When recalling a list of terms presented in series, people will remembered the first couple of terms and the last terms but forget the terms in the middle of the list. This typical finding is termed the ____ effect.

Answer:

Serial position effect

Explanation:

The serial position effect is a psychological phenomenon related to memory that refers to the tendency of an individual to easily recall information the first items on a list, and the last items on the list, but would find it difficult to recall information of the items at the middle of the list.

For example, let's say you have a list of things you intend getting at the grocery store, and the items are listed as follows: shirt, pen, book, salad, pants, shoes, cap, bread, cream. Ordinarily, the first two items and the last two items would be easy for you to remember without looking at the list.

There are two concepts related to this, the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect refers to the tendency to recall information of the list of items at the beginning of a list than those at the middle, while the recency effect refers to the tendency to easily recall information of the items at the end of the list than those at the middle.

Answer:

The answer is serial position effect.

Explanation:

Serial position effect is a psychological term that describes the tendency or inclination of an individual to recall the first and last items in a list more accurately than items positioned in the middle of the list.

The term - which was coined by German psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus - explains that the position (first, middle & last) which an item occupies in a list determines how accurately it can be recalled by an individual when the need arises.

Take for example you are sent to a supermarket to buy (1) Dairy (2) Milk (3) Sugar (4) Battery (5) Belt (6) Torch. On getting to the supermarket, you would be most likely to remember 1&2 as well as 5&6 than 3&4.