Recency Effect Research Articles

The Working Memory Model and the relationship between immediate serial recall and immediate free recall.

The effects of speech-based variables on the immediate serial recall (ISR) task constitute fundamental evidence underpinning the concept of the Phonological Loop component of Working Memory. Somewhat surprisingly, the Phonological Loop has yet to be applied to the immediate free recall (IFR) task although both tasks share similar memoranda and presentation methods. We believe that the separation of theories of ISR and IFR has contributed to the historical divergence between the Working Memory and Episodic Memory literature. We review more recent evidence showing that the two tasks are approached by participants in similar ways, with similar encoding and rehearsal strategies, and are similarly affected by manipulations of word length, phonological similarity, articulatory suppression/concurrent articulation, and irrelevant speech/sound. We present new analyses showing that the outputs of the two tasks share similar runs of successive items that include the first and last items- which we term start- and end-sequences, respectively-that the remaining residual items exhibit strong recency effects, and that start- and end-sequences impose constraints on output order that help account for error transposition gradients in ISR. Such analyses suggest that similar mechanisms might convey serial order information in the two tasks. We believe that recency effects are often under-appreciated in theories of ISR, and IFR mechanisms could generate error transpositions. We hope that our review and new analyses encourage greater theoretical integration between ISR and IFR and between the Working Memory and Episodic Memory literature.

Stress timing, trauma exposure, and family resilience differentially affect internalizing and externalizing symptoms at 3, 5, and 7 years of age

Mental health disorders are associated with decreased quality of life, economic productivity loss, and increased mortality. The association between stressful experiences and psychopathology is well documented. However, studies are needed to understand the impact of timing of stressful events, types of traumatic experiences, and of family resilience on internalizing and externalizing symptoms in early childhood. The present study used a longitudinal design towards this end. Parents (N = 456) completed study measures at infancy, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, and 7 years. At 3 years, greater stressful events during the prenatal period, 1-2 years, and 2-3 years (B = 0.833–0.369, p = 0.028–0.046) predicted internalizing symptoms for female participants only. For externalizing symptoms at 3 years, every time point assessed was significantly associated with more symptoms across both sexes (B = 1.071–0.414, p < 0.001). At 5 years, both internalizing and externalizing symptoms were associated with a greater number of stressful events at every time point and across sexes (B = 1.372–0.465, p < 0.001–0.002). There was evidence for timing effects, including cumulative effects, sensitive periods, and recency effects. Exposure to interpersonal trauma associated with greater internalizing symptoms (B = 2.120, p = 0.002), whereas both interpersonal (B = 1.879, p = 0.005) and non-interpersonal (B = 1.223, p = 0.032) traumatic experiences were associated with greater externalizing symptoms. Aspects of family resilience including higher levels of family commitment, ability to face challenges, and sense of control reduced risk for internalizing symptoms (B = –0.496, p = 0.004) while only greater sense of control (B = –0.838, p = 0.040) reduced risk for externalizing symptoms at age 7 years, including in the context of trauma.

Which Moments Matter Most? Investigating Boundary Conditions of the Effect of Specific Moments on Overall Evaluations of Customer Experiences

ABSTRACTCustomer experience (CE) often occurs as a temporal sequence of events that unfold over time. This research investigates the circumstances under which specific moments in the temporal sequence of a CE, such as the beginning or the end, have a disproportionate effect on customers' overall CE evaluations. Specifically, this research explores two boundary conditions of the effect of specific moments: incident valence and perceived control. The results of three scenario experiments, conducted with consumers in two contexts (hedonic and utilitarian), reveal that negative incidents at the end of a CE disproportionately influence overall CE evaluations across these different service contexts, demonstrating recency effects. However, these recency effects do not occur for positive incidents and are only present for individuals with heightened perceived control. Our findings address recent calls to further explore the role of timing and valence in CE evaluations and provide novel insights into the moderating role of perceived control on the effect of specific moments on overall CE evaluations. This research also offers practical guidance to help managers design more effective CEs.

The Role of Audiovisuals in Counter-Framing Dynamics: A Longitudinal Experiment on Causal Responsibility Attribution

ABSTRACT Opposing the interpretation of a societal problem with a countering framing is a common characteristic of the democratic discourse. While studies on the dynamics of such counter-framing situations point largely toward recency effects, it remains mostly unclear which characteristics of the initial frame influence these recency effects. Taking current developments in news reporting into account—the trend toward audio and audiovisual news—this study suggests that news framed and presented in textual and audio and audiovisual modalities can attenuate recency effects in counter-framing environments. Building upon the long-standing research strand of responsibility framing and theories of multimodal learning, the findings of this longitudinal probability-sample experiment indicate that the recency effects of frames largely endure even if the initial frame is presented in a multi-modality mode.

