The Serial Position Curve

The Serial Position Curve describes how people tend to remember items based on their position in a list. Usually, individuals are better at recalling the first few items (called the primacy effect) and the last few items (called the recency effect), compared to those in the middle. This pattern occurs because the first items often get stored in long-term memory, and the last items are still fresh in short-term memory. The middle items are less likely to be remembered well. This pattern helps us understand how memory works when processing sequences of information.