Serial Position Effect - Related Effects

Related Effects

In 1977, William Crano decided to outline a study to further the previous conclusions on the nature of order effects, in particular those of primacy vs. recency, which were said to be unambiguous and opposed in their predictions. The specifics tested by Crano were:

Change of meaning hypothesis

"adjectives presented first on a stimulus list established a set, or expectation, through which the meanings of the later descriptors were modified in an attempt to maintain consistency in the mind of the receiver."

Inconsistency discounting

"later descriptions on the stimulus list were discounted if inconsistent with earlier trait adjectives."

Attention decrement hypothesis

"earlier adjectives would wield considerably more influence than the later ones, and a primacy effect in the typical impression formation task would be expected to occur ... even when the stimulus list contains traits of a high degree of consistency."

The continuity effect or lag-recency effect predicts that having made a successful recall, the next recall is likely to be a neighboring item in serial position during the study period. The difference between the two items' serial position is referred to as serial position lag. Another factor, called the conditional-response probability, represents the likelihood that a recall of a certain serial position lag was made. A graph of serial position lag versus conditional response probability reveals that the next item recalled minimizes absolute lag, with a higher likelihood for the adjacent item rather than the previous one.