Lydia Tan

Examining the Relationship between Free Recall and Immediate Serial Recall: The Effects of List Length and Output Order.

In 4 experiments, participants were presented with lists of between 1 and 15 words for tests of immediate memory. For all tasks, participants tended to initiate recall with the first word on the list for short lists. As the list length was increased, so there was a decreased tendency to start with the first list item; and, when free to do so, participants showed an increased tendency to start with one of the last 4 list items. In all tasks, the start position strongly influenced the shape of the resultant serial position curves: When recall started at Serial Position 1, elevated recall of early list items was observed; when recall started toward the end of the list, there were extended recency effects. These results occurred under immediate free recall (IFR) and different variants of immediate serial recall (ISR) and reconstruction of order (RoO) tasks. We argue that these findings have implications for the relationship between IFR and ISR and between rehearsal and recall.

Rehearsal in immediate serial recall

We report for the first time overt rehearsal data in immediate serial recall (ISR) undertaken at three presentation rates (1, 2.5, and 5 sec/word). Two groups of participants saw lists of six words for ISR and were required either to engage in overt rehearsal or to remain silent after reading aloud the word list during its presentation. Typical ISR serial position effects were obtained for both groups, and recall increased with slower rates. When participants rehearsed, they tended to do so in a cumulative forward order up to Serial Position 4, after which the amount of rehearsal decreased substantially. There were similarities between rehearsal and recall data: Both broke down toward the end of longer sequences, and there were strong positive correlations between the maximum sequence of participants’ rehearsals and their ISR performance. We interpret these data as suggesting that similar mechanisms underpin both rehearsal and recall in ISR.

Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall: The serial nature of recall and the effect of test expectancy

In two experiments, we examined the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall (ISR), using a within-subjects (Experiment 1) and a between-subjects (Experiment 2) design. In both experiments, participants read aloud lists of eight words and were precued or postcued to respond using free recall or ISR. The serial position curves were U-shaped for free recall and showed extended primacy effects with little or no recency for ISR, and there was little or no difference between recall for the precued and the postcued conditions. Critically, analyses of the output order showed that although the participants started their recall from different list positions in the two tasks, the degree to which subsequent recall was serial in a forward order was strikingly similar. We argue that recalling in a serial forward order is a general characteristic of memory and that performance on ISR and free recall is underpinned by common memory mechanisms.

Multiple Mediators of the Attitude Similarity-Attraction Relationship: Dominance of Inferred Attraction and Subtlety of Affect

The authors examined the mediation of the attitude similarity–attraction relationship. When affect was the sole measured mediating variable, the hypothesized partial mediation held in Experiment 1 (N = 60). In Experiment 2 (N = 96), ratings of the 3 potential mediators (affect, inferred attraction, and cognitive evaluation) and of an irrelevant variable (inferred cognitive evaluation) were taken at 2 orders of mediator measurement. The attitude similarity-attraction link was more strongly mediated by inferred attraction than by cognitive evaluation. Surprisingly, however, the effect of affect on attraction was reversed in the multiple-mediation analysis. Post hoc analyses disclosed that affect transmitted the similarity effect from its preceding variable only to the succeeding one. Theoretical and methodological implications of the dominance of inferred attraction and the subtlety of affect are discussed.

Output order in immediate serial recall

In two experiments, we examined the effect of output order in immediate serial recall (ISR). In Experiment 1, three groups of participants saw lists of eight words and wrote down the words in the rows corresponding to their serial positions in an eight-row response grid. One group was precued to respond in forward order, a second group was precued to respond in any order, and a third group was postcued for response order. There were significant effects of output order, but not of cue type. Relative to the forward output order, the free output order led to enhanced recency and diminished primacy, with superior performance for words output early in recall. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 using six-item lists, which further suggests that output order plays an important role in the primacy effect in ISR and that the recency items are most highly accessible at recall.

The Role of Rehearsal on the Output Order of Immediate Free Recall of Short and Long Lists.

Participants tend to initiate immediate free recall (IFR) of short lists of words with the very first word on the list. Three experiments examined whether rehearsal is necessary for this recent finding. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with lists of between 2 and 12 words for IFR at a fast, medium, or slow rate, with and without articulatory suppression (AS). The tendency to initiate output with the first item for short lists (a) did not change greatly when presentation rate was increased from a medium to a fast rate under normal conditions, (b) was reduced but not eliminated by AS, and (c) was maintained at slower rates when rehearsal was allowed but decreased at slower rates when rehearsal was prevented. In Experiment 2, the overt rehearsal methodology was used, and the tendency to initiate output with the first item for short lists was present even in the absence of overt rehearsal. Experiment 3 re-examined IFR under normal encoding conditions and replicated the main findings from the normal encoding conditions of Experiment 1 while using the presentation rates and list lengths of Experiment 2. We argue that rehearsal is not strictly necessary for the tendency to initiate recall with the first item under normal conditions, but rehearsal nevertheless contributes to this effect at slower rates.

Common Modality Effects in Immediate Free Recall and Immediate Serial Recall.

In 2 experiments, participants were presented with lists of between 2 and 12 words for either immediate free recall (IFR) or immediate serial recall (ISR). Auditory recall advantages at the end of the list (modality effects) and visual recall advantages early in the list (inverse modality effects) were observed in both tasks and the extent and magnitude of these effects were dependent upon list length. Both tasks displayed modality effects with short lists that were large in magnitude but limited to the final serial position, consistent with those observed in the typically short lists used in ISR, and both tasks displayed modality effects with longer lists that were small in magnitude and more extended across multiple end-of-list positions, consistent with those observed in the typically longer lists used in IFR. Inverse modality effects were also observed in both tasks at early list positions on longer lengths. Presentation modality did not affect where recall was initiated, but modality effects were greatest on trials where participants initiated recall with the first item. We argue for a unified account of IFR and ISR. We also assume that the presentation modality affects the encoding of all list items, and that modality effects emerge due to the greater resistance of auditory items to output interference.

Beginning at the beginning: Recall order and the number of words to be recalled.

When participants are asked to recall a short list of words in any order that they like, they tend to initiate recall with the first list item and proceed in forward order, even when this is not a task requirement. The current research examined whether this tendency might be influenced by varying the number of items that are to be recalled. In 3 experiments, participants were presented with short lists of between 4 and 6 words and instructed to recall 1, 2, 3, or all of the items from the lists. Data were collected using immediate free recall (IFR, Experiment 1), immediate serial recall (ISR, Experiment 2), and a variant of ISR that we call ISR-free (Experiment 3), in which participants had to recall words in their correct serial positions but were free to output the words in any order. For all 3 tasks, the tendency to begin recall with the first list item occurred only when participants were required to recall as many items from the list as they could. When participants were asked to recall only 1 or 2 items, they tended to initiate recall with end-of-list items. It is argued that these findings show for the first time a manipulation that eliminates the initial tendency to recall in forward order, provide some support for recency-based accounts of IFR and help explain differences between single-response and multiple-response immediate memory tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record