The Effect of Word Length on Short-term

Memory Recall
Karla Mejias

Candidate # 0262-0169

IB Psychology SL

March 2, 2018

1,495 words

Abstract

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 We are studying Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan’s(1975)[1]. This study tested

word length, verbal repetition, the relationship of time taken to repeat a word and the

amount of time we retain said word, and the correlation between the rate at which we

read and the amount of recall of what we read. Our aim is to determine whether the

length of a word can cause an effect on the short-term memory recall of that word, and

our method is convenience sampling experiment. Our participants were junior and

senior IB program students at Eastside High School. Additionally, our experiment was

conducted at Eastside High School. Our results (appendix E) showed that participants

recalled a greater number of monosyllabic words than pentasyllabic words, showing a

correlation between word recall and word length, effectively supporting our aim.

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 Table of contents

Title page . . . . . . . . . . 1
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . 2
Table of contents . . . . . . . . 3
Introduction . . . . . . . . . 4
Methods . . . . . . . . . 5-7

Design . . . . . . . . . 5
Participants . . . . . . . . .5
Materials . . . . . . . . . 6
Procedure . . . . . . . . . 6

Results . . . . . . . . . 8-9

Table . . . . . . . . . 8
Graph . . . . . . . . . 8
Analysis of Results . . . . . . . .9

Discussion . . . . . . . . . 9-11
Works Cited . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix . . . . . . . . .13-20
A (briefing instructions) . . . . . . . .13-14
B (consent form) . . . . . . . . 15
C (Debriefing instructions) . . . . . . . 16
D (materials used) . . . . . . . . 17
E (raw data tables) . . . . . . . . 18
F (Statistics) . . . . . . . . . 19
G (Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan’s Results) . . . . 20

Introduction

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 The research done by Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan(1975)[1] explored the

relationship between short term memory and word length, generating multiple results.

This study was carried out by implementing various tests on groups of human

participants on various random words and groups of words, and various different time

spans. The results have shown that 1)the length of a word affects how long we retain

that word in our short term memory, 2)when a part of a word is repeated (such as

repeated syllables) we retain these words longer, 3) there is a relationship between how

much time it takes to say a word and how long we remember said word, and lastly,

4)how fast we read correlates with how long we remember words. There is an

expanding list of evidence that backs their results, such evidence the study by Craik

(1970)[2] verifying that the amount of recall of a participant has a lower positive

correlation with primary memory compared to the secondary memory on free recall.

How we intend to prove their research is by means of constructing our own experiment,

based on said study. The aim of our study is to prove that word length can affect our

memory span of said word, by presenting two lists on one sheet of paper, one with

mono syllable words and another with five syllable words.

Methods

Design

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 We will be conducting the first of Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan’s (1975)[1]

experiments We will select a random sample from our school and present these

participants with one sheet of paper with five mono syllable and five pentasyllabic

words. We are choosing these words from a pool of 20 words. They will have 30

seconds to read these words individually and memorize as many words as possible.

They will hand back the words and we will give them a sheet of paper to write down as

many words as they can remember in 30 seconds. They must return their paper once

finished. For our samples, we had the choice between using repeated measures or

independent samples, and we chose repeated measures, by reason of limited sampling

and for convenience sake, we shortened down their experiment to fit our circumstance

of having a school setting. For our variables, our independent variable will be word

length, pentasyllabic words versus monosyllabic words, and our dependent variable will

be the number of words can each person get correct and and of which pentasyllabic or

monosyllabic words they were able to recall.

Participants

Our sample will be all IB Program high school students, will be of the female and

male gender, around the ages of 14-18, and 22 participants total. Once more, we had a

choice between random or convenience sampling, and collectively, we agreed to use

convenience sampling as a result of the inability to get a random sample, as the school

setting has cause limitations on our random sampling, for example, we can only get

ahold of one classroom at a time, causing there to be no true random sampling, hence

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we will not be doing random assignment due to the need for willing volunteers to be

able to participate in our experiment.

