Serial Position Effect

Recall advantage for the first and last items of a list — primacy and recency — first described by Hermann Ebbinghaus.

Specifications & Metrics

type

Cognitive

introduced

1885

originator

Hermann Ebbinghaus (term); free-recall curve later mapped by Bennet B. Murdock Jr. (1962)

Core Principles & Analysis

• Hermann Ebbinghaus coined the term from list-learning experiments on himself; Murdock's 1962 free-recall study mapped the curve.
• A distracting task of 15 to 30 seconds before recall cancels the recency effect, evidence used for separate memory stores.
• The curve is a foundational datum for short-term and long-term memory models.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Serial position effect