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 was presented ant a rate of one word every two seconds, while list 2 was presented at a rate of one word per second. There were 18 subjects used in this experiment. A dependent measures t-test was used and this showed that there was a significant difference between the means of the two groups. The data also suggests the existence of primacy and recency effect, that the recall of a word depends on its position within the list of words, and is more likely to be recalled if it located at the beginning or end of the list.
…
