Primacy Effects and the Nature of the Communications: Movie Pictures

"Primacy-recency" effects were studied when different information was received through two media: (a) written descriptions of a youth's extrovertive or introvertive behavior, which were read by S and (b) silent movie picture enactments of the behavior, which were viewed by S. College Ss (N = 180), in small groups, answered a questionnaire about their impressions of the person after the last communication. When successive communications were in the same medium, primary seemed to prevail, except that the filmed extrovertive behavior, whether first or last, was more influential than the filmed introvertive behavior. When two media were used, either film was more effective than the written description. Various group and individual scores gave somewhat different measures of what superficially appeared to be primary or recency. The results suggest that these terms may be inappropriate when communications are of uneven strength or in different media.