The recognition heuristic is a prime example of a boundedly rational mind tool that rests on an evolved capacity, recognition, and exploits environmental structures. When originally proposed, it was conjectured that no other probabilistic cue reverses the recognition-based inference (D. G. Goldstein & G. Gigerenzer, 2002). More recent studies…

Writers carefully include critical information in the opening lines of their chapters, but students often gloss over these beginning sentences, missing information that could help them better comprehend the text. To address this concern, the authors created a strategy that prompts students to examine the opening lines of chapters, helping readers…

In three experiments using a single-trial, free-recall procedure, subjects were sometimes presented a forget cue during a list, meaning that they were not responsible for recalling any of the words which preceded it, only those which followed it. Since the primacy effect over the functional beginning of such lists was not diminished, the proactive…

Comments on some methodological problems involved in determining the relationship between initial output order and subsequent recall, particularly in the light of the results reported by Morris (AA 527 380). (Author/RK)

Answers the criticism of John Gardiner and Peter Herriot (AA 527 381) and while agreeing with their comments on the misleading influence of Vincentized data, author rejects their specific criticisms. (RK)

An activity that teaches psychology students about the primacy effect that occurs when individuals make judgments about the ability of other people is described. The primacy effect is the tendency for an observer's judgment to be influenced more strongly by early information about a person than by information that comes later. (Author/RM)

Results of two experiments suggested (1) that spatial cues serve as functional stimuli in the standard probe-type task, and (2) that the contextual uniqueness of the first item is probably responsible for the occurrence of primacy in young children. (Author/JMB)

Five experiments were conducted in an attempt to determine if college students' memory for oral directions could be enhanced. Mnemonic, paraphrase, and control conditions were compared for level of recall and recall in correct order. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

With the use of a probe-type serial memory task, hearing and deaf children matched on chronological age, IQ, and sex were randomly assigned to named, unnamed, or dactylo-kinesthetic (finger spelled) stimulus pretraining conditions and compared on subsequent recall performance. (Author/MP)

This study investigated the linguistic processing of visual speech (video of a talker's utterance without audio) by determining if such has the capacity to prime subsequently presented word and nonword targets. The priming procedure is well suited for the investigation of whether speech perception is amodal since visual speech primes can be used…

This study examined the impact of various temporal patterns of maternal interactive behavior with their infant on the infant's quality of attachment. The sample consisted of 52 dyads from the Berlin Longitudinal Study of Early Adaptation. Quality of attachment was assessed at 21 months with the Strange Situation Procedure. Nine infants were…

A randomization model appropriate for evaluating priority effects in free recall (i.e., whether "new" items are recalled prior to "old" items) is discussed and related to well-known nonparametric significance tests. Since the bases for the measures that have been suggested in the psychological literature may be interpreted…

Results showed that when information about a target individual was presented in two internally consistent blocks which were mutually contradictory, impressions produced by concrete operational adolescents contained a significantly greater proportion of evaluative statements in the same evaluative direction as the first block of information…

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…

Explores the effect of stimulus familiarity on the spatial primacy performance of normal and retarded children. Assumes that serial recall tasks reflect spatial memory rather than verbal rehearsal. (BD)