Experiment no.

- 1
Experiment name- Serial Position Curve

Introduction

The serial position effect (Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966; Murdock, 1962) is the psychological

tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than those in the middle. It is a form

of cognitive bias which includes the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect is

the tendency to remember and place more importance on the items at the beginning of a list.

While, the recency effect is the tendency to remember the items at the end of a list (Murdock,

1962).

The serial position effect was first coined by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885

after he conducted a series of memory experiments on himself. The serial position curve is a

consequence of this effect.

The primacy effect occurs because the first few items have a greater chance of being transferred

from short-term to long-term memory, while the recency effect is attributed to the ability to

recall the last few items since they are still help in short term memory (Maylor, 2002).

The serial position curve is a “U”-shaped learning curve that is normally obtained while recalling

a list of words due to the greater accuracy of recall of words from the beginning and end of the

list than words from the middle of the list. Variations in the ability to retrieve information are

also seen in the serial position curve. This pattern is caused by the primacy effect and recency

effect.
Literature Review

Jeewon Yoo and Margarita Kaushanskaya conducted a study in 2012 to investigate whether

bilingual individuals are affected by the serial position effect in each of their languages.

Participants who were fluent in English and Korean were presented with lists of 10, 15, and 20

items in both Korean and English and were subsequently asked to recall as many words as

possible. The results of the study revealed that bilingual individuals experienced the serial

position effect in both their primary (Korean) and secondary (English) languages. However, the

primacy effect is strengthened when there is a higher level of linguistic knowledge.

Seiler and Engelkemp conducted a study in 2003 to explain the serial position curves of verbal

tasks (reading or listening to a list of objects) and subject performed tasks (performing an action

based on the object). The participants consisted of 24 students where each of them was given 4

lists that consisted of 24 action phrases. Half the participants were instructed that the first two

lists were to be recalled by reading (VT) and the other two lists were to be recalled by replicating

the action with imaginary objects (SPT). The other half were given the same instructions but the

order of lists was reversed. The phrases were shown on a computer screen for 4 seconds with an

interval of 1.5 seconds before each phrase. After viewing each list, an oral free recall was done
before starting with the next list. The result showed that free recall performance was significantly

better for SPT’s (M = 0.42, SD = 0.09) than for VT’s (M = 0.36, SD = 0.10).

Howieson, Mattek, Seeyle, Dodge, Wasserman, Zitzelberger and Jeffrey (2011) conducted a

study on individuals with mild cognitive impairments with the aim if special scoring methods

could be used to better differentiate between cognitive impairments that naturally occur with

ageing and those that are caused by dementia. The subjects of the test had their serial position

effect in word-list recall recorded and compared to a control group as well as patients with

Alzheimer. The primacy effect observed in the individuals with mild cognitive impairments was

not as strong as can be seen in Alzheimer patients. The study found that the standard scoring

methods of the word-list recall were most effective in differentiating between those with mild

cognitive impairments and the control group. However, differentiating between those with mild

cognitive impairments and Alzheimer’s disease was made easier by retention weighted scoring.

Moser, Deisenhammer, Marksteiner, Papousek, Fink and Weiss (2014) conducted a study to

explore whether memory's serial position effects are different in people with distinct types of

mild cognitive impairment (MCI), healthy individuals, and patients in different stages of

Alzheimer's disease (AD). The method consisted of using the CERAD word list task across a

group of 184 participants. As dementia progressed, memory deficiencies increased, and

impairment in the initial learning trials' primacy effect became more pronounced. However, the

recall of recent items exhibited comparatively lesser impairment. Among the findings, the serial

position profile of non-amnestic MCI patients paralleled that of healthy control subjects. On the

other hand, amnestic MCI patients demonstrated poorer performance across all three positions,

with no significant variance based on the sequential word position.

There are various applications of the serial position effect.

 Advertising- It is used in advertising by keeping important information and the benefits

of what is being advertised toward the beginning or end of the advertisement while

keeping the negatives or less important information in the middle. This helps as the

person viewing the advertisement does not remember the information displayed in the

middle or will pay less attention to it as compared to that provided at the beginning and

the end (Terry, 2010).