Tempus Fugit: Unraveling Temporal Occurrence and Display Order Effects of Online Information on Employer Impressions

ABSTRACT As social media readily enables users to traverse a targets’ posted content across time, the present research explores the effects of two types of temporality – occurrence and display order – on offline perceptions. Using the context of employers’ impression formation of job applicants, N = 200 human resource personnel were exposed to a job posting and an applicant’s resume and supplemental social media posts in a fully crossed 2 (occurrence order: posts becoming either more or less positive over a 4-year period) and display order (most-recent posts presented either first or last), and a one-condition offset in which all posts were made 2 years ago and displayed in a random order. Findings support the main effect of temporal occurrence so that more recently posted information more strongly influenced resultant perceptions of the applicant’s employability, person-organization fit, and starting salary; but neither primacy or recency effects of display order were detected. Findings are discussed with respect to warranting theory, primacy/recency effects, and the hiring process.

Investigation of passenger thermal satisfaction across multi-space transitions in high-speed railway stations: A case study in cold regions of China

Passengers in high-speed railway stations experience multiple spatial transitions; however, existing research has typically examined thermal comfort in isolation, neglecting the entire sequence of thermal experiences. This study investigates passenger thermal comfort throughout the departure process, specifically analyzing two entry modes: Mode 1 (entry via the outdoor square) and Mode 2 (entry via the underground passage). Utilizing behavioral data from 17,354 passengers surveyed in a typical high-speed railway station, we replicated these conditions in climate chamber experiments. Participants were exposed to 30 combinations of outdoor environments and four indoor temperatures (24 °C, 26 °C, 28 °C, and 30 °C). Thirty subjects, dressed in 0.49 clo insulation garments, assessed thermal satisfaction (TSAT) in each space and overall thermal satisfaction (OTSAT) for the departure process through questionnaires. Results indicated that high outdoor temperatures led to lower satisfaction in Mode 1 compared to Mode 2. Strong correlations were observed between TSAT in the waiting room and check-in area with OTSAT, underscoring their significant impact on OTSAT. Optimal thermal sequences were identified as O-26-26-26-24 for Mode 1 and U-28-26-24-24 for Mode 2, achieving OTSAT values of 1.11 and 1.12, respectively. The study also proposed two effective thermal sequences: a downward trend and a fluctuation trend, highlighting the benefits of initial discomfort followed by improvement. The recency effect emphasized the importance of effective thermal management in the waiting room and check-in area to enhance OTSAT. These findings provide valuable insights for optimizing thermal environment control in high-speed railway stations, balancing passenger comfort with energy efficiency.

An extension analysis of Amihud's illiquidity premium: Evidence from the Taiwan stock market

This study proposes a novel illiquidity measure that excludes overnight returns and incorporates the recency effect, and investigates whether this new metric more effectively captures the illiquidity premium in the Taiwan stock market relative to Amihud's (2002) measure and other illiquidity measures that exclude overnight returns or account for the recency effect. Cross-sectional and time-series asset pricing tests reveal that our measure dominates other illiquidity measures, yielding a more profitable long–short strategy. Vector autoregressive analysis confirms these results for the aggregate market. Our study contributes to the measurement of liquidity in emerging markets and suggests potential improvements for portfolio management and asset pricing models.

Life Course Models of Child Maltreatment: Effects on General Psychopathology Outcomes in a Longitudinal Sample.

The study compared life course models (LCM; accumulation, recency, and sensitive period) of child maltreatment and general psychopathology in a large, national longitudinal data set of 1354 youth ages birth-16years (657 boys, 53.2% Black, 59.7% <$40K caregiver income). Previous research has supported the accumulation and recency models, albeit with shorter or fewer time periods of outcome measurement. We extend this work by modeling the impact of combined abuse and neglect allegations on a general psychopathology factor (dysregulation profile). Cross-sectional structural equation models were constructed using LCMs and tested across two-year periods from 4-16years old and compared using Akaike Information Criterion weights. The recency variable generally explained the greatest proportion of variance in psychopathology. Notably, maltreatment more proximal to the time of outcome measurement had the strongest effect, suggesting that more recent maltreatment may have stronger effects on general psychopathology. These results lend support to a recency effect of maltreatment on psychopathology outcomes, although substantive overlaps with the accumulation model are noted.

