Rats do show primacy and recency effects in memory for lists of spatial locations: A reply to Gaffan

It has been demonstrated that rats display both primacy and recency effects in list-learning experiments for both item- and order-recognition memory for spatial location information. Contrary to a suggestion made by Gaffan (1992) that previous demonstrations of primacy effects in rats are not valid due to statistical and methodological problems, we show that (1) it is not likely that our results are due to experimenter bias and/or nonindependence of trials, (2) primacy and recency effects are obtained whether or not one uses a training criterion, and (3) when many of the published reports from our laboratory are combined, the number of subjects and trials are sufficient to evaluate the validity of primacy and recency effects in list-learning experiments.