Why do primacy and recency effects occur?

What is the primacy and recency effect? Why do we tend to remember the first and the last items well, and the middle ones poorly?

The primacy and recency effect (also known as the serial-position effect) is the tendency to recall the first and the last items in a series well, and the middle ones poorly. There’s no consensus as to why this phenomenon occurs, but there are a couple of theories.

Keep reading to learn about the primacy and recency effect, why it occurs, and how to overcome it.

According to Dobelli, the primacy effect means that the first piece of information you’re introduced to is easier to remember than information introduced later. This is because your brain latches onto that first information and holds it in your short-term memory for longer than usual. This extended stay in short-term memory allows the information to move to long-term memory.

While the primacy effect can extend information’s stay in your short-term memory, it can’t keep it there forever, Dobelli explains. Humans have small short-term memories, so when a new piece of information enters, an older piece of information has to leave. When enough time has passed that the primacy effect stops working and the first piece of information you hear leaves your short-term memory, the recency effect takes over. This means that whatever information you heard most recently is easier to remember. This effect operates entirely in your short-term memory. 

(Shortform note: As long as the information is available in your short-term memory, it’s easier to recall. However, because short-term memory generally holds information for less than a minute, the recency effect is only effective for brief periods of time.)

How do you overcome the primacy and recency effect? Dobelli suggests paying close attention to each individual piece of information you learn so that information you gain in the middle of a situation doesn’t get crowded out of your memory by the first or last things you learn.

(Shortform note: While it’s a good idea to lessen the primacy and recency effect, you can also manipulate them to your benefit. When trying to memorize something, focus on the most important information first to trigger the primacy effect and transfer the information to your long-term memory. Second, review the information shortly before you need it to trigger the recency effect.)

How the Primacy and Recency Effect Works

There are two theories of how the primacy and recency effect works. As noted, Dobelli ascribes to the first of these theories, which states that the operation of the short- and long-term memories causes the effect.

In the second theory, the effects rely on the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is the section of your brain directly behind your forehead, and it’s responsible for your focus, as well as forming and retrieving memories. These functions are linked: Memories form around things you focus on. 

According to this theory, the primacy and recency effect occurs because you’re most likely to pay attention during the beginning or end of experiences, thus activating your frontal lobe and forming memories. Meanwhile, you lose focus during the middle of an experience, which means the frontal lobe is not activated and memories don’t form.

The recency and primacy effect are both parts of the serial position effect, which predicts how items from a list are remembered, based on their position in that list. The first and last items on a list are generally remembered the best.

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DEFINITION

Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst.

This guide will teach you:

1. Recency Effect
2. Primacy Effect 
3. Minimizing primacy and recency effect in your survey
4. Example

1. Recency Effect 

DEFINITION

Recency Effect is the principle that the most recently presented items will most likely be remembered best. If you hear a long list of words, it is more likely that you will remember the words you heard last rather than words that occurred in the middle.

One explanation is that these items are still present in working memory. An additional explanation is related to the context: if tested immediately after rehearsal, the current temporal context can serve as a retrieval cue, which would predict more recent items to have a higher likelihood of recall.

The recency effect occurs more commonly when the response options are given orally. This is thought to be because when the respondent is listening to all of the options, the later options disrupt the respondent’s consideration of earlier options.

2. Primacy Effect

DEFINITION

Primacy Effect occurs when you're more likely to remember words at the beginning of a list. If you hear a long list of words, it is more likely that you will remember the words you heard first rather than words that occurred in the middle.

A suggested reason is that the initial items presented are most effectively stored in long-term memory because of the greater amount of processing devoted to them. (The first list item can be rehearsed by itself; the second must be rehearsed along with the first, the third along with the first and second, and so on.) This reaction is enhanced when presented slowly. Longer lists have been found to reduce our capability to remember the first words of a list.

This effect is most evident when answers are shown visually. Options that are presented later tend to not be considered in the same way as the earlier options.

3. Minimizing primacy and recency effect in your survey

In order to reduce survey bias arising from these two effects, the easiest thing you can do is to randomize the answer options. The shuffle answers feature changes the order of the answer options for each respondent, so when analyzing all response data, you’ll be able to see the average behavior.

From the graph below you can see where both effects occur. We tend to remember more the last words, especially when the length of the list increases.

4. Example

Use this list of random words to test out your memory. Try reading it out to someone nearby, and see which words they remember the best. When the list is read out, there will be a tendency to recall the later words better, the recency effect. 

To test out the primacy effect, show someone the list of words, and then remove the list and ask them to recall the words. Since the list was presented to them in a visual manner, they saw the words rather than hearing them, the primacy effect is likely to be more apparent and the earlier words are likely to be remembered better.

What's next?

• Survey completion rate: When calculating the survey completion rate, the calculation only takes to account those people who had some interaction with the survey, meaning that they actually started it. We don’t count the number of people who were invited and ignored the invitation.

• Survey Response Rate: In survey research, response rate, also known as completion rate or return rate, is the number of people who completed the survey divided by the number who received an invitation or were in the sample.  It is usually expressed in the form of a percentage.

• Net Promoter Score Question (NPS): is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the customer's willingness to recommend a company's products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customer's overall satisfaction with a company's product.

Why does recency effect occur?

What is responsible for the primacy effect?