When Frances went to work this morning,she checked her voice mail.Her boss left her a message outlining twenty-six tasks that she needs to complete.Unfortunately,the message was accidentally deleted after Frances listened to it once.Because she did not write down the tasks as she listened to the message,how many of the tasks will Frances most likely remember?
A) one to four
B) five to nine
C) ten to fourteen
D) fifteen to nineteen

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

According to the serial position effect in psychology, people tend to remember the first few items (primacy effect) and the last few items (recency effect) in a list better than the middle items. Given a list of 26 tasks, it's likely that Frances will remember more than just the first few but less than half, making "five to nine" a reasonable estimate based on average memory retention capabilities.

When Frances Went to Work This Morning,she Checked Her Voice