Question

When Jason joined the basketball team, his coach introduced him to the 10 other players on the team. As the coach finished, Jason was dismayed to find that he could only remember the names of the first teammate and the last teammate his coach had named. Which of the following factors explain why Jason could not remember the names of the middle teammates?

Answer 1

Jason's inability to remember the names of the middle teammates can be explained by the serial position effect, which states that we tend to better remember the first and last items in a list. This is because the first few names were still fresh in Jason's memory when the coach finished introducing the team, while the middle names did not have enough time to encode into his long-term memory.

Step-by-step explanation:

Jason's inability to remember the names of the middle teammates can be attributed to a phenomenon called the serial position effect. The serial position effect states that we have a tendency to better remember the first and last items in a list, while the middle items are easily forgotten or mixed up. This is because the first few names were still fresh in Jason's memory when the coach finished introducing the team, while the middle names did not have enough time to properly encode into his long-term memory.

The serial position effect can be explained by two main factors: the primary effect and the recency effect. The primary effect refers to the better recall of the first items in a list, as they receive more attention and rehearsal. The recency effect, on the other hand, refers to the better recall of the last items in a list, as they are still present in our short-term memory. These two effects work together to overshadow the memory of the middle items.

Answer 2

Jason likely could not remember the names of the middle teammates due to the serial position effect, specifically the primacy and recency effects.

Step-by-step explanation:

The reason Jason could not remember the names of the middle teammates is likely due to the serial position effect. According to this effect, people tend to remember the first and last items in a list more easily than the items in the middle.

In the context of the basketball team, Jason's memory was more focused on the beginning and the end of the introduction, so he was able to remember the first and last teammates. However, the middle teammates were not as strongly encoded into his memory, resulting in difficulty remembering their names.

This phenomenon can be attributed to primacy and recency effects. The first teammate's name was more likely to be transferred to long-term memory due to the primacy effect, while the last teammate's name was still fresh in Jason's working memory because of the recency effect.