同じ6つの言葉でも、並べる順番で印象が逆転した。「最初」と「最後」が記憶と評価を左右する理由

Read these words about a person. "Smart, hard-working, stubborn, jealous." Now read them in the opposite order. "Jealous, stubborn, hard-working, smart." The first list sounds better, but the words are the same!

The first words change how we hear the rest. When we learn a list, we also remember the first and last words best. The words in the middle are easy to forget.

In 1946, the psychologist Solomon Asch read people a list of words describing someone. The list was "intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious." Other people heard the same six words in reverse order. Those who heard the positive words first formed a much better impression.

The first information seems to work like a lens through which we see the rest. This is called the primacy effect. Memory shows a similar pattern. In a 1962 study, people remembered the first and last words of a list better than those in the middle.

Remembering the last items well is called the recency effect. A 2005 study even found that performers who appeared later in contests tended to receive higher scores.

The order in which we receive information can shape both what we remember and how we judge. In a classic 1946 experiment, Solomon Asch described a person with six traits, "intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious", while another group heard the same words in reverse. Listeners who began with the positive traits saw a capable person with some flaws, whereas those who began with the negative traits saw a troubled person whose abilities were hampered by problems.

Early information, Asch argued, colors the meaning of what follows. Memory research reveals a related pattern. A 1962 study of free recall produced a U-shaped curve, with the first and last words of a list recalled far better than those in the middle. In 1966, researchers found that a 30-second distracting task after the list eliminated the recency advantage but left the primacy advantage intact.

So the two effects seemed to depend on different memory systems. Order effects also enter real evaluations. A 2005 analysis of the Eurovision Song Contest and international figure skating found that later performers tended to receive higher scores. Because this was observational data, however, factors such as how the running order was set must be considered.