Short-term memory effects of eco-labeling: Evidence from the perceived environmental friendliness of sequential consumer behavior

Can memory of eco-labeling bias how consumption is perceived and influence subsequent consumer decisions? We report three experiments showing that the perceived environmental friendliness of simulated shopping sequences is disproportionately influenced by what happens at the end of the sequence. For example, sequences that ended with a high carbon footprint item were perceived as less environmentally friendly than other sequences with the same content but with items in different order—a recency effect (Experiments 1–3). Judgments depended more on how often environmentally significant items were purchased than on the quantity of those items (Experiment 2). Furthermore, after completing a shopping sequence that was perceived as relatively harmful to the environment, participants were more prone to select a comparably expensive eco-labeled item over a cheaper but less environmentally friendly item in subsequent purchase decisions—a spillover effect (Experiment 3). The results stress the role of memory in environmentally significant consumer behavior.

Sensitivity of Fire Indicators on Forest Inventory Plots Is Affected by Fire Severity and Time since Burning

Forest inventory data are useful for determining forest stand structure, growth, and change. Among the information collected on forest inventory plots by the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, attributes characterizing various types of disturbance provide researchers a means of selecting plots specifically affected by disturbances, such as fire. We determine the performance of three of these attributes as indicators of recent fires on forest inventory plots of the United States by comparing them to independent records of wildland fire occurrence. The indicators are plot-level observations of fire effects on (1) general site appearance, (2) tree mortality, and (3) damage to live trees. Independent spatial layers of wildland fire perimeters provide an approach to test indicator performance and identify characteristics of fires that may affect detection. The sensitivities of indicators are generally higher in the West relative to the East. Detection rates exceed 90 percent for the Pacific Coast forests but seldom reach 80 percent in the East. Among the individual indicators, site appearance has higher identification rates than tree indicators for fires in the Pacific Coast, Great Plains, North, and South regions. Tree mortality is the most important single indicator for identifying Rocky Mountain fires. Tree damage is more important than tree mortality in the South; otherwise, the tree damage indicator is of relatively lower importance, particularly where high-severity fires are common, and tree survival is low. The rate of detection by the indicators is affected by the severity of the fire or the recency of the fire. The joint effect of severity and recency influence all three indicators for the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain fires, as well as the site appearance indicator in the South. Only a small proportion of fires are clearly missed by all three of the indicators.

The synaptic correlates of serial position effects in sequential working memory.

Sequential working memory (SWM), referring to the temporary storage and manipulation of information in order, plays a fundamental role in brain cognitive functions. The serial position effect refers to the phenomena that recall accuracy of an item is associated to the order of the item being presented. The neural mechanism underpinning the serial position effect remains unclear. The synaptic mechanism of working memory proposes that information is stored as hidden states in the form of facilitated neuronal synapse connections. Here, we build a continuous attractor neural network with synaptic short-term plasticity (STP) to explore the neural mechanism of the serial position effect. Using a delay recall task, our model reproduces the the experimental finding that as the maintenance period extends, the serial position effect transitions from the primacy to the recency effect. Using both numerical simulation and theoretical analysis, we show that the transition moment is determined by the parameters of STP and the interval between presented stimulus items. Our results highlight the pivotal role of STP in processing the order information in SWM.

Critique of the Teachers’ Performance Appraisal and Development Tool of Evaluation in Kenya with Reference to the Socratic Pedagogy

Teachers’ appraisal is key to enhancing their professionalism, which translates to effective curriculum implementation. This paper sought to evaluate the Teachers Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) process in Kenya with a view to identifying its challenges and suggesting ways of enhancing it. The study took a philosophical approach, subjecting the teachers’ appraisal process to criticism in light of the Socratic Pedagogical theory. The study established eleven errors that riddle the teachers’ appraisal process. These are the errors of strictness, leniency, central tendency, halo effect, recency of events, failure by participants to identify professional development gaps, failure by participants to attend the appraisal meetings, subjectivity nature of the TPAD appraisal process, alienation of some participants from the appraisal process and passive participation of some participants.The study utilized the six tenets of Socratic Pedagogy (participatory, dialectical, conversational, inquisitive, rational and practical tenets), interpreted to constitute the soul of the TPAD appraisal process, to fix the aforementioned errors. Therefore, the study recommended that the TPAD online system be reconfigured so that the appraisal process could be in tandem with the soul of the appraisal process.

