Sample MCAT Question - The Serial Position Effect
A child is taught the alphabet. However, the child can only remember A, B, Y, and Z. This is an example of the:
a) Serial-position effect.
b) Primacy effect.
c) Recency effect.
d) None of the above.
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The Serial Position Effect for the MCAT
If you ask someone to read a grocery list and recall the items on it, the serial position effect states that we will better remember the first and final few items on the list, but have a difficult time remembering the middle items.
The serial position effect can be divided into two halves. The first half is the primacy effect, which is a cognitive bias that results in an individual recalling items at the beginning of a list better than those presented later. The second half of the serial position effect is the recency effect. This is a cognitive bias that results in an individual recalling items at the end of a list better than those presented earlier, because they wre seen more recently.
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