What is the primacy effect?

The primacy effect refers to the phenomenon where individuals tend to remember the first items in a list more effectively than those in the middle. This effect occurs because the initial items have more opportunity for encoding into long-term memory, as they are encountered first and therefore have more cognitive resources available for processing. As the list progresses, items may be lost from short-term memory due to interference and the limited capacity of working memory, making it harder to recall middle items.

In contrast, the other choices do not accurately represent the primacy effect. Forgetting the last items in a list is related to the recency effect, which focuses on the last items being more easily recalled. Remembering middle items better is not consistent with either the primacy or recency effects, as they both focus on the extremes of the list (beginning or end). Finally, recalling random items without a particular order doesn't describe any specific memory phenomenon and is not related to how items in a structured list are remembered. Thus, the correct understanding of the primacy effect aligns with the tendency to remember the first items in a list better than those in the middle.