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To examine the possibility that position cues are temporal and therefore ineffective early in serial runway training, rats were runway trained on a three-trial series of different rewards. The series was SNP', where Sand P' refer to series trials that concluded with four sucrose or eight plain Noyes pellets, respectively. The middle trial was never rewarded (N) . Early in training, a significant pattern of running slowly on the middle trial and rapidly on the initial and terminal trials had emerged. Transfer tests to series of trials (NNN) never rewarded after this limited training (on Day 19) and later after extended training (Day 39) , each gave evidence that the rats relied upon position cues in the tests. The three-trial patterns established before the tests were retained on the three trials of the NNN series. The results suggest the prevalence of position learning, but they work against the idea that position cues are temporal and effective only with extended training.Just as in the development of theoretical models for human serial learning, realization of the importance for animals of information about the ordinal position of items in a list followed an initial theoretical emphasis on the role of the memories of list items. Though position learning is now emphasized (e.g., Henson, 1998) in human cognition, it began receiving attention (e.g., Bower, 1971 ;Ebenholtz, 1972) long after memoryassociation theories (e. g., Ebbinghaus, 1913) had developed rich traditions. The study of memories, usually of differing reward events, in animal serial learning also has a long history that has produced clear evidence for animals employing reward memories in serial problems; and the understanding of the nature of those memories is now fairly sophisticated (reviewed by Capaldi, 1994). Evidence that animals use information about the position of items in a list is recent, but also clear

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