The Primacy and Recency Effects in Successive Single-Trial Immediate Free Recall.

The present study of 82 male and female college students re-examined the primacy and recency effects in successive single-trial immediate free recall of lists of unrelated English words. With a trial-by-trial analysis of the serial position curve (SPC), it showed the shape of SPC was not invariant. The primacy effect was greater than the recency effect on the very first recall, and the relationship of these two effects immediately reversed and remained so thereafter. Analysis of the correlation between the presentation and recall order of the items recalled over successive recalls revealed an additional phenomenon-the rapid development of a recall strategy. The development of strategy concurred closely with reversal of the primacy and recency effects. An interlist proactive interference interpretation and a recall strategy interpretation have been suggested to account for the transitory change of the shape of the SPC in free recall.