Evidence that priority of free recall of newly learned items is not a recency artefact

Abstract

Contrary to recent claims ( Baddeley, 1968 ; Postman & Keppel, 1968 ; Shuell & Keppel, 1968 ) that priority of free recall of newly learned items (PRNI) reflects merely a recency effect due to the disproportionate presentation of such items in terminal serial positions; the present study demonstrated the PRNI effect under conditions where the first two and last two items had always been correct on the previous trial. In addition to showing the PRNI effect where it could not be accounted for by recency, its belated appearance during later stages of learning implicates a strategy whereby S s increasingly attend to new or previously incorrect items and recall these first before they can be forgotten.