Serial position
≈ 3 MIN · 15 WORDS + RECALL · Memory
What this is about
Where a word stands in a list helps decide whether it stays: the start and the end survive, the middle falls through. The start profits from rehearsal into long-term memory; the end still sits in the short-term store — unless something wipes it.
Ebbinghaus measured his own memory from 1885 on, with nonsense syllables; Murdock mapped the U-curve systematically in 1962 across lists of ten to forty words. The backwards counting here is the classic handle that empties the short-term store and damps the recency advantage.
How it runs
- Fifteen words appear one after another, 1.5 seconds each.
- Twenty seconds of counting backwards from 300 in steps of three (confirm with Enter, checked).
- Free recall: write down what stayed — any order, then score it.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is transmitted or stored.
You can stop the run at any time.
Your finding
What it means
Limits of this experiment
- No calibrated display — presentation times vary with the device.
- One list, one session — the original curves average over many lists.
- Only exact spelling counts; synonyms do not.