Recency, Primacy, and Memory: Reappraising and Standardising the Serial Position Curve

Abstract

In this paper we consider the serial position curve in immediate verbal free recall. A large literature has argued that two components of the serial position curve, recency and primacy, reflect the functioning respectively of short-term and of long-term memory. However, there are a number of difficulties in interpreting the recency effect as a phenomenon uniquely associated with short-term memory. Moreover, the serial position curve has been used widely for clinical investigations in patients with memory deficits. This is despite the lack of norms for the measures derived from the curve. We present a set of standardised norms based on 321 Italian normal subjects. These norms are shown to be applicable both to an English speaking population, and to three groups of brain damaged-patients, namely Alzheimer's, amnesics, and frontals. The standardised norms offer a clinical and experimental tool which, coupled with a multiple single case approach, allows us to show dissociations and double dissociations among the performance patterns obtained from all three pathological groups. The paper concludes with a discussion of a possible interpretation of the recency effect as a emergent property of all types of memory system, including verbal short-term memory. Taking into account previous literature as well as our own data, the recency effect in immediate verbal free recall is here interpreted in terms of a two-component view of verbal short-term memory.

Noradrenergic Modulation of Emotion-Induced Forgetting and Remembering

“…Serial position of oddball stimuli was balanced to reduce primacy and recency effects (i.e., the enhanced probability for the first few and the last few stimuli of a sequence to be recalled better) (Capitani et al, 1992).…”

“…This was immediately followed by a working memory task in form of an arithmetic distracter task, announced by a triple-digit number (e.g., 173) presented for 30 s, from which subjects were required to count back serially in sevens. Such interpolation of a filled delay between study and test served to eliminate recency effects in free recall (Capitani et al, 1992). Furthermore, ongoing rehearsal of list items was prevented.…”

Prospective and retrospective memory in normal aging and dementia: An experimental study

“…Span was calculated by averaging the lengths of the longest three sets accurately recalled. Immediate free recall was based on a procedure by Capitani, Della Sala, Logie, and Spinnler (1992). The experimenter read out five lists of 12 unrelated words at a rate of one word per second.…”

Multitasking: Multiple, Domain-Specific Cognitive Functions in A Virtual Environment

“…The Word Recall Task required participants to recall orally, in any order, twelve words read out by the experimenter, one word per second following the standardised procedure in Capitani, Della Sala, Logie and Spinnler (1992). This was repeated for five different lists (60 maximum).…”