Presentation-order effect of product images on consumers’ mental imagery processing and purchase intentions

PurposeThis study aims to investigate how image-presentation-order influences mental imagery (MI) processing and purchase intentions. This study also examines the moderating effect of a series of images on the relationship between image-presentation-order and MI processing.Design/methodology/approachThis research conducted two studies using an experimental approach.FindingsTwo studies showed that MI processing was higher, when an apparel product image worn by a model with a background was shown after rather than before a simple product image (SPI), indicating the recency effect. In contrast, examining a series of images, consumers were more engaged in MI processing, when product image(s) worn by a model with a background were presented first, followed by the four SPIs, than the reversed order (primacy effect). The level of MI in two studies subsequently increased purchase intentions.Research limitations/implicationsResults of this study have the potential to provide guidance to online retailers for how to best order their product images on a website to help consumers form elaborated MI about the product and thus increase purchasing intentions.Originality/valueAlthough past research has examined presentation-order effect using textual information, very limited studies have explored presentation-order effect of pictorial information. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is in the forefront of investigations about the joint effect of image-presentation-order and the number of images on individuals’ perceptions.

Primacy (and recency) effects in delayed recognition of items from instances of repeated events

ABSTRACT In repeated-event paradigms where participants are asked to recall details of a sequence of similar instances they viewed/experienced previously, more accurate details are typically recalled from the first and final instances (i.e., long-term primacy and recency effects). Participants likely encode distinct attributes of details of the boundary instances that subsequently facilitate source monitoring. To date, most repeated event research has measured memory performance via free-/cued-recall paradigms; we examined delayed memory for repeated events using the recognition paradigm. In two preregistered experiments, participants viewed four videos, and after a delay completed a recognition task. In Experiment 1 (N = 168, between-subjects), participants decided whether an item was old (i.e., presented in any video) or new, or whether an item was presented in video 1/2/3/4 or was new. In Experiment 2 (N = 160, within-subjects), the old/new decision was followed by an instance attribution decision. Old items were recognised faster in the old/new task compared to the instance-attribution task. In the instance-attribution task, items from the boundary instances were accurately attributed faster compared to items from the middle instances. We found further evidence for primacy (and recency) effects in measures of confidence, memory judgments, recognition accuracy and discriminability, and confidence-accuracy calibration.

Gendered Memory Patterns: Unravelling Primacy and Recency Effects in Comparative Analysis

This experiment was done to see the impact of Primacy and recency Effect. Ebbinghaus demonstrated that in serial learning, words heard at the beginning and the end of the list are better memorized and recalled. It is a study that investigates in serial learning the primary effect reflects the output of the long-term store, whereas the recency effect reflects the output of short-term store. The Primacy and Recency Effect refers that items in the middle of the list are recalled poorly for at least two reasons, first they are so far from the end of list that they are not in the short-term store at the beginning of the retention test. Second, the subjects did not rehearse them extensively because only few items can be rehearsed at a time. The Primacy and Recency Effect Test requires individual to view a list of forty words, one word at a time for three seconds and asked to recall in any order. This Test demonstrates Primacy and Recency effect on recall and this outcome is called the serial position effect because the retention of an item depended upon the position effect in which it had been presented. The sample consist of total thirty subjects fifteen boys and fifteen girls. The subjects are graduate students of the age group sixteen-thirty, located in Hyderabad. In this study Simple Random Sampling is used.

The biological embedding of social adversity: How adolescent housing insecurity impacts inflammation over time

Background & PurposeAdolescent housing insecurity is a dynamic form of social adversity that impacts child health outcomes worldwide. However, the means by which adolescent housing insecurity may become biologically embedded to influence health outcomes over the life course remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to utilize life course perspectives and advanced causal inference methods to evaluate the potential for inflammation to contribute to the biological embedding of adolescent housing insecurity. Materials and methodsUsing prospective data from the Great Smoky Mountains Study, we investigated the relationship between adolescent housing insecurity and whole-blood spot samples assayed for C-reactive protein (CRP). Adolescent housing insecurity was created based on annual measures of frequent residential moves, reduced standard of living, forced separation from the home, and foster care. Annual measures of CRP ranged from 0.001 mg/L to 13.6 mg/L (median = 0.427 mg/L) and were log10 transformed to account for positively skewed values. We used g-estimation of structural nested mean models to estimate a series of conditional average causal effects of adolescent housing insecurity on CRP levels from ages 11 to 16 years and interpreted the results within life course frameworks of accumulation, recency, and sensitive periods. Principal ResultsOf the 1,334 participants, 427 [44.3 %] were female. Based on the conditional average causal effect, one exposure to adolescent housing insecurity from ages 11 to 16 years led to a 6.4 % (95 % CI = 0.69 – 12.4) increase in later CRP levels. Exposure at 14 years of age led to a 27.9 % increase in CRP levels at age 15 (95 % CI = 6.5 – 53.5). Recent exposures to adolescent housing insecurity (<3 years) suggested stronger associations with CRP levels than distant exposures (>3 years), but limited statistical power prevented causal conclusions regarding recency effects at the risk of a Type II Error. Major ConclusionsThese findings highlight inflammation—as indicated by increased CRP levels—as one potential mechanism for the biological embedding of adolescent housing insecurity. The results also suggest that adolescent housing insecurity—particularly recent, repeated, and mid-adolescent exposures—may increase the risk of poor health outcomes and should be considered a key intervention target.

