What does the recency effect refer to?

The recency effect refers to the phenomenon in which individuals are more likely to remember the last items presented in a list compared to items that were presented in the middle. This effect is attributed to the fact that the most recently presented items are still fresh in memory or are more accessible, as they have not yet been displaced by other information.

In the context of memory research, the recency effect is part of the broader serial position effect, which describes how the position of an item in a sequence affects recall. While people tend to remember both the first and last items better than those in the middle, the recency effect specifically highlights the advantage in recalling the last items. This distinction helps in understanding how memory retrieval works and why certain items stand out in our recollection.