MURDOCK

• Study Design

  • Lab study with control of extraneous variables
  • Standardised procedures to make sure the study could be replicated
  • Participants were both genders and psychology students and it was part of their course requirement to take part in psychological research
• Method

  1. 16 participants were given a list of 20 words at 1 word per second

  2. They were then asked to recall any words in any order in 90 seconds

  3. The test was repeated with the same participants for over 2 months with different lists used each time
• Results

  • Words at the end were recalled well (recency effect-STS)
  • Words from the start were recalled well (primacy effect-LTS)
  • Words in the middle were not recalled well at all
• Conclusion

  The results provide evidence for the LTS and STS as words from the beginning of the list are easier to remember because they have been stored in the LTS and words from the end of the list are still in the STS. Words in the middle were not stored in either so forgotten
• Aim

  to see how the recall of lists of words relates to the serial position curve
• Support for findings

  In following experiments, Murdock changed the length of the list and the presentation time and the effect was seen in all, providing evidence for STS and LTS. In another study, participants were given a distractor task to do before recalling the list and when they were allowed to recall, they found they could remember the first few because they were in LTS but not the last few as the STS had been taken up with the distractor task so the study also confirms Murdock’s theroy of LTS and STS in accordance with TMSMOM.
• Evaluation

  The study is important as it provides proof for the existence of STS and LTS in accordance with the MSMOM
• limitation- what is the STS now seen as


  The active part of the long-term memory (LTS)
• Some psychologists believe that it is too simplistic to view memory as having only one LTS