Positive and negative recency effects in free recall learning

Maskarinec, Ann Stash; Brown, Sam C.

doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(74)80070-8

Cited by 36 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus output priority may exert a positive effect on immediate recall and a negative effect on final recall. An attempt was made to perform an outputorder analysis on part of the results, by means of the measure of the Relative Index of Priority, RIP (Maskarinec & Brown, 1974), in which the greater positive and negative scores show the earlier and later output priority, respectively. RIP scores of the C group in Experiment I for primacy, middle, and recency regions were -.16, -.27, and +.29, respectively, whereas those of the PR group were +.13, -.24, and -.02, respectively.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between memory performance and the number of rehearsals in free recall

Shimizu

1987

Memory & Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between the number of rehearsals and long-term recall performance by means of an overt rehearsal procedure. Subjects were induced to concentrate their rehearsal activity on specific items in free recall tasks. In Experiment 1, both the primacy and the recency items that had received additional rehearsals were recalled with higher probability than were the ordinarily rehearsed items in immediate recall but not in final recall. Experiment 2 was designed to extend the occasions for subjects' rehearsal by manipulating the rate ofitem presentation. The overall pattern of resulting data showed that for neither recency items nor primacy items does the additional overt rehearsal reliably lead to facilitative effects on long-term recall performance. The possibility of a qualitative change in rehearsal is discussed.The multistore model of human memory, which postulates that there are several memory-storage systems, such as short-term and long-term stores, is based mainly on analyses of serial position curves resulting from free recall tasks (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968, 1971). AU-shaped serial position curve in immediate free recall is consistently obtained, and according to this model, the high recall probability of the first few items (primacy effect) and of the last few items (recency effect) reflects output from the long-term and short-term stores, respectively. Presumably, the nearer to the beginning of a list an item is, the more frequently it will be rehearsed. It has been suggested that this can account for the so-called primacy effect, since in this model it is assumed that the probability of information transfer to long-term storage increases with rehearsal frequency of an item. This possibility was supported by experimental data from Rundus and Atkinson (1970) and Rundus (1971), who examined the relationship between free recall performance and the number of rehearsals by means of an overt rehearsal procedure. The subjects were instructed to study a word list by repeating items aloud during presentation, and their overt rehearsals were taperecorded. The resulting free recall performance showed a typical U-shaped curve, in which the mean number of rehearsals was highest for the beginning items and gradually decreased with items' serial positions. Hence, for prerecency items the number of rehearsals correlated highly with the probability of recall.Further support for the role of rehearsal in long-term storage came from Craik (1970), who gave an unexpectedThe author is greatly indebted to Associate Professor Ryozo Yukawa of Osaka City University for his advice and guidance. Requests for reprints should be sent to Hiroyulci Shimizu at Department of Psychology. Faculty of Letters, Osaka City University. Sumiyoshi-lru. Osaka 558. Japan.final free recall test on all items from a previous series of immediately recalled lists. In contrast with the immediate recall tests, in final recall, recency items were found to be recalled most poorly (subsequently dubbed...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between memory performance and the number of rehearsals in free recall

Shimizu

1987

Memory & Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast, the negative recency effect in a final test has two possible causal factors: Initial encoding processes may differ for prerecency and recency items, and initial test processes may differ for prerecency and recency items. There is ample evidence that initial encoding differences contribute to the negative recency effect (e.g., Maskarinec & Brown, 1974;Mazuryk, 1974;Mazuryk & Lockhart, 1974;Watkins & Watkins, 1974). Two lines of evidence have pointed to initial tests as another contributory factor.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Logically, the negative recency effect could result from inferior initial storage of recency items, from greater effects of the initial test on prerecency items, or from a combination of these factors. Several experimenters have shown that the extent or type of initial encoding is an important factor in producing the negative recency effect (e.g., Maskarinec & Brown, 1974;Mazuryk, 1974;Watkins & Watkins, 1974). The purpose of this paper is to point out that memory modifications occurring during initial tests (cf.…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The first two experiments (Maskarinec & Brown, 1974;Watkins & Watkins, 1974) show that changes in recall occur when a list's termination can be anticipated, but they do not directly show that the changes in recall are due to changes in the quality of processing: It could be asserted that subjects adjust the quantity of processing (e.g., the number of rehearsals) given to recency items. The inferential strength of the latter two experiments (Mazuryk, 1974;Mazuryk & Lockhart, 1974) suffers a complementary weakness: Different types of processing are shown to affect final recall of recency items, but the experiments do not show that subjects ordinarily use these different types of processing for prerecency and recency items.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…They provided substantiating inferential evidence by showing that the recall of recency items was reduced in an immediate test but increased in a final test when list length was unknown to subjects. Working under the same assumption as Watkins and Watki~s, Maskarinec and Brown (1974) hypothesized that subjects learn to anticipate the end of a list and adjust their processing accordingly. To test this idea, Maskarinec and Brown gave subjects 8 21-word free recall lists followed by a 9th list of 12 words and a 10th list of 21 words.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Initial-retrieval “depth” and the negative recency effect

Whitten

1978

Memory & Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A novel variation of the probed recall, negative recency paradigm was employed to test the general hypothesis that the amount of learning from an initial recall test is a function of the level of processing used during initial retrieval, and to test specific predictions concerning the role of initial tests in the production and elimination of the negative recency effect. On each of 32 trials, 32 subjects each saw four words followed by a searchmode signal and a probe word. The level of initial retrieval processing (acoustic or semantic) was controlled by the search-mode signal. Initial test response latencies were recorded, and the learning derived from initial tests was assessed by an unexpected final free recall test. Final recall of words initially retrieved in the semantic-search condition showed no negative recency, while final recall of words initially retrieved in the acoustic-search condition did show negative recency. Conditional analyses showed that memory was incremented more by semantic-level initial retrieval than by acoustic-level initial retrieval. Implications of these results for an explanation of negative recency effects and for other learning-from-tests effects are discussed.The paradoxical result known as the negative recency effect is simply stated: In a list that is serially presented for free recall or probed recall, the last items presented are the most likely to be recalled on an initial test and are the least likely to be recalled on a subsequent test. Logically, the negative recency effect could result from inferior initial storage of recency items, from greater

show abstract

Behavioral Contrast in Short Term Memory: Serial Binary Memory Models or Parallel Continuous Memory Models?

Grossberg

1982

Studies of Mind and Brain

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Positive and negative recency effects in free recall learning

Cited by 36 publications

References 15 publications

The relationship between memory performance and the number of rehearsals in free recall

The relationship between memory performance and the number of rehearsals in free recall

Initial-retrieval “depth” and the negative recency effect

Behavioral Contrast in Short Term Memory: Serial Binary Memory Models or Parallel Continuous Memory Models?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About