Background: The Ranschburg-effect (or Ranschburg inhibition), named after Hungarian psychologist Paul Ranschburg, is the phenomenon that appears in serial recall from short-term memory, meaning that recall performance of repeated items in serial lists is decreased, compared to the recall performance of non-repeated items. Aims and methods: The purpose of our research was to re-examine this phenomenon and test whether the Ranschburg-effect is still valid and demonstrable. The task of the participants (N= 60; 12 men, 48 women; agemean= 20,47± 1,37) was to recall a series of six-item sequence immediately after a few seconds of presentation. Of the 36 sequences 18 were heterogeneous (e.g. RQJHVM), while the rest included two homogenous (e.g. RQJHJM) items. To analyze the recall performance between these two conditions, Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test was applied. Results: We have found that the within-sequence repetition of an item caused a significant reduction (Z= -2,719; p= 0,007) in recall accuracy. Conclusion: The result of this research indicates that the Ranschburg-effect is still relevant and detectable, thus, our results provide further evidence of the hypothetic failures in guessing strategy when repeated items are present (Hinrichs et al, 1973), as the explanation of Ranschburg-effect.

References:
Hinrichs, J. V., Mewaldt, S. P., & Redding, J. (1973). The Ranschburg effect: Repetition and guessing factors in short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12(1), 64-75.