[1] Items are usually presented one at a time for a short duration, and can be any of a number of nameable materials, although traditionally, words from a larger set are chosen.
One of the basic measures of performance in the free recall task is the number of words recalled from a list, which varies with a number of factors, including the list length, the type of material studied, and any task used to process the words (e.g., a simple judgement).
Primacy effects generally come from the idea that greater attention is devoted to items that appear at the beginning of presentation lists.
Bennet B. Murdock[2] presents a classic study of serial position effects in free recall.
Recency effects were exhibited regardless of the length of the list, and it was strongest for the words in the last eight serial positions.
[2] Another evidence of the recency effect is found in the way that participants initiate recall of a list: they most often start with terminal (recent) list items (an early description of the recency effect in the probability of first recall can be found in Hogan, 1975[3]).
Improvement in recall of items over multiple trials has been termed the learning-to-learn effect (LTL).
In particular, the Dynamic Tagging Theory makes use of statistical data taken from such experiments in formulating a phenomenological explanation of short-term memory.
He popularized the short term memory limitation by calling it "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two".
Some brain regions that are most commonly utilized in free recall include the hippocampus, fusiform gyrus, and inferior prefrontal cortex.
[9] In fact, greater activity in these brain regions while studying a list is linked to better subsequent recall.