ABSTRACT
There exists a highly familiar phenomenon in learning and memory: first encounters with new situations, people, events, objects, and facts have greater impact on subsequent thought and behavior than later encounters of similar kinds. These “primacy effects” are well known from everyday life: the first day of school, the first romantic kiss, the graduation day, the first scientific paper accepted for publication, and many other “firsts” of the same kind are remembered vividly, and sometimes for the rest of one’s life.
