ANOVA analysis of Experiment 1 with Lists (A1, A2, A3, B, IR, DR) as a factor showed a highly significant main effect [ F (5, 970) = 157. 64, p < 0.0001, ω 2 = 0.45] with significant differences ( p < 0.02) in recall for each list, except for the IR/DR comparison.
The primacy/recency ratio increased in parallel with omnibus scores [ r = 0.25, t (189) = 3.55, p < 0.0005] and, consistent with previous results (Capitani et al., 1992 ; Golomb et al., 2008 ), showed a strong trend toward decline with increasing age [ r = −0.20, t (189) = −2.81, p < 0.006].
Age was associated with declines in recognition scores [ r = −0.36, t (193) = −5.36, p < 0.0001], and older participants showed a trend toward reduced learning rates [ r = −0.19, t (193) = 3.90, p < 0.008].
We found that acquisition z-scores and recall-ratio z-scores showed a weak but borderline significant correlation [ r = 0.19, t (193) = 3.90, p < 0.008].
While negative correlations between PCL scores and omnibus z-scores approached significance in the participants in Experiment 1 [ r = −0.15, t (193) = −2.11, p < 0.02, one tailed], they did not reach significance in the smaller mTBI population ( r = −0.16), nor did PCL correlations with acquisition z-scores ( r = −0.16) or recall-ratio z-scores ( r = −0.29) reach significance, although both correlations were in the predicted direction.
The sTBI patient group did not show significant alterations in omnibus z-scores in comparison with control participants [mean = −0.53, F (1, 226) = 1.45, NS], although acquisition z-scores showed a weak trend toward reduction [mean = −0.71, F (1, 226) = 2.54, p < 0.12].
However, they failed to reach statistical significance because of the small sample size.