Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) - Serial Position effect
Aim
The aim was to study the serial position effect, primacy and recency effect, a cognitive phenomenon
that states people tend to remember the first and last items in a series. They wanted to investigate
this effect in relation to the multi-store model; because the larger amount of rehearsal of the first
items allow them to be transferred into the long term store, and with most recent items would still
be kept in the short term store when participants are asked to recall.
Participants
They used free recall to investigate memory, and they enlisted 46 army men to perform this
experiment with. This created a small demographic that the study can be generalised to, but it
limited many extraneous variables regarding the participants’ background.
Procedure
The researchers chose a repeated measures design by testing the subjects individually with
randomly assigned lists of 5 words in one of three conditions, so they had 15 words in total, the
order in which the conditions were completed were random.
1. immediate free recall: wrote down words immediately after hearing them
2. delayed free recall (10s): filler activity of counting backwards performed before recall
3. delayed free recall (30s): filler activity of counting backwards performed before recall
Results
The results showed that in the condition with no delay, the primacy and recency effect was normal,
just as the researchers predicted would support the multi-store model. However with the condition
of 30 second delay, the primacy effect was present, and the delay had reduced the recency effect.
This was because the delay and lack of rehearsal prevented the items from entering the long term
store, and by the time the participants had to write down the words, they had exceeded the capacity
of the short-term store.
Evaluation
The internal validity of this experiment is relatively high due to the controlled conditions in a
laboratory environment. However, the ecological validity is lower because it is uncommon in daily
life where we must memorise lists of words and be prevented from rehearsal. Also, memorisation of
words is only a small part of memory, and this study doesn’t investigate the possible effects of
different mediums on how well participants memorise information. Lastly, the demographic the
experiment was completed on was small, so the generalisability is low.
Bartlett (1932) - Schema Theory / Cultural Schemas
Aim
The aim of this study is to investigate how memory can be affected by prior knowledge, and if such
knowledge would distort one’s memory of a story, especially in effect of cultural schemas.
Participants/Procedure
The study was performed using a short story called “War of Ghosts”, a Native American legend, and
British participants were enlisted to take part in the study. The participants were foreign to the story
, and the concepts described in it, providing a lack of context and making memorisation difficult.
Bartlett allocated the participants to either the repeated reproduction, or serial reproduction
condition, where they either recalled the story after a short period of time, and then again over
multiple longer periods. Or they had to recall the story and repeat it to someone else.
Results
While there was no difference between how the groups recalled the study, it was observed that they
all changed the story in the process of memorisation (distortion).
1. assimilation: making the story more similar to the participants’ own cultural expectations, ie.
the details were changed to fit the norms of British culture.
2. levelling: they also shortened the story by cutting out details they deemed unimportant.
3. sharpening: changing the order of events to make it make more sense, and switching to
more familiar terms in British culture.
Bartlett concluded that the study showed memory as an active process, where we shape information
to fit existing schemas, allowing us to create meaning in new information. Also, Bartlett formed the
theory of reconstructive memory, where memories are reconstructions of events rather than an
accurate recording.
Evaluation
The study was high on ecological validity due to the lack of regulations, making it applicable to many
real-life situations. The methodology was also not highly controlled, and participants were not given
standardised instructions. However, we cannot accurately conclude that cultural schema distorted
the participants’ memory of the story because there was no control group, and the independent
variable was not manipulated, consequently we cannot establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
Brewer and Treyens (1989): Schema Theory
To see how pre-existing schema affects participants’ ability to learn new information and how
schema relates to the retrieval of episodic memory. They conducted this study with 86 psychology
students in an office-like room. There are many objects in the room, such as: paper, coffee pot,
electronics, posters, etc. also items that would not normally belong in an office like toys, and lastly
some items were taken out (e.g., books). The participants were then asked to sit down and after a
while (in a different room) asked to recall what items they remembered seeing in the office. There
were three conditions: the recall condition, drawing condition, and verbal recognition condition.
1. recall condition: write down descriptions of the objects and in a questionnaire rate from 1-6
how sure they are that the object was in the room
2. drawing condition: draw objects they remember when given an outline of the room
3. verbal recognition condition: asked if they remember if objects were in the room as they
read a list of items
Participants are more likely to remember items that would be expected to be found in an office
through writing or drawing, however when using verbal recognition (selecting items on a list), they
were more likely to recall the incongruent items, on top of assuming some schema-congruent items
were present but in fact were not. Finally, participants tend to change the nature of the items when
describing them, like the shape of the desk, or where items were located.
The problem with the study is that in the end there was no way to compare how many items (either
congruent or incongruent) each participant remembered and why, because there were consistent
