# Recency Experiments

In a recency experiment, participants hear a list of between fifteen and thirty words. Immediately after the list has finished, they are instructed to recall as many words as they can from the list, in any order they like.

Typically, it is found that participants have fairly good recall for the words at the beginning of the list. Their recall of the words in the middle of the list is usually poor, and their recall becomes much better for the last three or four words. This is called a recency effect.

It appears that they are recalling the last few words from their STM, because these are the first words they usually recall. It follows that the size of the recency effect must be related to the size of STM.

This experiment suggests that the capacity of STM is four words.

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