The Serial Position Effect
MCAT Psychology - Chapter 2- Section 3 - Cognition - Memory
Sample MCAT Question - The Serial Position Effect
A child is taught the alphabet. However, the child can only remember A, B, Y, and Z. This is an example of the:
a) Serial-position effect.
b) Primacy effect.
c) Recency effect.
d) None of the above.
A is correct, the serial-position effect is the tendency for people to better recall the first and last items in a list rather than the middle items. The child can only remember the first two and last two letters of the alphabet. This is an example of the serial-position effect. Answer choice B is incorrect because the primacy effect is a cognitive bias that results in an individual recalling items at the beginning of a list better than those presented later. The child remember the last two letters of the alphabet, so this is not an example of the primacy effect. Answer choice C is incorrect because the recency effect is a cognitive bias that results in an individual recalling items at the ends of a list better than those presented earlier. The child remembers the first two letters of the alphabet, so this is not an example of the recency effect.
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The Serial Position Effect for the MCAT
If you ask someone to read a grocery list and recall the items on it, the serial position effect states that we will better remember the first and final few items on the list, but have a difficult time remembering the middle items.
The serial position effect can be divided into two halves. The first half is the primacy effect, which is a cognitive bias that results in an individual recalling items at the beginning of a list better than those presented later. The second half of the serial position effect is the recency effect. This is a cognitive bias that results in an individual recalling items at the end of a list better than those presented earlier, because they wre seen more recently.
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