Materials (appendix D)

● Pencils

● Timer

● Paper

● printed lists’ with five mono-syllable and five penta-syllable words

● Consent form [see appendix B]

Procedures

1. First will sit down the participant and read out the briefing instructions(which can

also be found on the consent form, see appendix A) hand them a piece of paper

with a pencil.

2. we will hand the participants a copy of the consent form (which includes the

experiment information and the procedure they will have to do for the

experiment) for them to first read, then sign if they so wish to, and will return said

consent form to the researcher.

3. They will then choose a random piece of paper from a basket of many slips of

paper, each paper containing the number 1 or 2. If the participant draws a

number 1, they will receive list 1, and if the participant draws a number 2, then

they will receive list 2.

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 4. We will then tell them that in 30 seconds, they must read and memorize the list of

10 words in front of them to the best of their abilities. They may begin once we

say “start”, signaling the timer commencing. When we say “stop” at the end of 30

seconds, the researcher will take away the list. They may not start writing until

the researcher says they can after 30 seconds have finished.

5. After 30 seconds, we will say “stop” we will remove the list from their eyesight

6. We will then instruct the participant to write down as many words as they can

remember from the list. They are given 30 seconds to do so. The timer will start

once the researcher says “start”.

7. After the 30 seconds have finished, the researcher will say “stop” and the paper

will be taken from them.

8. We will give the participant the option to look at the list to see their results (how

many they missed).

9. The participant are then informed that the experiment is done and they may

leave (if they wish to see results of the experiment, they’re allowed to come by

Dr. Rehm’s room during fourth period to see them.)

Results

Table

# of words short words long words

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 0 1 0

1 0 0

2 0 1

3 4 12

4 8 6

5 7 1

Graph

For short words, the mean is 4.158, and the standard deviation is 0.765 . For

long words the mean is 3.368, and the standard deviation is 0.684(see appendix F). I

chose this measure of central tendency and dispersion due to the fact that our data is a

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level of measurement called Interval data. These measurements will best support and

supply to the aim of our experiment and will help show the overall difference between

the two groups.

Discussion

The results of our study showed that there was a difference in retaining the

monosyllabic words compared to the pentasyllabic words. Most participants could recall

a larger number of monosyllabic words than the pentasyllabic words, which has been

interpreted to mean that the length of a word plays a part in whether you remember the

word and how fast you remember it. In our statistics, the data numbers signify how

many words each participant was able to recall. Two columns will separate the data for

short words from the data for long word, and each row will have the data of each

individual participant. By comparing the mean of short words and long words, we found

that the participants were able to recall a higher amount of short words compared to

long words. Our experiment emulated Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan’s [1] first

experiment, which had two sets of words, one set with eight monosyllabic words and the

other set with eight five-syllable words; our experiment contained two lists, each list with

five monosyllabic words and five pentasyllabic words. The lists were also read aloud

and prompt cards were used to help the subject familiarize themselves with the words,

in which we did not recreate. A larger volunteer pool and four additional experiments

was also a part of their experiment, which we did not include in our experiment.

Regardless of these differences, their results closely paralleled our results (see

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appendix G), with participants showing that the sample of short words resulted in a

better memory recall than the long words.

Our experiment had several elements and variables that could have affected our

experiment, results, and how we apply those results. Some problems we faced in the

execution of this experiment was disorganization sitting down the students with the

researcher testing them, and the organization among the many papers we were held

accountable. A flaw in our results was that one subject was an outlier with three long

words recalled and zero short words recalled, therefore we had to exclude that set of

data from our final results and tables. We were able to figure out where to put each

paper, however that occurred towards the end of our experiment. One of the factors that

were out of our control was the time of day, as we had a limited time space in which we

could conduct our experiment. Another factor out of our control was the food and sleep

intake of the participants, both of which would have played a variable on the results of

our data, as well as the amount of distractions in the room. In our following experiment,

these variables will be controlled, such as taking the test at exactly midday, having the

recommended amount of sleep and food intake, so that these variables would not be

liable to causing err to the results. In our next experiment, I would also like to test

whether the intelligence or age of the participant causes there to be a change in results

from the data we collected from our current experiment. From the data we collected, it

revealed that students were able to recall a greater quantity of monosyllabic words

rather than polysyllabic words, as shown in the mean numbers. The monosyllabic words

concluded to the mean of 4.158 terms recalled per person, whereas the pentasyllabic

words concluded to a mean of 3.368 terms recalled per person. Ergo, we may conclude

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that the length of a word affects the memory recall of that word and that recall is more

effective for short words compared to long words, thus proving our hypothesis to be

correct, furthermore supplementing evidence to the results of Baddeley, Thomson &

Buchanan’s [1] study.

