Primacy Effect

The data in my graph shows that we tend to remember words at the start and end of the list better than we remember words in the middle of the list. I can say this because, in general terms, the line on the graph starts high (at 18 people), and then it decreases to around 1-4 people in the middle of the list, and then it goes up to around 16-17 people at the end of the list. This position effect is called the Serial Position Effect. In this effect, we remember words at the start of the list because of the primacy effect and we remember words at the end of the list because of the recency effect. The primacy effect helps us recall words because the words at the start of the list are encoded into our long term memory where we store them until it is time to recall them. The recency effect helps us recall words because words at the end of the list are put into our short term memory where we can access them for a short time (about 30 seconds). The words in the middle of the list are not encoded into our long or short term memory, so it is harder to recall them. This all shows us that memory is not perfect; it has its strong points and weak points. We must put more effort into remembering some things because …show more content…
First, some of the words recalled incorrectly had associations with words on the list. For example, ‘ocean’ was on the list, but someone recalled the word ‘lake’ instead of ‘ocean’ because they are both bodies of water. Also, some people recalled words that were already in their long term memory due to previous exercises we did in class. In addition, some words were recalled incorrectly because some people misheard the word when it was read to us. For example, the word ‘pitcher’ was on the list, but someone recalled ‘pitcher’ as ‘picture.’ All of this might have happened because words were retrieved from our memory incorrectly or the words might have been encoded into our memory