Word Length Effect

(In Serial Recall)

PSYC 2700

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Outline
Introduction
Abolishing the Word-Length Effect
Distinctive Serial Recall Effects
ACT-R model
Q&A
Ask questions anytime!

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Word Length Effect

David Pierre Leibovitz
Upal Nath
Rosie Sedghi
Dean Verger

Informed Consent Form

The purpose of an informed consent is to ensure that you

understand the purpose of the study and the nature of your
involvement. The informed consent must provide sufficient
information, so that you have the opportunity to determine
whether you wish to participate in this study. Please ask the
researcher to clarify any concerns that you may have after
reading this form.
Title: Word Length Effect
Principal Investigators:
David Pierre Leibovitz
520-2600 x1016
Upal Nath
520-2600 x2527
Rosie Sedghi
520-2600 x7026
Dean Verger
520-3783
Research Personnel: In addition to the Principal
Investigators named above, the following people are involved
in this research and may be contacted at any time for further
information about this study:
Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre, Faculty Sponsor 520-2600 x2693
If you have any ethical concerns about this study, please
contact Dr. J. Mantler (Chair, Carleton University Ethics
Committee for Psychological Research, 520-2600 ext. 4173).
Should you have any other concerns about this study, please
contact Dr. M. Gick (Chair, Dept. of Psychology, 520-2600
ext. 2648)

Purpose: This study investigates the

influence of word length on memory recall.
Task Requirements: You will be asked to
complete a short questionnaire with some
demographic information. You will be asked to
learn a list of six words presented one at a
time, then recall the list by writing as many
items as you can. You will be given ample
time to do so. This will be done for 40 times.
Afterwards you will be asked a few questions.

Why?
Procedure?

Course Credit: Participation in this

experiment is strictly voluntary. No course
credit is available.
Duration: The experiment should take
approximately 30 minutes.
Potential Risk/Discomfort: There are no potential physical
or psychological risks in this experiment.
Anonymity/Confidentiality: The data collected in this study
are confidential. No names are attached to the data. The
data is made available only to the researchers associated
with this study. The experiment is normally run in a group
setting. Should you wish to participate as an individual,
please make your wishes known to the researchers.
Right to Withdraw: You have the right to refuse to
participate in the study as a whole, or in part. You may
withdraw your consent and terminate your participation at
any time without academic penalty. Your participation is
completely voluntary.
I have read the above description of the Word Length Effect
study and understand the conditions of my participation. My
signature indicates that I agree to participate in this
experiment.

-----------------------(Participant Name)

-------------(Signature)

-----------(Date)

-----------------------(Witness)

-------------(Signature)

-----------(Date)

Trial Procedure

Why?
Instructions affect
outcomes!

1. Turn to the next empty page number.

Do not write anything down.

2. Memorize the list of words in your head.

Do not write anything down.

3. Recall the words in the correct order.

Do not worry about spelling.

Use a dash () for words that you cannot recollect.
Do not worry about getting the number of words wrong.

You will be given several practice trials

Why?

Response Example
Input

Output

(presented one word at a time)

math
zinc
Greece
switch
mink
school

math
zinc

school

Why?

Words
aluminium
hippopotamus
Greece
math
mink
mumps
periodical
physiology
refrigerator
school
scroll
switch
tuberculosis
university
Yugoslavia
zinc

Minimize
semantic effects.

- a metallic element
- a large, plant-eating African mammal
- a republic in south-eastern Europe
- a study of quantity, structure, space and change
- slender-bodied semi-aquatic mammal
- a viral infection
- a document that is regularly published
- the biological study of living organisms
- an electric appliance that cools to help preserve food
- an educational institution
- a document that can be rolled up
- a device for making or breaking an electric circuit
- a bacterial infection
- an institution of higher learning
- a country in south-eastern Europe
- a metallic element

Why?

Demographic Questionnaire
Age: (in years)
Sex: (male or female)

Are You Ready?

