Serial position effects on list learning tasks in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.

Abstract

Objective: Serial position effects (SPEs) on list learning tasks refer to the relationship between a word’s placement on the list and its likelihood of being recalled. Typically, adults recall more words from the beginning (primacy) and end (recency) of the list compared to the middle of the list. These effects can be affected by neurological disease such that SPEs have been shown to be related to both current and future cognitive decline. This review aimed to summarize existing research on SPEs in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Method: A systematic review of SPEs in MCI and AD was conducted. Results: Despite inconsistencies in the number of items included on word list tasks analyzing SPEs and inconsistencies in how researchers have defined and analyzed SPEs, SPEs have demonstrated the ability to predict future cognitive decline, at times above and beyond traditional memory score performance. In addition, individuals with MCI and AD show similar SPE patterns of reduced primacy and intact recency, with primacy being more reduced in AD, whereas individuals with vascular dementia demonstrate a reversed SPE pattern. Conclusion: The analysis of SPEs has demonstrated some utility as a marker of cognitive impairment associated with MCI, AD, and other dementias; however, research is limited by the multiple ways in which SPEs are defined and analyzed. Future research is discussed, including the need for increased data accessibility in order to quantitatively summarize previous research on SPEs in relation to MCI and AD.

Spatial Navigation and Visuospatial Strategies in Typical and Atypical Aging

“…A recent route-learning study showed the serial position effect for landmarks encountered during navigation with strong primacy and recency benefits in CN older adults [ 41 ]. In patients with MCI and AD dementia, list-learning tasks that are used to investigate serial position effects usually show a diminished primacy effect (for review see [ 57 ]), which was not observed in our navigational study. These discordant findings could be caused by different experimental protocols used in the current study and previous studies, which require one to recall directions at each intersection in the same order as during encoding in the route-learning task and allow one to recall words in any order in the list-learning tasks, respectively.…”

The incremental validity of primacy as a predictor of everyday functioning.

“…A notable difference amongst these measures is that the HVLT has semantic categories, while the RAVLT does not. Given evidence that using a semantic strategy is likely to affect primacy and recency (Weitzner & Calamia, 2020), this is an important consideration for future research in this area. An additional difference between the RAVLT and HVLT is the difference in list length, with the RAVLT including 15 words read to an examinee five times, where the HVLT has 12 words read to an examinee three times.…”

Verbal and spatial memory spans in mild cognitive impairment

“…In fact, in a series of studies Morris 36–38 documented normal phonological similarity and word length in AD patients on verbal span tasks as well as normal short‐term forgetting of phonological sequences. Moreover, the recency effect in the free recall of supraspan word lists (known to mainly reflect the operations of the phonological buffer component of the PL) is typically unaffected in both MCI and early AD 18,39–41 …”