On Arabic Abstract and Concrete Words Recall Using Free Recall Paradigms: Is It Abstractness, Concreteness, or Zero Effect

Abstract

Purpose: To see whether abstract or concrete words are better recalled in free recall type and to measure primacy and recency displayed effects in free recall paradigms. Method: 9 undergraduates in King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, participated in this study where they were trained to differentiate between abstract and concrete words. Then, a list of 20 Arabic abstract and concrete words was given to them to be classified into abstract and concrete words based on four factors: concreteness, imageability, meaningfulness, and age of acquisition. An observation sheet was provided to the experiment administrator to document observed recall effects and recalled words. Three methods were used to facilitate this experiment: auditory, visual, and hand-writing. Five of the participants were asked to recall freely only 5 Arabic abstract words and 5 concrete words. On the hand, 4 were asked to to recall freely the 10 Arabic abstract words and 10 Arabic concrete words. Results: Descriptive and referential statistics tools were run to analyse the collected date. The computed referential statistics tools indicated generally acceptable values and positive usability of the administered measures in this study. Descriptive statistics results indicated a (100) score for the frequency of zero effect over both abstractness and concreteness effects. Results also indicated a negative effect of list length of Arabic abstract and concrete words where the total number of words was recalled completely in both short and long lists of words. Finally, recency effect approved an advantage over primacy effect with (65%) for the former and only (35%) for the latter. Conclusions: There was neither an advantage for abstract words over concrete ones nor an advantage for concrete words over the abstract ones, it was a rather a zero effect. List length effect didn’t affect memory recall during free recall paradigms. Last but not the least, recency effect is more frequent than primacy effect in free recall paradigms.