Serial Position Curve - GCSE Psychology Definition

The serial position curve is a concept in psychology that explains how people tend to remember the first and last items in a list better than the middle ones. This idea demonstrates two memory effects: the primacy effect, which is remembering the first items well because they've had more time to be processed and moved to long-term memory, and the recency effect, which is remembering the last items because they're still fresh in short-term memory. This pattern can be seen when you try to recall a list of words or numbers. Understanding the serial position curve helps students learn more effectively by organising information in ways that make it easier to remember.