Primacy effect in psychology

The primacy effect is a serial position effect evidenced by better memory for items presented first in a list of items compared to the recall of items in the middle.

The better recall of the first few items is attributed to the ability to rehearse those items more than other items.

For a summary of results with different lengths of word lists and mild cognitive impairment, see Howieson et al. (2010).

Reference

Howieson, D. B., Mattek, N., Seeyle, A. M., Dodge, H. H., Wasserman, D., Zitzelberger, T., & Jeffrey, K. (2011). Serial position effects in mild cognitive impairment. Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 33(3), 292–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803395.2010.516742

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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