Memory

Memory

1. Murdock's serial position curve study

   • Aim
     • to provide evidence for the existence of seperate stores of the multi-store model
   • Method
     • 16 participants got given a list of 20 words. they were asked to recall as many words as they could remember. they were given 90 seconds to recall the words.
   • Results
     • the words at the end of the list were recalled first (recency effect) Words from the beginning of the list were also recalled quite well (primacy effect) but the words in the middle of the list weren't recalled very well.
   • Evaluation
     • importance
       • his study provided evidence for the existence of separate short term and long term stores in the multi store model of memory
     • limitations
       • lacks ecological validity because its not something people would do in everyday life. Also all the participants were studying psychology so they may have worked out the aim of the study or react differently

2. Bartlett's 'war of the ghosts' study

   • Aim
     • to see if people, when given an unfamiliar story to remember, would alter the information so that it makes more sense to them
   • method
     • each participant was asked to read a story called 'war of the ghosts' which Is a native American folk tale. they read the passage and were asked to retell the story to another person. that person then had to retell to another person and so on. a record was made of the story the person reported.
   • results
     • after the story was passed on 10 times: the passage became shorter, there were lots of omissions, there were changes in detail and the order of events was changed
   • evaluation
     • importance
       • Bartlett's study is relevant to the way we use our memories in everyday life