When the raw data is compared to the studies done by Glanzer and Cunitz in 1966 and by the serial position effect, the data that I achieved is in line with the prediction of the results. However, when the inferential statistics were calculated I did not achieve a p-value that revealed that the results were significant. The serial position effect and studies were done on the serial position effect will produce a U- shaped curve. I included the graphs of the data and my results do in fact produce a U-shaped curve. As predicted by the serial—position effect, the participants should remember the first part of the list and they did. In the Glanzer and Cunitz study, after a delay was introduced into the experiment, the number of words recalled decreased because the task disrupted short—term recall.
In my study, the delay did not have a large effect on the primacy portion of the list. The delay only affected the words in the recency portion of the list. Similarly to the Glanzer and Cunitz experiment, the Postman and Philips experiment in 1965 showed that an “interpolated task” disrupted short-term memory recall. In my experiment, the interpolated task was the delay of memory recall and counting to a specific number. In the Postman and Philips experiments, the number of items at the end of the list was recalled less when the participants performed the “unrelated mathematics task.”
My replication of the Glanzer and Cunitz experiment proved to offer the same results as the Glanzer and Cunitz and Postman and Philips studies. In my experiment, after the interpolated task the words at the end of the list were recalled less. Similarly to both the serial-position effect and the two studies mentioned, my U»shaped curve also showed that the words in the middle of the list were not recalled nearly as much as the ones at the beginning and end of the list. The recency portion of the graph was disrupted due to recall but was not disrupted enough to call my data significant. Possibly, in my experiment, the length of delay was not long enough to show a significant drop in the number of words recalled.
