The Effect of Speed of Word Presentation on the Primacy and Recency Effect in Free Recall: A report done for an experimental psychology class

Running head: THE EFFECT OF SPEED ON WORD PRESENTATION The Effect of Speed of Word Presentation on the Primacy and Recency Effect in Free Recall Abstract The purpose of this experiment was to replicate the free recall experiment done by Murdock (1962). The experiment included manipulation of the speed at which the words were presented in order to see the effect that these words would have on the ability of a subject to recall them. List 1 …

…that gave the correct response for each word as represented on the X-axis. This graph has much variability as that which would be expected from Murdock (1962). Figure 3: Shows the responses of condition B. The Y-axis represents the total number of students that gave the correct response for each word as represented on the X-axis. This graph is quite indicative of the primacy effect, and of the recency "S" shape, as they were explained by Murdock (1962).