A critical form of memory organization, and one people frequently use, is retention of events in the temporal order in which they occurred. Consider, for example, your memory for the events that occurred last summer. If someone asked you what you did during your summer vacation, most likely you would discuss the events in the sequence in which they occurred, beginning with those that occurred at the start of the summer and concluding with those that occurred at the summer's end. Alternatively, you could report together all the parties you attended and report as another group all the times you went hiking or swimming. However, retention in terms of temporal sequence, or serial order, is most common.

Definitions and Distinctions

To study the retention of serial order in the laboratory, the information pertaining to temporal sequence must be distinguished and isolated from other types of related...