Using transfer methodology, several possible factors that could have affected the expression of serial position learning were examined with runway-trained rats. A 3-trial series (8NP)-for which 8 and P refer to series trials when sucrose (8) and plain (P) Noyes pellets were used as a reward , and N refers to a trial without reward-was the basis for training in the first 2 and final experiments. Transfer tests in Experiment 1 altered reward memories , the time between trials in the series , or both . Tests in Experiment 2 altered the number of trials in the series while maintaining essential memory relationships . Experiment 3 involved a 4-trial series (P8NP or 8PN8) and transfer tests with changed memory (NNNN) . In Experiment 4, training on an RNR series, where R could be either 8 or P in either large or small magnitudes, was followed by a transfer test to NNN and a final test in which the rats were prevented from running on the 1 st or 2nd series trial. The findings support a view that position and memory learning are compatible sources of serial effects, and they suggest temporal and response cues may not be crucial in position effects.The empirical study of learning in people began with Ebbinghaus (1885), whose topic was the learning of things that occur in a fixed order. Reviewing the literature, Crowder and Greene (2000) concluded that serial learning , and the understanding of psychological processes associated with it, has been of central importance in the general study of learning and cognition ever since Ebbinghaus. As is well known , Ebbinghaus' theory of serial learning emphasized associations among the items in an ordered list, and in various forms, this theory governed thinking in the field for eight decades. Although the possibility that a series may be learned by associations among the pOSitions items occupy in the

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