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Works cited:
[1] Baddeley, A. D., Thomson, N., & Buchanan, M. (1975). Word length and the
structure of short-term memory. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 14(6),
575-589.

[2] Craik, F. I. (1970). The fate of primary memory items in free recall. Journal of verbal
learning and verbal behavior, 9(2), 143-148.

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 Appendices
Appendix _ A (Briefing instructions)
1. First will sit down the participant and hand them a piece of paper with a pencil.

2. we will hand the participants a copy of the consent form (which includes the

experiment information and the procedure they will have to do for the

experiment) for them to first read, then sign if they so wish to, and will return said

consent form to the researcher.

3. They will then choose a random piece of paper from a basket of many slips of

paper, each paper containing the number 1 or 2. If the participant draws a

number 1, they will receive list 1, and if the participant draws a number 2, then

they will receive list 2.

4. We will then tell them that in 30 seconds, they must read and memorize the list of

10 words in front of them to the best of their abilities. They may begin once we

say “start”, signaling the timer commencing. When we say “stop” at the end of 30

seconds, the researcher will take away the list. They may not start writing until

the researcher says they can after 30 seconds have finished.

5. After 30 seconds, we will say “stop” we will remove the list from their eyesight

6. We will then instruct the participant to write down as many words as they can

remember from the list. They are given 30 seconds to do so. The timer will start

once the researcher says “start”.

7. After the 30 seconds have finished, the researcher will say “stop” and the paper

will be taken from them.

8. We will give the participant the option to look at the list to see their results (how

many they missed).

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9. The participant are then read the debriefing instructions (appendix C)

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Appendix _ B (Consent Form)

Hello!

Your child would like to participate in a psychology experiment about memory on word length.

We will provide the students with a list of 10 words and give them 45 seconds to read through

and memorize as many words as they can. They will then be asked to hand the list of words in

and they will be given a blank sheet of paper. On the blank sheet of paper, we will ask the

students to write down all the words they remember. They will then be asked to turn in that

sheet of paper. This experiment is being conducted by students: Sierra Millinor, Sophia

Sanchez, Karla Mejias, and Karl Ramos. These students will be collecting data for their

Psychology Internal Assessment for their IB Psychology Class. The participants will be informed

of the experiment and when we received the result and can leave anytime during the duration of

the experiment. All information will be confidential and no harm upon the participants will be

inflicted.

Sign of Consent of the Parent : ___________________________________________________

Name of the Participant:

___________________________________________________________

Date: __________________________________________

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Appendix _ C (Debriefing instructions)

You have completed the experiment! If you want to see the results come by Dr. Rehm’s class
and ask us!

Appendix _ D (Materials used):

● Pencils

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● Timer
● Paper
● printed lists’ with five mono-syllable and five penta-syllable words
● Consent form

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Appendix _ E (Raw data tables)

Subject number short words long words

sub 1 4 4
sub 2 5 3
sub 3 5 4
sub 4 5 3
sub 5 5 3
sub 6 4 2
sub 7 3 4
sub 8 5 3
sub 9 3 3
sub 10 4 3
sub 11 3 4
sub 12 4 5
sub 13 4 4
sub 14 5 3
sub 15 4 3
sub 16 4 3
sub 17 3 3
sub 18 5 4
sub 19 4 3

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Appendix _ F (Statistics calculation)

Average 4.158 3.368

Range 3-5 2-5
Standard
Deviation 0.7647191129 0.6839855681
median 4 3
variance 0.5847953216 0.4678362573

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Appendix _ G (Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan’s Results)

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