Long term memory

My subject was able to recall 17 words from the list with an accuracy rate of 16/20.

After an hour, she was able to recall 16 words, with an accuracy rate of 14/20.

I was really surprised to see that she could perform so well at the immediate and delayed retrieval of these seemingly random words. Especially when I noticed that during the hour interval, she was filling out dozens of envelops, which is quite an interfering task for a memory test. So I asked her what she was doing during the 10 seconds interval between the presentations of two words. She said that she was trying to connecting the words together with meanings, engaging in an activity that is similar to elaborative rehearsal. Interestingly, for both immediate and delayed recall, there is an obvious sequential pattern that certain words always appear adjacently. It is evident that the subject was grouping the words during storage. This result corroborates the notion described in the Ashcraft article that "material that was rehearsed elaboratively should be more permanently available for retrieval from memory."

One thing also noteworthy is that the subject reported that it was harder to recall the words on the last part of the list. 2 of the 4 words she missed on the first recall were the last 2 words on the list. This might be due to the fact that she did not write down the last words first when it comes to recall, but was following the order she used during elaborative rehearsal. Consequently, Less time and effort was used rehearsing the last words and writing down the primary words might also have interfered with the recalling of these words at the end of the list.