All's eco‐friendly that ends eco‐friendly: Short‐term memory effects in carbon footprint estimates of temporal item sequences

AbstractWhen people estimate the summative carbon footprint of a sequence of events, how are the individual events integrated? In three experiments, we found that summative carbon footprint judgments of item sequences are disproportionately influenced by items at the end of the sequence in comparison with those at the beginning—a recency effect. When, for example, sequences ended with a low carbon footprint item, they were assigned a lower carbon footprint than corresponding sequences with an identical content but different item order. The results also revealed that a green peak (presenting many low carbon footprint items at once) had a relatively large effect on estimates when the peak was contextually distinct from other items in terms of its valence. The results are consistent with an account within which distinctiveness of representations within short‐term memory differentially influences decision‐making and suggest that memory processes bias the perceived environmental footprint of temporally separated instances.

Examining belief adjusment model and framing effect on the audit materiality level decision making

The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not there is a difference in the decision-making of external auditors in determining the level of audit materiality between participants who get good news followed by bad news and those who get bad news information sequences (bad news) followed by good news (good news) with a step-by-step and end-of-sequence information presentation pattern in the positive frame or negative frame. The research method used in the research is the mixed design experiment method (between and within the subject) which manipulates the independent variables of the order of evidence (good news followed by bad news and bad news followed by good news) and framing effect (positive frame or negative frame) in the presentation pattern Step by Step and End of Sequence. Participants in this study were 150 students of the Bachelor of Accounting study program at Hayam Wuruk Perbanas Surabaya University with 300 experiment data. This study uses the normality test and the Kruskall-Wallis H test. The results of this study indicate that the Step-by-step presentation pattern can cause a recency effect when receiving information with a sequence of evidence of good news followed by bad news and bad news followed by good news both in the series, with the positive or negative frame, and the results obtained if the information is presented with an End of Sequence presentation pattern with information and a sequence of evidence of good news followed by bad news or bad news followed by good news there is no difference (no order effect) either in the framing effect (positive frame and negative frame).

Effects of speech production training on memory across short and long delays in 5- and 6-year-olds: A pre-registered study

AbstractStudies on the role of speech production on learning have found a memory benefit from production labeled the “Production Effect.” While research with adults has generally shown a robust memory advantage for produced words, children show more mixed results, and the advantage is affected by age, cognitive, and linguistic factors. With adults, the Production Effect is not restricted to the immediate context but is also found after a delay. So far, no studies have investigated the effect of delayed recall on the Production Effect with children. Children aged 5 and 6 years old (n = 60) participated in two sessions. Children were trained on familiar words and images, which were heard (Listen) or produced aloud (Say). Children then performed a free recall task. One week later, children repeated the recall task and an additional recognition task. At immediate testing, there was a recency effect on words recalled from the different training conditions and a recall advantage for words produced over words heard; however, this no longer held after a 1-week delay in either the recall or recognition task. Exploratory analysis showed that vocabulary did not predict the Production Effect. Findings indicate that unlike adults, the Production Effect is not as robust in children after a delay.

Name order effects on cobrand perceptions: the impacts of product similarity and language structure

PurposeThe Islamic world spans many different languages with different language structures. This paper aims to explore one way in which language structure affects consumer response to the marketing of cobrands.Design/methodology/approachTwo between subject experiments were conducted using samples of participants from Saudi Arabia and the USA. The first manipulated partner brand category similarity and brand name order, along with the structure of the language used to communicate with the market. The data for this study includes Arabic speakers in Saudi Arabia as well as English speakers in the USA. The second study explores how targeting a population fluent in multiple languages of varied structure nullifies the findings from the first study and uses Latino participants in the USA.FindingsThis study finds that when brands come from similar product categories, name order did not affect cobrand evaluations, but it did when the brands come from dissimilar product categories. Here, evaluations of the cobrand are enhanced when the invited brand is in the position that adjectives occupy in the participant’s language. The authors also find that being proficient in two languages, each with a different default order for adjectives and nouns, quashes the effect of name order otherwise seen when brands from dissimilar product categories engage in cobranding.Originality/valueBy examining the impact of language structure on the effects of cobrand evaluation and conducting studies among participants with differing dominant languages, this research can rule out simple primacy or recency effects.