What is the serial position effect?

The serial position effect is the tendency to recall items at the beginning and end of a list better than items in the middle. The primacy effect explains better recall of early items because they receive more rehearsal and are transferred to long-term memory. The recency effect explains better recall of the last items because they are still in short-term memory at the time of recall. Items in the middle receive less rehearsal than early items and have been displaced from short-term memory by later items.