Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Memory. 2021 Oct;29(9):1232-1244. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2021.1974050. Epub 2021 Sep 6.
Serial position effects are often observed within the free recall of unassociated words but also when recalling items from a semantic category like U.S. presidents. We investigated the dynamics of recall for U.S. presidents in younger and older adults to examine potential age-related differences in the organisation of retrieval from semantic long-term memory. Older adults recalled more presidents than younger adults and also demonstrated dual serial position effects such that, in addition to overall serial position effects, primacy (e.g., Eisenhower) and recency presidents (e.g., Obama) within older adults' lifetime were better recalled than presidents from the middle of their lives (e.g., Ford). Additionally, participants initiated recall with the most distinct presidents (highly familiar or memorable presidents like Washington, Obama, Trump), and conditional-response probabilities revealed that presidents from similar eras were recalled in close proximity, indicating that the retrieval of distinct presidents can facilitate memory for presidents from a similar era. Collectively, we demonstrate the potential interplay of the mechanisms that influence the organisation of retrieval such that distinctiveness and temporal contiguity effects may simultaneously impact recall. Specifically, semantic and temporal-contextual associations can drive semantic autobiographical memory and people likely organise retrieval from long-term memory according to familiarity and distinctiveness.
系列位置效应通常在无关联单词的自由回忆中观察到，但在回忆语义类别中的项目时，如美国总统，也会观察到。我们研究了年轻人和老年人对美国总统的回忆动态，以检查从语义长时记忆中检索的潜在年龄相关差异。老年人比年轻人回忆出更多的总统，并且也表现出双重系列位置效应，即除了整体系列位置效应外，老年人的生命周期内的首位（例如，艾森豪威尔）和最近的总统（例如，奥巴马）比生命周期中间的总统（例如，福特）更好地被回忆。此外，参与者用最具特色的总统（如华盛顿、奥巴马、特朗普等高度熟悉或令人难忘的总统）开始回忆，条件反应概率显示，来自相似时代的总统被紧密地联系在一起回忆，这表明对独特总统的回忆可以促进对相似时代总统的回忆。总的来说，我们展示了影响检索组织的机制的潜在相互作用，使得独特性和时间连续性效应可能同时影响回忆。具体来说，语义和时间上下文关联可以驱动语义自传记忆，并且人们可能根据熟悉度和独特性来组织从长期记忆中检索信息。
