Scheme of learning reminder!

Lesson 7 – Outline Murdock’s serial position curve study.

As RM has now been combined with other modules. Lessons to follow this
one should be:
- Lesson 8: Extraneous variables – use this study to reinforce
- Lesson 9: Reliability and validity – use this study to reinforce

Lesson 10 – Evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

KEY STUDY – Murdock’s serial position curve
study Thursday 12 June 2025

Last lesson Last week Last month

What are the three different What is the difference between What is the coding, capacity,
types of experiment usually an alternate and a null and duration of the Sensory
conducted in psychology? hypothesis? Register?
LFN

If you were going to conduct an experiment

about memory. Which type of experiment do
you think would be best? Explain your answer.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

EXPERIMENT TIME!

You are about to see a series of 20 words. They

will flash up on the screen for 1 second. After all
of the words have been shown, you will have 2
minutes to write down as many as you can
remember.

You must not share your answers! … READY!

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

PATCH
AMBER
DREAM
APPLE
LAUGH
SEVEN
WORLD
ANGEL
GREEN
MUSIC
SUGAR
DEATH
WOMAN
TIGER
EARTH
MONEY
SMILE
RIVER
WATCH
BRAIN
Go!
 Pens down …. How do you do?

1. PATCH 11. SUGAR How many words did you recall?

2. AMBER 12. DEATH
3. DREAM 13. Which section of the list were
4. APPLE WOMAN they from – the beginning, the
5. LAUGH 14. TIGER middle, or the end?
6. SEVEN 15. EARTH
7. WORLD 16. MONEY
8. ANGEL 17. SMILE
9. GREEN 18. RIVER Why do you think this might
10. MUSIC 19. WATCH have been?
20. BRAIN

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Keywords

The words recalled from the start of the list are due to the primacy
effect. The words recalled from the end of the list are due to the
recency effect.
Primacy effect – refers to what happens first – words that appear first
in a list are more likely to be recalled than the words in the middle of a
list. This is because they have been rehearsed quite well by the time
they are recalled and have become long-term memories.

Recency effect – refers to what has happened most recently – the

words that appear towards the end of the list will have been heard
most recently and will still be in short-term memory. Therefore, recall
for these will be best.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Keywords

The effects of serial position

When we hear words from the start of the list, we start to rehearse them in our head so that we
can recall them later on. This transfers the words to our long-term store.

However, as we are rehearsing the first few words, we miss the words from the middle of the list.
We are able to recall words from the end of the list as they are still in our short-term store and so
are available to be recalled, if we recall them straight away.

Serial position effect – describes the tendency of people to recall the

first and last words in a list of words best. In other words, it is the position
of the words that influences the likelihood of their recall.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Key studies – For each key study that
we learn about there are some essential
pieces of information that you need to
know.

Aim – What was the purpose of the

study? What were they trying to find
out?
Method – What did they do?
Results – What did they find out from
their study?
Conclusion – What can they say in
relation to their aim? Did the results
support their ideas?
(Page 20)
LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.
Q1. The dependent variable in Murdock’s
study was the:

a. Position of a word in a list

b. Probability of a word being correctly
recalled
c. Total number of words correctly recalled
d. Primacy and recency effects.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q2. Being able to recall the words at the start
of a list refers to the:

a. Recency effect
b. Primacy effect
c. Serial position curve
d. Dependent variable of the study.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q3. How does Murdock’s study support the multi-
store model:

a. Primacy effect shows LTM and recency effect

shows STM
b. Primacy effect shows STM and recency effect
shows LTM
c. The serial position curve involves sensory memory
d. It doesn’t support the multi-store model.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q4. Information gets into LTM through:

a. Attention
b. Declarative memory
c. Rehearsal
d. Visual encoding.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q5. Coding is mostly acoustic and capacity is
between 5 and 9 items. Which memory store is being
described?

a. Short term memory

b. Sensory memory
c. Visual memory
d. Declarative memory.

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Let’s think about what we have learnt today.

1. Tell me something new that you have learnt today.

2. What knowledge/skills have you used today from

previous lessons? (Think about other subjects)

LO: To describe Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Scheme of learning reminder!
Lesson 7 – Outline Murdock’s serial position curve study.

As RM has now been combined with other modules. Lessons to follow this one should be:
- Lesson 8: Extraneous variables – use this study to reinforce
- Lesson 9: Reliability and validity – use this study to reinforce

Lesson 10 – Evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

KEY STUDY – Murdock’s serial position curve
study Thursday 12 June 2025

Last lesson Last week Last month

What are the three key terms What are the 3 processes of
What is the difference between
you need to use when memory? (In the correct
‘reliability’ and ‘validity’?
describing Murdock’s serial order).
position curve study?
PE RE SPC

Given what you now know

about reliability and validity,
which one of these would most
apply to Murdock’s study? Why?

