Let's Explore our Memory: Primacy and Recency

As we saw in yesterday's blog-isode, acccording to the stage theory of memory, some items on the "platform" are eventually moved into the long-term store by an essentially mechanical transfer process.

Also, as we saw yesterday, most packages disappear before this transfer can happen, but a few do remain on the platform for a while and then become candidates for memorial tenure.

Source

According to stage theorists, if you repeat something a lot, it stays in your short-term memory for a longer time, which makes it more likely to be moved into long-term memory. These ideas(hypotheses) about how short-term and long-term memory work match up well with what we know from a method called free recall. In this particular method, people hear a list of words, one at a time, and then try to remember them in any order. If the words are shown only once and there are too many to remember, the chances of recalling each word would then depend on where it was in the list.

So Items that were presented at the beginning or the end of the list will be remembered or recalled much more often than those that were in the middle. This is what we call the primacy and recency effects. As their names would imply, the primacy effect means we remember things better at the start, and the recency effect is about remembering things better at the end.

Stage theorists believe that the recency effect is produced because the items that were presented at the end of the list are retrieved from short-term memory.
These items are generally reported first. They are still clear in the subject's memory because she heard them just a few seconds ago. As a result, she quickly recites
them before they disappear from the short-ternm store.

According to stage theorists, the reason we remember things at the end of a list better(recency effect) is because they are still in our short-term memory. They are still clear in the subject's memory because he or she heard them just a few seconds ago. As a result, we tend to quickly recites them before they disappear from the short-term store.

When it comes to the primacy effect, the items at the beginning of the list are presumably retrieved from long-term memory. One reason for this interpretation is that the early items have had more opportunity for rehearsal, which then means there has been a transfer into the long-term store.

For instance, if the first three things or words presented are camera, a boat, and a zebra, the person would focus on remembering camera after hearing it. Then, they have to split their attention to remember camera and boat after hearing the second thing, and split it even more to remember camera, boat, and zebra after hearing the third it, and so on.

This simply means, the more attention a word gets, the more likely that word will make it to the long-term warehouse. Since the attention is greater for the words at the beginning than those that come later on, those first words have a memorial advantage over those that
come later.

In simple terms, things at the start of the list are remembered better because there's more time to practice remembering them, increasing the chance they'll stick in long-term memory (called the primacy effect). On the other hand, things at the end benefit from the short time between seeing them and trying to remember them, making it more likely they're still in short-term memory when the person starts recalling (known as the recency effect).

Got it?

Let's proceed:

Okay so there are some evidence backing up these claims, coming from various manipulations of the primacy and recency effects. One important factor considered is the interval between the last item on the list and the signal to recall it. If this interval is increased to say thirty seconds (during which the subject performs some mental tasks such as counting backwards so she can't rehearse), then the primacy effect remains but the recency effect is completely disappears. This is obvious and expected if the last items are stored in short-term memory(where forgetting is super rapid).

Different procedures also diminishes the primacy effect. A good example is the rate at which items are presented. You see, If this rate is relatively fast, the subject has less time for rehearsal. As a result of this, there would be less transfer to the long-term storage. So, we would anticipate a weaker primacy effect, but the recency effect doesn't really change, and that's indeed what occurs.

Fascinating?

Alright Let's pause for a minute and put these things to a test:

https://youtube.com/shorts/GjtfMsR63H0?si=d7sFyTsiyuWot3lN

You obviously got the first and last right?

Correct?

Good Job 👍

The Bus Stops Here for today:

One of the most persuasive arguments for the separation between short- and
long-term memory came from work on brain-damaged persons. Yep! me on lesions again. Sorry guys, but I doubt I can make brain blog-isodes without refering to lesions.

Some of these patients suffer deficits that seemed to fit well with the idea that short-term memory and long-term memory represent two distinct memory systems. In some patients, the primary difficulty seems to be with forming new long-term memories:
In others, the problem is with the short-ternm store. We will talk more about this in tomorrow's blog-isode.

Thank you for joining me today, and I hope to see you tomorrow. I'd appreciate it if you could leave a thought down below about this topic or on my blog-isodes. As always, I enjoy doing this, and I want to make sure my readers enjoy reading. Until tomorrow, stay safe.

References and links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311322/

https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-the-primacy-effect-4685243

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00006/full