primary effect

noun

1. psychol the process whereby the first few items on a list are learnt more rapidly than the middle items

Example Sentences

"This was a manifestation, by pretence and fantasy, that he had some sort of agency, that he had some sort of response, to those that had picked on him and that its primary purpose and its primary effect was to provide him with a certain degree of solace, in that way," the defence barrister said.

From BBC

The test required courts to consider whether the government practice being challenged had a secular purpose, whether its primary effect was to advance or inhibit religion, and whether it encouraged excessive government entanglement with religion.

From New York Times

“Several of their significant proposals, the primary effect is to degrade and winnow down free expression rights in the state.”

From Los Angeles Times

Shingles primarily affects older persons who have had such childhood diseases as chicken pox and the primary effect is painful rashes that last for weeks, though nerve pain can persist even longer than that.

From Washington Times

In part, it feels like a simple attempt at updating a baby boomer’s novel to a millennial-Gen X time frame and sensibility — the series also weaves in addiction and anti-gay prejudice — but the primary effect is an odd shift in which the most dire threats to Dana and Kevin seem to exist in the present rather than in the violent, disease-ridden, slaveholding past.

From New York Times