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Everything about Serial-position effect

Psychological concept

Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and 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, people tend to begin recall with the end of the list, recalling those items best. Among earlier list items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items. Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: Serial-position effectA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: The Production Effect Interacts With Serial PositionsInfluential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: Intelligence BulletinThe most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: The serial position effect of free recall.Cited 1,216 times
  5. Go sideways: Free recallA closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: Recall testA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

No dictionary entry for this exact phrase.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Primacy effect
  2. Recency effect
  3. Related effects

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics