Age-Related Differences in Spatial Position and Serial Position Effects in Short-Term Memory

Children's memory of recurring events: is the first event always the best remembered?

“…2 While primacy and recency effects have been observed in some experiments using child participants, these experiments have limited relevance to forensic interviews from an ecological perspective. In particular, most studies that have examined serial position effects in young children's memory have done so using brief and simple tasks, single retention intervals, and they have typically entailed the presentation of word or picture lists (Brown and Brown, 1982;Brown et al, 1981;Dewing and Kennealy, 1974;Siegal et al, 1976;Somerville et al, 1984). 3 For example, Somerville et al (1984) asked 4-to 5-yearold children to view a series of pictures that were then turned face-down on a table in front of the children.…”