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Related Concept Videos

Serial Position Effect01:03

Serial Position Effect

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The serial position effect is a cognitive phenomenon where individuals are more likely to recall the first and last items in a list compared to those in the middle. This effect is divided into the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect is observed when the initial items in a list are remembered better. This occurs because these items are rehearsed more frequently or receive more elaborative processing, allowing them to be encoded into long-term memory more effectively. For...
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Memory is categorized into three major systems: sensory memory, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM). These systems differ in their capacity and the duration for which they can hold information. Sensory memory captures raw sensory input from the environment, holding it for just a few seconds or less. For example, on hearing a brief, loud sound, like a car horn honking, the sound seems to linger in the mind for a moment even after it stops. This is an instance of sensory memory...
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Long-term memory is a relatively permanent type of memory, capable of storing vast amounts of information over extended periods. Its storage capacity is generally considered unlimited.
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Sensory memory captures information from the environment in its original form for a very brief duration, just long enough to be exposed to visual, auditory, and other senses. This type of memory is detailed and rich but quickly lost unless certain strategies are employed to transfer it into short-term or long-term memory. Sensory information is continuously bombarding the human brain, yet only a small fraction is absorbed, as most of it does not significantly impact daily life. For instance,...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 4, 2026

Development of a Gaze-Contingent Display Framework Designed for Perceptual and Oculomotor Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
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The positional-specificity effect reveals a passive-trace contribution to visual short-term memory.

Bradley R Postle1, Edward Awh2, John T Serences3

  • 1Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.

Plos One
|January 4, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The positional-specificity effect in visual short-term memory (VSTM) is disrupted by increased memory load. Location information is passively tagged, not actively stored in VSTM, during object memory tasks.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Human Perception

Background:

  • The positional-specificity effect enhances visual short-term memory (VSTM) performance when probe location matches sample location.
  • Location is typically irrelevant to the match/nonmatch decision in VSTM tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate the underlying mechanisms of the positional-specificity effect in VSTM.
  • Determine if the effect is a direct result of active VSTM storage.

Main Methods:

  • Behavioral experiments with varying memory loads.
  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during object change-detection tasks.

Main Results:

  • The positional-specificity effect was robust at a memory load of 1.
  • The effect was restricted to the second stimulus in a load-of-2 experiment.
  • Actively processing a second object without storage eliminated the effect.
  • fMRI showed no location-specific bias in sustained delay-period activity.

Conclusions:

  • Positional information is not actively stored in VSTM during object memory tests.
  • Location information may be retained in a passive tag marking the most recent selection site.
  • fMRI results support the passive tag interpretation, showing enhanced probe response at the sample location.