False Memory & Serial-Position Effect: M4 Experiential Task

Experiment

My two volunteers for this experiment were Nicole Bloomer, one of my best-friends, and Kylee Dodson, my roommate who is also one of my best-friends. Nicole is actually a Psychology major and she was excited to perform this task. I gave Kylee and Nicole a piece of paper and a pencil so they could write down as many words they could remember from the lists. I read the first list slowly and when I finished they began to write. Nicole only remembered five words out of 14. Kylee remembered eight words out of 14. Then I began to read the words off of the 2nd list and they began to write. This time Nicole remembered 11 out of 27 words. Kylee remembered 12 out of 27 words. I asked both of them why they remembered more words from this list, even though it is longer then the first one. They both agreed that the first list were words they didn't really feel were that important to them. They also agreed that the second list they could associate with the words more because they were about the medical field, and they both feel that the medical field is very important. I asked both of them if they remembered the word "Aardvark" from the first list. They both said no, and they looked at me like I was crazy. They were both right because the word was not on the list. Then I asked if they remembered the word "needle." Both said no, but now that I mentioned it they remembered the word. I told them after that I did not say the word needle. They were both surprised and they agreed that needle could easily have been in the first list because it goes in the same category as the other words, so that's why they thought I read it out loud. I then asked if they remembered the words "pain" and "thread" which were the first and last words of the first list. They both remembered the words and they said they remembered it because it was the first and last words I said. Then I asked if they remembered the words "point" and "sharp" and they both said no. These words were directly in the middle of the list. By looking at their list's I saw that they remembered the first few words and the last few words from both lists. I asked them if they remembered the word "doctor" from the second list. Nicole said she remembered the word and wrote it down. I explained to her that doctor wasn't on the list, and she said it could have easily fit in the second lists category of words. Then I asked if they remembered the word "drive-in" and they both said no. Which that word was not on the list.

What They Learned

I began to explain the concept of false memory to both of them. I even told them the story that Dr. Selvaraj told us about the boy who was kidnapped when he was little from his stroller, but turned out that he never got kidnapped at all. They were both very shocked and appalled. I also explained to them some of the techniques people use to remember things. For example, how they associated the
categories of words in the list. They seemed very interested in learning about this.

Both Kylee and Nicole said that they enjoyed this experiment and learning about memory. Nicole was especially interested since she is a psychology major herself. They said they give this experiment a thumbs up!