Recency Effects and Distinctiveness of Position/Order Information

Temporal retrieval theory argues that both short-term and long-term recency effects reflect the distinctiveness of position/order information of recent items. The present study tested this proposal in both the standard immediate free-recall paradigm and the continuous-distractor paradigm. Serial-position curves of item information learned intentionally were compared to those of position/order information learned incidentally. In the immediate condition, similar recency effects were observed for item and position/order information; the correlation of item recency with position/order recency was significant. In the continuous-distractor condition, although significant recency effects were observed for item and position/order information, the correlation between them was low. These results suggest that the distinctiveness of position/order information contributes to short-term recency effects but not to long-term recency effects.