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Positive recency effect in a delayed free recall

1973; Academic Press; Volume: 12; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0022-5371(73)80023-4

1878-4097

Ovid J. L. Tzeng,

Memory Processes and Influences

The present experiment employed a procedure that was a mixture of Brown-Peterson and free-recall paradigms. Before and after the presentation of each to-be-recalled word, there was a 20-second period of counting-backward activity. At the end of each 10-word list, subjects were asked to free recall the words in that list. After four such lists, they were asked to free recall all the words from the four lists. It was found that not only did the initial recall show a pronounced positive recency effect, but so did the final recall. The results suggest that the observation of a recency effect in a free-recall experiment might not reflect the output of short-term memory.