Murdock's serial position curve

• Aim

  see if memory of words was affected by the number of words a person has to remember
• Method

  103 psychology students

  listened to 20 word lists made up of 10-40 words

  after each list they had to recall the words
• Results

  likelihood of recall was related to the position of the word in the list

  primacy effect - higher recall for the first words

  recency effect - higher recall for the last words
• Conclusion

  results demonstrate a serial position effect - the position of the word determines the likelihood of its recall.

  Supports the multi store model
• Strength

  lab experiment so high reliability so high control
• Weakness

  Low mundane realism because the task was artificial as its an unusual task to be asked to complete