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Evaluating a study …

G = Generalisable? What is the sample size? Did they use

participants from one gender or one culture? Can the results be true for all people in
the target population?

R = Reliable? Can the results be repeated? Was it a lab experiment?

A = Applicable? Have the conclusions changed the way we think? Has

it changed anything in society? Have any laws been made as a result?

V = Valid? Was the research conducted in a natural setting? Was real

everyday behaviour observed? Do we have the real thoughts and feelings of the
participants?

E = Ethics? Was informed consent given? Right to withdraw? Did

participants suffer any physical or psychological harm? Was their data and identity
protected?
LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.
 Let’s recap …

Aim: To provide evidence for the existence of separate short-term and

long-term stores of the multi-store model of memory.

Method: Words from 4000 most common words in English were chosen
randomly.
Participants listened to 20 word lists between 10 and 40 words on them.
They recalled the words after each list.

Results: Recall was not affected by the number of words in a list but was
related to the position of the word in the list (the serial position effect).
Murdock found that higher recall for the first few words (primacy effect)
and for the last few words (recency effect) that than the middle of the
list.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Let’s recap …

Conclusion: Murdock concluded that this does provide evidence for

separate short-term and long-term memory stores because:

The last few words were still in the short-term memory store (within 18-
30 secs)

The first few words had been transferred to long-term memory because
they had been rehearsed.

The words in the middle were forgotten because they were neither in the
short-term or long-term memory store.

The results confirm the serial position effect, word position determines
the likelihood of recall.
LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.
 Evaluation

Controlled lab study

P - One strength of the study relates to it being well-controlled.
E – Familiarity of the words was the same throughout each list. The words
were read at the same speed so that participants had no opportunity to
practice some lists more than others.
E – This means that we can be more confident that it was the position of
the word on the list that affected recall and not other extraneous
variables.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Evaluation

Artificial task
P - One weakness of the study is that the task was artificial.
E – Memorising lists of words represent only a small part of what we use
our memories for. This therefore, only tells us about one aspect of
memory – how we deal with memorising words. But we do a lot of other
things with our memory like learning how to play basketball or
remembering whether we like someone or not.
E – So this means that this way of studying memory is artificial and
restrictive. It does relate to some aspects – like how to learn for an exam
– but it does not explain many other aspects of life.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Evaluation

Supporting research
P - One strength of this study is research with amnesiacs supports the
conclusions.
E – Research has shown that people who have amnesia and can’t store
long-term memories also do not show a primacy effect but they do show
a recency effect.

E – This confirms that the primacy effect is related to long-term memory.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Use this guide to help
you prepare for writing
your first 9 mark
question.
You can briefly fill it in if
it will help you focus
your writing.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Evaluating Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Outline and evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study. (9 marks)

Para 1: The aim of Murdock’s study was to … Para 1:
Para 2: Murdock found that … Aim/Method
Para 2:
Para 3: One strength of Murdock’s study is that Results/conclusion
… Para 3-5:
Para 4: One weakness of Murdock’s study is that
… evaluation
Para 5: Another strength of Murdock’s study is that
…
One weakness of Murdock’s serial position curve study is that it was conducted in a
laboratory.
EVIDENCE
This means that …

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q1. The dependent variable in Murdock’s
study was the:

a. Position of a word in a list

b. Probability of a word being correctly
recalled
c. Total number of words correctly recalled
d. Primacy and recency effects.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q2. Murdock used lists of words, which means
that the study:

a. Was a laboratory experiment

b. Was not very well controlled
c. Tested a wide range of memory skills
d. It only tells us about some of the ways that
memory is used in everyday life.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q3. How does Murdock’s study support the multi-
store model:

a. Primacy effect shows LTM and recency effect

shows STM
b. Primacy effect shows STM and recency effect
shows LTM
c. The serial position curve involves sensory memory
d. It doesn’t support the multi-store model.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q4. Murdock used lists of words, which means that
the study:

a. Was a laboratory experiment

b. Was not very well controlled
c. Tested a wide range of memory skills
d. It only tells us about some of the ways that
memory is used in everyday life.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Q5. Information gets into LTM through:

a. Attention
b. Declarative memory
c. Rehearsal
d. Visual encoding.

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

 Let’s think about what we have learnt today.

1. Tell me something new that you have learnt today.

2. What knowledge/skills have you used today from

previous lessons? (Think about other subjects)

LO: To evaluate Murdock’s serial position curve study.

Projector
Library
Barrel
Tree
Lemon
Water
Crown
Sack
Sugar
Wardrobe
Cereal
Pool
Shed
String
Film
Window
Leather
Pencil
Bottle
Laptop
Bun
Key
Cloud
Shoes
Phone
Projector Leather
Wardrobe
Library Pencil
Barrel Cereal
Bottle
Tree Pool
Laptop
Lemon String Bun
Water Film Key
Crown Window Cloud
Sack Shoes
Sugar Phone