 Restaurants use this effect to make it seem like their products are moderately priced even

if they are not. They do this by placing their most expensive or overpriced product at the

top of the list so that the customer compares the cost of the other items on the menu to the

most overpriced one and is more likely to think that they are receiving a good deal.

 It can also be used as a study method as it helps to learn things more effectively by

shuffling the order of your notes and studying sections of a book in a different order to

the one that is already in the book. By doing this, you will be able to learn the topics

more efficiently as all the points would have been at the end and the beginning.

 Teachers also use this in their methods of teaching by placing the most important

information at the beginning and end of a slideshow and the less important information

toward the middle (Green, 2020).

 As all pharmaceutical companies are legally required to show the side effects of their

drugs, they try to place less emphasis on this by placing their disclaimers at the middle of

their advertisements and the benefits of their drugs at the beginning and end. By doing
 this, they aim to take the consumers attention away from the side effects instead, shifting

it to the benefits of taking their drug.

 Even, the products in stores are arranged in such a way that the items that the store wants

you to buy are kept at the beginning and end of the aisles. The serial position effect

comes into play, and you are more likely to purchase the products that the store wants

you to purchase.

 Analyzing the serial position effect could potentially serve as a valuable supplementary
tool for clinical neuropsychological assessments. This tool could aid in distinguishing
between amnestic MCI patients, normal aging, and patients in varying stages of
dementia. (Moser et al., 2014)

Limitations

However, there were quite a few drawbacks to the serial position effect.

 It lacked mundane realism as the experiment was conducted in an artificial environment

i.e., in a controlled lab setting, it cannot be applied to a real-world situation which affects

the study’s external validity (Study Smarter, n.d).

 There is also a possibility that some people have the tendency to put in more effort to

achieve better results when involved in an experiment. This is called the Hawthorne

Effect. Similarly, since the sample chosen by Murdock for his study in 1962 were

psychology students, it is possible that they were able to figure out the aim of the study

and act accordingly. (Murdock, 1962)

 Furthermore, because a small sample are often used in such studies. It is difficult to

generalize the results to the entire population. Even if we use repeated measure design, it
 could act as a potential extraneous variable that influences the study. Recollecting the

words may have improved with certain individuals over time. (Study Smarter, n.d).

 The serial position effect depends on the human memory which is essentially flawed and

unreliable. People may overlook items in the middle, at the beginning or the end of a list,

depending on their situation and the surrounding environment (Drew, C., 2023).

 Despite the fact that this effect has been widely studied, it is still unclear why people

remember the beginning and end of the list better than the middle. (Drew, C., 2023).

References

Drew (PhD), C. (2023, March 14). Serial Position Effect: 10 Examples & Definition

(Psychology). Helpfulprofessor.com. https://helpfulprofessor.coxm/serial-position-effect-

psychology-examples/

Glanzer, M., & Cunitz, A. R. (1966). Two Storage Mechanisms in Free Recall. Journal of

Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5(4), 351–360. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-

5371(66)80044-0

Howieson, D. B., Mattek, N., Seeyle, A. M., Dodge, H. H., Wasserman, D., Zitzelberger, T., &

Jeffrey, K. (2011). Serial position effects in mild cognitive impairment. Journal of

Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 33(3), 292–299. Retrieved from:

https://doi.org/10.1080/13803395.2010.516742

Murdock, B. B., Jr. (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 64(5), 482–488. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045106

Seiler, K. H., & Engelkamp, J. (2003). The role of item-specific information for the serial

position curve in free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory,

Serial Position Effect: Definition & Murdock | StudySmarter. (n.d.). StudySmarter UK.

https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/psychology/cognition/serial-position-effect/

Serial-position effect. (n.d.). Www.itac.edu.au. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from

https://www.itac.edu.au/blog/teaching-strategies/serial-position-effect

Terry, W. S. (2005). Serial Position Effects in Recall of Television Commercials. The Journal of

General Psychology, 132(2), 151–164. https://doi.org/10.3200/genp.132.2.151-164

Yoo, J., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2012). Phonological memory in bilinguals and monolinguals.

Memory & Cognition, 40(8), 1314–1330. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0237-x