leddchaeve, & Hastie, 2009). Moreover, Terry (2005) examined the
relationship between serial position effect and the order of television commercial and found that
primacy effect played a major role for recalling commercials. Also, recency effect was
dependent on whether the recalling was done immediately after the commercials are over, which
meant it was depend on short-term memory. Therefore, the finding indicated that there was a
memory advantage on television commercials with early positions within list which commercials
were embedded (Terry, 2005).
Beside the practical implication for serial position effect, other researchers focus their
studies on more specific area of memory functions. For example, Smyth and Scholey (1996)
found that serial position effects also appeared in spatial memory. To test it, Smyth, Hay, Hitch,
and Horton (2005) used faces, which were complex visual-spatial stimuli, to test whether serial
position worked and examined the error pattern that might appear in the study. They found that
serial position effect truly appeared in visual and special memory and that articulatory
suppression [the process which inhibited the performance of memory recall by speaking with
participants when they were being presented with an item to remember], and possibly tapping,
can disrupt the mechanisms underlying short-term memory for serial order. This is indicated by
the effects of articulatory suppression on the ability of participants to assign items to the exact
position (Smyth et al., 2005, p.928). Also, items on the first and last position were less likely to
be made error by people than any other items (Smyth et al., 2005).
Additionally, the other specific research about serial position effect examined the strategy
of memorization for serial position effect. Unsworth, Brewer, and Spillers (2011) indicated that
different participants used different memory strategies (primary or recency), which made
individual differences for memory results. Moreover, these differences were also related to
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individuals cognitive abilities, such as working memory capacity, intelligence, and vocabulary.
In addition, One of the best finding in serial position effect was the phonological similarity
effect, which stated that increasing the similarity of to-be-remembered verbal material decreases
memory performance in serial recall (Conrad, 1964; As cited in Lange & Oberauer, 2005,
p.333).
Above these specific researches, the most fundamental research for short-term serial
position effect probably was done by Neath and Crowder (1996) who found that primacy and
recency effects could occur with very fast list-presentation, which every word presented in less
than one second. Also, when items were presented in different length, items with smaller
temporal ratio were recalled poorer than items with larger ratio, concluding that temporal
distinctiveness is an important general principle of memory (Neath & Crowder, 1996, p.240).
Based on this research result, my first hypothesis is that serial position effects will occur on
verbal presentation for short-term memory recall. The second hypothesis is that the recency
effects will dominate over the primacy effect, which tests the finding of Unsworth, Brewer, and
Spillers (2011).
In the present study, to test my hypothesis, an experiment was set up which contains 82
participants who were read 18 words from a word list and recall immediately after word reading
was over. Then, recall date were gathered and examined, which was expected to show serial
position effect that earlier and later words in the word list should recall more than the middle part
of words on the word list and more recall will appear in later items compared with earlier items.



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Method
Participants
Eighty-two psychology class students in El Camino community college were
participated. The sample had 29 males and 53 females with average age of 21.66 years old (SD =
2.67). The ethnicity of the sample was 39 Hispanics, 15 Asians, 12 Caucasians, eight African
Americans, one American Indian, one Native Hawaiian, seven mix ethnicities , one other, and
two unknowns. Participants were treated in accordance with the Ethical Principle of
Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2002).
Materials
One word list, which contains 18 words, was used in the study. The words were list in
reading order by following: window, sleep, smell, doctor, sweet, chair, smoke, rough, needle,
anger, trash, soft, city, cup, cold, mountain, slow, river. The participants were given blank sheet
of paper to write on.
Procedure
The participants were told that they would be participating in a memory study where they
would be asked to recall words from a list. Words were read at one word per second. When
finished listening, participants were given 2 min to recall and write down as many words they
remembered as possible. After recalling, participants were asked for any question or consent.
Afterward, the study was over and participants left.
Results
Again, the present study is to test serial position effects on verbal presentation for short-
term memory recall and whether or not recency effect would dominate over primacy effect, with
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the predictor variable of word list and the response variable of frequency of words recall. After
gathering the results for 82 participants, the recall result are (times recall of the word):64
window, 52 sleep, 23 smell, 47 doctor, 31 sweet, 34 chair, 22 smoke, 27 rough, 43 needle, 17
anger, 18 trash, 19 soft, 23 city, 30 cup, 28 cold, 63 mountain, 39 slow, 49 river (meam: 34.33,
SD 14.86) The result is also shown in figure one, which display a U-shaped curve.

