An instructor gives her students a list of terms to memorize for their biology exam and immediately asks one student to recite the terms back to her. Which terms will this student most likely recall from the list?
A) The student won't recall any of the terms because he has not used rehearsal to encode them.
B) Since there was no delay in asking for the terms, the student will remember those at the end of the list, showing a recency effect.
C) Since there was no delay in asking for the terms, the student will remember those at the beginning of the list, showing a primacy effect.
D) The student will recall only those items to which he has attached some meaning, regardless of where they fall on the list.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The student is most likely to remember the terms at the end of the list due to the recency effect, which suggests that items presented last are remembered more easily because they are still in short-term memory.

An Instructor Gives Her Students a List of Terms to Memorize