The Serial Position Effect

If you read a list of twenty words once and then try to write down as many as you can, you will probably notice a pattern. You are likely to remember the first few words and the last few words much better than the words in the middle. Psychologists call this the serial position effect. The advantage for the first items is known as the primacy effect, and the advantage for the last items is called the recency effect.

The two effects seem to have different causes. [A] Words at the beginning of a list receive more attention and can be repeated silently several times, which helps move them into long-term memory. [B] Words at the end, by contrast, are still in short-term memory when a person starts to recall them. [C] In a well-known 1966 experiment, Murray Glanzer and Anita Cunitz asked people to count backward for thirty seconds before recalling a list. [D] The recency effect disappeared, but the primacy effect remained.

The effect may matter outside the laboratory as well. Studies of contests such as singing competitions have found that performers who appear later often receive higher scores than those who appear earlier. For similar reasons, some teachers advise students to review the middle sections of their notes more thoroughly.