Figure one.

Discussion
The result supported my first hypothesis, which stated that serial position effect occur in
sort-term memory in verbal setting. In figure one, the data displayed a U-shaped curve, which
indicated that more students recall more on the earlier and later words of the word list compared
to the words on the middle of the word list. However, the data did not support my second
hypothesis, which stated that recency effect tended to dominate primacy effect. There was no
obvious difference between the numbers of recall of earlier words and later words. This result
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words( by reading order)
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might be caused by that the present experiment did not contain the word list that was long
enough to show the domination.
Furthermore, some interesting finding was found in the result of the present study: the
unusual frequency of recall of the words needle and chair. The suggestion for higher
frequency of the word needle compared with other middle words was that the word needle
might be a strong emotional stimulus, that the needle gave participants a painful feeling or
experience, which helped participants to memorize this word. The other suggestion was that the
higher frequency of recall might because that the needle was a distinctive item, which was very
different from the other words in the word list. This distinction caused the high frequency of
recall of the word needle (Rounder & Gomez, 2011). Moreover, for the word chair, it might
be easier to memorize it because that all participants were sitting on chairs when they were
listening to words. This result might also suggest that environment would have a strong effect on
memory, especially in the serial position effect.
Indeed, the present study showed the similar result with the research of Neath and
Crowder (1996) that primacy and recency effects could occur with very fast list-presentation
with word presenting in less than one second. In addition, the present study shown that the serial
position effect also appeared with word presenting in one second, not only in less than one
second. On the other hand, compared to the other previous study, the last portion of data of the
word recall in the present study could be explained by the phonological similarity effect (Lange
& Oberauer, 2005). Compared to the frequency of recalls for words mountain and river, the
confusion of similarity of the two words, which both were parts of natural environment, might
affect participants memorization process that caused the recall frequency of the word
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mountain were higher than the recall frequency of the word river, which is the last word and
should have higher frequency than others.
The present study contained the participants with different ethnicities, which was good
for study the general result from serial position effect worldwide. However, there still were some
limitations of the present study: the participants in the present study contained only college age
students, which was not a truly representative sample for the whole population. Also, the
participants were not randomly selected from the overall population of students to which it might
be desirable to generalize the results. On the other hand, to improve my research for my second
hypothesis, researchers can make a longer word list in order to find whether or not recency effect
dominate over recency effect.
The present study again proved that the serial position effect occurred in short-term
verbal setting, which provided more evidences for previous studies about serial position effect. It
also contributed to the education field that the serial position effect might have an impact on
student and learning strategies. For students, it is beneficial to start the study in different start
point and ending point each time because that serial position effect plays a role that earlier and
later things students study have higher frequency of recall. Also, teachers can teach this learning
strategy to the students in early school year to help students to get success in their academic
career and successful job in the future.
Further researches can examine serial position effect on long-term memory setting, which
fewer researchers had examined before. We now all know that serial position effect have
powerful effect over short-term memory, but there are more we do not discover for long-term
effect about it. The other suggestion for the future research is to examine the error pattern other
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than the articulatory suppression during the test of serial position effect in verbal or spatial
setting (Smyth et al., 2005). The middle events of a sequence may influence by some reasons
that cause serial position effect to occur. After finding the error pattern, the new learning and
memorize strategies may be discovered for making fewer error in memorization, thus to increase
the frequency of middle events to be remember.
Memory shapes our experiences, and the experience shapes a persons distinct
personality. If there is no memory, we will not have our civilization. Because of the memory, we
are distinct from the other animals. Therefore, memory is a complex topic to examine and
research about. However, among numerous researches about memory, serial position effect still
holds a special place because of its great influence for human lives. It affects our preference,
academic career, performance on different kinds of subjects. As we study it deeper and deeper,
we find various potentialities it can have. I hope that we will fully understand the process of
memory in one day. That is also the time we truly understand ourselves.











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