Effect of lesion site on serial position during list learning: a study with the CVLT

Successful learning of supraspan word lists such as the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) relies more on clustering strategies than rote learning, subserved by the frontal and temporal lobes. The authors studied the effect of word sequence in CVLT learning, in 15 patients with frontal (FLL) and 15 temporal (TLL) lesions, and 33 controls. Experimental measures were: number of clusters, number of first (FI), middle (MI) and last items (LI), in learning trials and in total immediate recall. FLL disclosed significantly lower FI along learning. Clusters were similar among groups. This difficulty is discussed according to the role of frontal lobes in learning and memory.