The effects of visual presentation method on single-trial free recall (original) (raw)

A three-component analysis of the modality effect in single-trial free recall

Memory & Cognition, 1977

In single-trial free recall a superiority of acoustical over visual presentation has been observed in the recency part of the serial position curve. The rehearsal-buffer model by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) was modified to distinguish between three different explanations that are discussed in the literature. The application of the model allowed some of the parameters to vary across modes of presentation while other parameters were held constant. A model assuming either a precategorical acoustical storage or additional processing for visually presented items gives a better account of the results than does a model derived from a two-store hypothesis.

The separate but related origins of the recency effect and the modality effect in free recall

Cognition, 2000

The recency effect found in free recall can be accounted for almost entirely in terms of the recall of ordered sequences of items. It is such sequences, presented at the end of the stimulus list but recalled at the very beginning of the response protocol, which produce a recency effect. Such sequences are recalled at the beginning of the response protocol equally often following auditory and visual presentation. These same stimulus sequences are also frequently recalled other than initially in the response protocol following auditory presentation. However, such responses are rarely found following visual presentation. The modality effect in free recall, the advantage of auditory over visual presentation, can be substantially accounted for in these terms. Theoretical and procedural implications of these data are discussed.

The List Length Effect and Immediate Free Recall of Visually Displayed Information in Various Forms

TEM Journal

This paper investigated four main phenomena connected with the free immediate recall and visual representation of the information: list-length effect, serial position effect, horizontal versus vertical presentation of the information, expression of the information in the form of the symbol, text, and symbol with text. The number of examined respondents was 4140. The experiment revealed a different memory recall of various forms of visually displayed information and studied a dependency of list length effect on primacy and recency effect. The results showed that people recall better the combination of symbols and text than only text or symbols. The other finding indicated a significant difference between the number of recalled items in the tests of 5, 7, and 9 items. The respondents recalled the highest number of items in 5-item tests and the lowest number in 9-item tests. There was investigated that the proportions of the respondents recalling the items from the beginning is higher ...

The Significance Of Mode Of Presentation On The Serial Position Effect : An Exploratory Study

Indian Journal of Mental Health(IJMH), 2016

Background: Memory is the maintenance of material over time, which can be tested using various methods. Most of the study of memory and research focuses on the ability to retrieve stored information by means of free recall. The objective of this experiment was to show serial position effects (primacy/effect) in free recall. Methodology: This experiment also aimed to look at the significance of mode of presentation (auditory, visual printed and visual pictures) on serial position effects. Participants in this experiment were tested with different treatment conditions. With the auditory group, participants were asked to recall the words by writing them down after the experimenter read out the list of 21 common-concrete nouns at the rate of 1 second per word. With the visual printed and visual pictures group, the participants were asked to recall the words by writing them down after the experimenter presented the stimuli on a PowerPoint presentation. Results: The results indicated that there was a significant main effect of serial position. However, a significant main effect of mode of presentation and the interaction between the mode of presentation and serial position wasn't found. Conclusion: Mode of presentation as a variable that affects the serial position effects needs further investigation in larger studies and future research.

Serial and Concurrent Presentations of Stimuli and Their Effects on Items Recalled

sdstate.edu

The present study examined differences in accuracy of responses to serial and concurrent stimuli in an immediate free recall task for individuals from chemistry and psychology courses. Average accuracy of responses for presentation order, stimulus type, and gender differences were measured. The procedure used Superlab 4.0 and consisted of one practice trial followed by eight recorded trials of serial and concurrent word lists. Counterbalancing was used to try to control learning of one order of presentation over the opposite order. Serial word lists consisted of ten words presented two seconds apart and one at a time. Concurrent lists consisted of ten words presented simultaneously for twenty seconds. No significant main effects of presentation order, stimulus type, or gender were found when calculating a mixed ANOVA. No gender differences in accuracy between the two types of stimuli were expected. There were also no significant effects of the interactions for these variables. However, a medium effect was found for the interaction of presentation order and stimulus type. Increasing the population may lead to a significant effect of the presentation order by stimulus type interaction. Immediate free recall (IFR) is a common method used to try to determine individual differences in the number of stimuli (usually words) that can be stored in working (short-term)

Serial position effects in short-term visual memory: A SIMPLE explanation?

Memory & Cognition, 2007

A version of short-term visual memory recognition paradigm with pictures of unfamiliar faces as stimuli was used in three experiments to assess the applicability of the distinctiveness-based SIMPLE model proposed by . Initial simulations indicated that the amount of recency predicted increased as the parameter measuring the psychological distinctiveness of the stimulus material (c) increased and that the amount of primacy was dependent on the extent of proactive interference from previously presented stimuli. The data from Experiment 1, in which memory lists of four and five faces varying in visual similarity were used, confirmed the predicted extended recency effect. However, changes in visual similarity were not found to produce changes in c. In Experiments 2 and 3, the conditions that influence the magnitude of c were explored. These revealed that both the familiarity of the stimulus class before testing and changes in familiarity, due to perceptual learning, influenced distinctiveness, as indexed by the parameter c. Overall, the empirical data from all three experiments were well fit by SIMPLE.

A Spatial Modality Effect in Serial Memory

Journal of Experimental Psychology-learning Memory and Cognition, 2006

In 2 experiments, the authors tested whether the classical modality effect-that is, the stronger recency effect for auditory items relative to visual items-can be extended to the spatial domain. An order reconstruction task was undertaken with four types of material: visual-spatial, auditory-spatial, visualverbal, and auditory-verbal. Similar serial position curves were obtained regardless of the nature of the to-be-remembered sequences, with the exception that a modality effect was found with spatial as well as with verbal materials. The results are discussed with regard to a number of models of short-term memory.

Contextual variability and serial position effects in free recall

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1999

In-immediate free recall, words recalled successively tend to come from nearby serial positions. M. J. Kahana (1996) documented this effect and showed that this tendency, which the authors refer to as the lag recency effect, is well described by a variant of the search of associative memory (SAM) model (J. G. W. Raaijmakers & R. M. Shiffrin, 1980, 1981). In 2 experiments, participants performed immediate, delayed, and continuous distractor free recall under conditions designed to minimize rehearsal. The lag recency effect, previously observed in immediate free recall, was also observed in delayed and continuous distractor free recall. Although two-store memory models, such as SAM, readily account for the end-of-list recency effect in immediate free recall, and its attenuation in delayed free recall, these models fail to account for the long-term recency effect. By means of analytic simulations, the authors show that both the end of list recency effect and the lag recency effect, across all distractor conditions, can be explained by a single-store model in which context, retrieved with each recalled item, serves as a cue for subsequent recalls.

Presentation format effects in working memory: The role of attention

Memory & Cognition, 2005

Four experiments are reported in which participants attempted to remember three or six concrete nouns, presented as pictures, spoken words, or printed words, while also verifying the accuracy of sentences. Hypotheses meant to explain the higher recall of pictures and spoken words over printed words were tested. Increasing the difficulty and changing the type of processing task from arithmetic to a visual/ spatial reasoning task did not influence recall. An examination of long-term modality effects showed that those effects were not sufficient to explain the superior performance with spoken words and pictures. Only when we manipulated the allocation of attention to the items in the storage task by requiring the participants to articulate the items and by presenting the stimulus items under a degraded condition were we able to reduce or remove the effect of presentation format. The findings suggest that the better recall of pictures and spoken words over printed words result from the fact that under normal presentation conditions, printed words receive less processing attention than pictures and spoken words do.