Evaluation of the MSM

Supporting MSM

Murdock (1962)

• Presented participants with a list of words to be recalled in any order
• Words at the beginning and end were recalled better than those in the middle
• This is the serial position effect
• Words at the beginning of the list are recalled because they've been constantly rehearsed and transfered to LTM (primacy effect)
• Words at the end of the list are recalled as they are still in STM (recency effect)
• Supports the idea of separate STM and LTM

Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)

• Introduced an interference task in the form of participant counting back in 3's for 10 secs at the end of the list and before recall to eliminate recency effect
• Recall was good of earlier items which had been rehearsed and were in LTM 
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