Recency Effects and Temporal Distinctiveness: Dissociation between Free Recall and Memory for Position/Order

Temporal distinctiveness hypothesis argues that both short-term and long-term recency effects reflect the high distinctiveness of temporal (i.e., position and order) information in the recency portion. The present study tested this hypothesis. In Exp. 1, recency effects for free recall were compared to those for position/order memory in immediate, delayed, and continuous distractor conditions. Recency effects for both free recall and position/order memory disappeared in the delayed condition. In the continuous distractor condition, large recency effects for free recall reappeared (i.e., long-term recency effects), unaccompanied by the reappearance of recency effects for position/order memory. In Exp. 2, the temporal distinctiveness did not affect short-term recency effects in the immediate free recall. These results indicate that the temporal distinctiveness hypothesis is inadequate for short-term and long-term recency effects in free recall.