The primacy and recency effects of the Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test at a historically Black college or university

Megan J Gurganious, Fayetteville State University

Abstract

Auditory Verbal Learning Tests have been used for many decades to assess human memory functions and item recall, namely primacy and recency effects. The Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test was created by Snyder and Harrison (1997) to provide an objective measure of auditory affective verbal processing. The current study recruited participants (N=90) to replicate Snyder and Harrison's original experiment; however, rather than using primarily Caucasian males students as they did, participants were primarily African-American males and females. Prior research has relied primarily on data from Caucasian male participants; therefore, this study employed a diverse sample of male and female students to assess race and gender effects. Data analysis indicates primacy effects on two of the three word lists, while no recency effects were found. The results from this study suggest that several factors need to be reexamined in order to improve and advance the work on primacy and recency effects. Keywords: primacy effects, recency effects, Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test

Subject Area

African American Studies|Black studies|Quantitative psychology|Cognitive psychology

Recommended Citation

Gurganious, Megan J, "The primacy and recency effects of the Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test at a historically Black college or university" (2010). ETD Collection for Fayetteville State University. AAI1498897.
https://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/dissertations/AAI1498897

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