Human Cognitive Neuroscience and Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2011 Sep;28(6):386-96. doi: 10.1080/02643294.2012.665802. Epub 2012 Feb 23.
Primacy and recency effects at immediate recall are thought to reflect the independent functioning of a long-term memory store (primacy) and a short-term memory store (recency). Key evidence for this theory comes from amnesic patients who show severe long-term memory storage deficits, coupled with profoundly attenuated primacy. Here we challenge this dominant dual-store theory of immediate recall by demonstrating that attenuated primacy in amnesic patients can reflect abnormal working memory rehearsal processes. D.A., a patient with severe amnesia, presented with profoundly attenuated primacy when using her preferred atypical noncumulative rehearsal strategy. In contrast, despite her severe amnesia, she showed normal primacy when her rehearsal was matched with that of controls via an externalized cumulative rehearsal schedule. Our data are in keeping with the "recency theory of primacy" and suggest that primacy at immediate recall is dependent upon medial temporal lobe involvement in cumulative rehearsal rather than long-term memory storage.
即时回忆中的首因效应和近因效应被认为反映了长时记忆存储（首因）和短时记忆存储（近因）的独立作用。这一理论的关键证据来自遗忘症患者，他们表现出严重的长期记忆储存缺陷，同时近因效应明显减弱。在这里，我们通过证明遗忘症患者的近因效应减弱可能反映了异常的工作记忆复述过程，对即时回忆的主导双存储理论提出了挑战。D.A. 是一名严重健忘症患者，当她使用首选的非累积式非常规复述策略时，近因效应明显减弱。相比之下，尽管她患有严重的健忘症，但当她的复述通过外部化的累积式复述计划与对照组匹配时，她的近因效应表现正常。我们的数据与“近因效应的近因理论”一致，表明即时回忆中的近因效应取决于内侧颞叶在累积复述中的参与，而不是长时记忆存储。
