Contextual variability and serial position effects in free recall

In immediate free recall, words recalled successively tend to come from nea rby serial positions. M. J. Kahana (1996) documented this effect and showed that this tendency, which the authors refer to as the lag recency effect, is well described by a variant of the search of associative memory (SAM) mo del (J. G. W. Raaijmakers & R. M. Shiffrin, 1980, 1981). In 2 experiments, participants performed immediate, delayed, and continuous distracter free r ecall under conditions designed to minimize rehearsal. The lag recency effe ct, previously observed in immediate free recall, was also observed in dela yed and continuous distracter free recall. Although two-store memory models , such as SAM, readily account for the end-of-list recency effect in immedi ate free recall, and its attenuation in delayed free recall, these models f ail to account for the long-term recency effect. By means of analytic simul ations, the authors show that both the end of list recency effect and the l ag recency effect, across all distracter conditions, can be explained by a single-store model in which context, retrieved with each recalled item, ser ves as a cue for subsequent recalls.