An item that stands out (is isolated) from its context is better remembered than an item consistent with the context. This isolation effect cannot be accounted for by increased attention, because it occurs when the isolated item is presented as the first item, or by impoverished memory of nonisolated items, because the isolated item is better…

Previous research has suggested the existence of a primacy effect in the attribution of ability. To test if the primacy effect occurs in situations where specific cues about the person and nature of the test materials are lacking or greatly reduced, college students corrected a multiple-choice test in which a phantom stimulus person correctly…

Previous research on the primacy effect in ability attribution has focused on intellectual ability, using intelligence test problems as the stimulus material. To examine ability attribution under conditions of ascending (improving), descending, and random patterns of performance on a typing task, 179 college students (69 males, 110 females)…

A system of precategorized acoustic storage has accounted for the recency effect obtained in the immediate serial recall of sequences of digits, consonants, or syllables. Four experiments in recall of word sequences investigated fit to this model. A system of postcategorical lexical storage was concluded to explain the results. (Author/RD)

Forgetting in long-term memory, as measured in a recall or a recognition test, is faster for items encoded more recently than for items encoded earlier. Data on forgetting curves fit a power function well. In contrast, many connectionist models predict either exponential decay or completely flat forgetting curves. This paper suggests a…

An explanation is sought for the striking apparent failure of the interactions of intelligence and memory factors with socioeconomic status predicted by Jensen's Level I/Level II theory, in a study by Stankov, Horn and Roy (EJ 239 630). It is suggested that Level I ability is a category of narrower abilities involving rote learning and primary…