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Serial position effect
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Graph showing the serial position effect, the vertical axis shows the percentage of words
recalled, the horizontal axis shows their position in the sequence
The serial position effect, a term coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus, refers to the finding
that recall accuracy varies as a function of an item's position within a study list. When
asked to recall a list of items in any order (free recall), people tend to begin recall with
the end of the list, recalling those items best (the recency effect). Among earlier list
items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items (the primacy
effect).[1][2]
One suggested reason for the primacy effect is that the initial items presented are most
effectively stored in long-term memory because of the greater amount of processing
devoted to them. (The first list item can be rehearsed by itself; the second must be
rehearsed along with the first, the third along with the first and second, and so on.) One
suggested reason for the recency effect is that these items are still present in working
memory when recall is solicited. Items that benefit from neither (the middle items) are
recalled most poorly.
There is experimental support for these explanations. For example:
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The primacy effect (but not the recency effect) is reduced when items are
presented quickly and is enhanced when presented slowly (factors that reduce and
enhance processing of each item and thus permanent storage)
The recency effect (but not the primacy effect) is reduced when an interfering task
is given; for example, subjects may be asked to compute a math problem in their
heads prior to recalling list items; this task requires working memory and
interferes with any list items being attended to
Amnesiacs with poor ability to form permanent long-term memories do not show
a primacy effect, but do show a recency effect
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[edit] Primacy effect
The primacy effect, in psychology and sociology, is a cognitive bias that results from
disproportionate salience of initial stimuli or observations. For example, a subject who
reads a sufficiently long list of words is more likely to remember words toward the
beginning than words in the middle.
The phenomenon is said to be due to the fact that the short-term memory at the beginning
of whatever sequence of events is being presented, is far less "crowded" and that since
there are far fewer items being processed in the brain at the time when presented than
later, there is more time for rehearsal of the stimuli which can cause them to be
"transferred" to the long-term memory for longer storage.
The recency effect is comparable to the primacy effect, but for final stimuli or
observations. Taken together the primacy effect and the recency effect predict that, in a
list of items, the ones most likely to be remembered are the items near the beginning and
the end of the list (serial position effect). Lawyers scheduling the appearance of witnesses
for court testimony, and managers scheduling a list of speakers at a conference, take
advantage of these effects when they put speakers they wish to emphasize at the very
beginning or the very end of a long list.
[edit] Recency effect
The recency effect, in psychology, is a cognitive bias that results from disproportionate
salience of recent stimuli or observations. People tend to recall items that were at the end
of a list rather than items that were in the middle of a list. For example, if a driver sees an
equal total number of red cars as blue cars during a long journey, but there happens to be
a glut of red cars at the end of the journey, they are likely to conclude there were more
red cars than blue cars throughout the drive.
The inverse of this effect is the primacy effect. The recency effect is compatible with the
peak-end rule.
Furthermore, the effect also refers to the effect in autobiographical memory that people
recall more recent than remote personal events.
Another example of the recency effect is applied by trial lawyers. They call key witnesses
at the end of the trial (or the beginning to take advantage of the primacy effect), so the
jury keeps them in mind when they deliberate.
Studies include:
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Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)[3]
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
Ebbinghaus, various
Murdock (1962)[2]
Terry (2005)