The aim of the experiment was to measure the percentage of correct recalling of letters when they appear in a list of ten letters and each letter is presented for one second. Based on a past research done by Murdock (1962) the hypothesizes of this experiment was that the letters that was presented at the beginning of the list will be recalled better that the letters that were presented in the middle of the list and also the letters that was presented at the end of the list will be recalled better than the letters presented the beginning of the list.
Results
The results of the experiment showed that the percentage of recalling for the letters at the beginning of the list were 62% and the percentage of recalling for the litters presented in the middle of the list were 50% and the percentage of recalling for the letters at the end of the list were 65%.
Discussion
As shown in the section above the results of the experiment were as expected and the two hypothesizes of were supported. Based on the previous research that was made by Murdock (1962) about the serial position effect. The expectation were that the letters at the beginning of the list will be remembered better that the letters in the middle of the list and that is because the participants will start to rehearse the letters they see at first and rehearsing the letters can move them from the short term memory to the long term memory to be recalled again when needed (primacy effect). And the other expectation was that the letters at the end of the list will be remembered better than the letters at the beginning of the list and that’s because and that because the participants will keep the letters they saw last in the short term memory and they will remember it better because it the last thing they saw (recency effect). And the loss of the letters in the middle of the list from the memory can be explained by 'displacement' when the last few letters are presented they displace the letters that were..

Effect Of Delayed Recall on Serial Position Effects
By Paul Thevathayan
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this experiment was to test whether a delay before recall would affect the serial position effect. The experiment was done by getting participants to take part in a simple tests; hearing words read out, then after they are read out, recalling them and writing them down. Two of these tests took place, one without a gap before recall, and one with. The results only partly supported previous research, with both tests showing a higher number of people remembering words at the start of the list, but unlike previous research findings, the last words of the list were not remembered significantly more than the middle in either test. The results indicate that there were certain extraneous variables that were not controlled.
The serial position effect is defined as “The tendency for items at the beginning and end of a list to be remembered better in immediate free recall than those in the middle.” (Glazner and Cunitz 1966; Postman and Phillips 1965) The Serial Position effect comprises of two parts: The Primacy effect (when words at the start are remembered better than those in other parts of the list) and the Recency effect (When words at the end of the list are better remembered. One suggested theory for the Primacy effect is because of the longer length of time allowed before recall, resulting in more processing and the better recollection. A theorized idea for why the Recency effect works is that words at the end of a list are better remembered than others because they are still in working memory when recall happens. People have the tendency to perform poorly on words in the middle of the list as neither of these two effects are present (Glazner and Cunitz 1966; Postman and Phillips 1965). To observe the Serial Position Effect however, the words in the list must be of similar characteristics and significance to reader. If there is a word in the middle of the list that is significantly different to the others, it is more likely to be remembered (von Restorff effect). The aim of the current study was to test whether a gap in between the participants hearing the words and recalling the words would affect which words in the list they remember. It was hypothesized that in the experiments, the gap between the participants hearing the words and their recall period would affect which words they remember. The predicted outcome for the immediate recall experiment was that the words in the beginning and end of the list would be remembered by a greater number of participants than those in the middle. As for the delayed recall experiment, it was predicted that the words at the start of the list would be remembered more than those in the middle or end section.
METHOD
Participants: The sample comprised of 17 male and female students aged between 16 and 18, from the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The participants were chosen based on their availability during the period in which the task took place (lunchtime). Materials:
-pen and paper
-list of 24 words, random and unrelated
Procedure:
For the first experiment, a group of 8 people were chosen by informed consent and given a pencil and piece of paper. There were read out a list of 24 words, and then asked to write them down immediately after the last word had finished being read out. For experiment 2, 9 people were chosen by informed consent and given a pencil and paper. After a list of 24 words was read, the same as test 1, they were asked to count to 30, and then recall the words. Precautions were taken to ensure that participants would not communicate to each other during either test. Independent Variable
Time allowed between recall and end of word list reading.
Dependent Variable
Position in list of words that were successfully recalled(First 8, middle 8, last 8)
RESULTS
Figure 1-A graph..
References: Glanzer, M. & Cunitz, A. R. (1966). Two storage mechanisms in Free Recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 5,351-360.
Von Restorff, H. (1933). 'Über die Wirkung von Bereichsbildungen im Spurenfeld (The effects of field formation in the trace field)'. Psychological Research 18 (1): 299–342.
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