AI Article Synopsis
- The "serial position effect" demonstrates that people remember words from the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of a list better than those in the middle.
- Researchers used repetitive TMS (rTMS) to interfere with memory encoding in specific brain regions while participants listened to word lists.
- Results showed that disrupting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex affected early recall (primacy), while disruption of the intraparietal lobe impacted later recall (recency), highlighting different brain areas responsible for various memory processes.
Article Abstract
A classic finding of the psychology of memory is the "serial position effect." Immediate free recall of a word list is more efficient for items presented early (primacy effect) or late (recency effect), with respect to those in the middle. In an event-related, randomized block design, we interfered with the encoding of unrelated words lists with brief trains of repetitive TMS (rTMS), applied coincidently with the acoustic presentation of each word to the left dorsolateral pFC, the left intraparietal lobe, and a control site (vertex). Interference of rTMS with encoding produced a clear-cut double dissociation on accuracy during immediate free recall. The primacy effect was selectively worsened by rTMS of the dorsolateral pFC, whereas recency was selectively worsened by rTMS of the intraparietal lobe. These results are in agreement with the double dissociation between short-term and long-term memory observed in neuropsychological patients and provide direct evidence of distinct cortical mechanisms of encoding in the human brain.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00304 | DOI Listing |
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