Originally given a booklet with 40+ pages
Only doing P1, P2, #1, #2
Just divide a page into 4 sections

Turn to Page#P1

physiology
refrigerator
aluminium
scroll
mink
zinc

Turn to Page#P2

hippopotamus
Yugoslavia
periodical
switch
math
zinc

Are You Ready?

Turn to Page#1

tuberculosis
physiology
university
mumps
math
zinc

Turn to Page#2

hippopotamus
refrigerator
Yugoslavia
physiology
periodical
university

And 38 more
Why practice trials?
Why so many?
How randomized?

Why?

Questionnaire
1. What made some of these word lists
easier to memorize?
2. What made some of these word lists
harder to memorize?
3. How did you go about memorizing these
lists? Did you use any special techniques
or strategies?

Debrief

Why?

We would like to thank you for participating in this study. Your time and effort are greatly
appreciated!

People recall a list of short words better than a list of long words.
However, this word length effect disappears when the list contains a
pattern of alternating short and long words. In this study we used a
single short/long word transition to investigate the contribution of this
distinctiveness region, its divisions of the list into two separate sublists, and the effect of such regular patterns on memory recall
accuracy.

Once again, thank you so much for your time and cooperation. If you have any questions or
comments about this research, please feel free to contact the

Principal Investigators:

or the
Faculty Sponsor:

David Pierre Leibovitz

Upal Nath
Rosie Sedghi
Dean Verger

520-2600 x1016
520-2600 x2527
520-2600 x7026
520-3783

Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre

520-2600 x2693

If you have any ethical concerns about this study, please contact Dr. J. Mantler (Chair, Carleton
University Ethics Committee for Psychological Research, 520-2600 x4173). Should you have any
other concerns about this study, please contact Dr. M. Gick (Chair, Dept. of Psychology, 520-2600
x2648)
* Please note: Your performance on the tasks within this experiment does not provide an
indication of your suitability for university studies.

Run Our Experiment

Run
Comments on experiment?
How did our experiment differ from
published papers?
Individual vs. group
Written vs. audio recording
Has some effects

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Serial Recall Accuracy Curve

Serial Recall Accuracy Curve
100

Practice Effect

Recency Effect

% Correct

80

60
SSSSSS
40

What accounts for these effects?

20

0
1

Word Position
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Word-Length Effect
Word Length Effect on Accuracy
100

% Correct

80

60

40
SSSSSS
LLLLLL
20

0
1

Word Position
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Abolishing the Word-Length Effect

Explain the effect
Describe the various explanations
(possibilities)

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Item Based Explanation

Item Effect on Accuracy
100

% Correct

80

60

40

SSSSSS
LLLLLL
SLSLSL

20

0
1

Word Position
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

List Based Explanation

List Effect on Accuracy
100

% Correct

80

60

40

SSSSSS
LLLLLL
SLSLSL

20

0
1

Word Position
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Distinctiveness & Complexity

What do these mean?
Class Discussion

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

Our Experiment Distinctive Serial

Recall Effects
ethics forms
procedure
Run through sample trials
how differences may affect outcome
Written vs. spoken recall

one-on-one, or group

results our paper

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

10

LL vs. LS
Word Length Effect
for pure long and long-short lists
1.0
0.9

Proportion Correct

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

Pure long
Long-short

0.2
one

two

three

four

five

six

Word Position
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

11

SS vs. SL
Word Length Effect
for pure short and short-long lists
1.0

Proportion Correct

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

short-long
pure short

0.4
one

two

three

four

five

six

Word Position
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

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Strategic Shift of Attention

LS explanation
SL explanation
No complexity
Distinction is not a direct cause, after all,
each word is semantically distinct
anyways! The distinction is in the amount
of processing required which is special.

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

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ACT-R
What is ACT-R
Makes real-time predictions

Memory activation issues?

Base level learning
recency, activation decay

Memory is never changed

it decays
can be merged with activation bumped
March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

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My Serial Recall Model

It does not use vision
Give demo. Run
Activation problems
How to model serial items and allow to
recover from unknowns?

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

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Q&A
About This Presentation
About Cog Sci?

March 16, 2006

PSYC 2700 - David Pierre Leibovitz

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