Mort is going to the supermarket to pick up seven items – a toilet brush, shampoo, apples, toothpicks, baby diapers, a birthday card, and pasta. he has them written down in this order on his shopping list, but he gets to the store and finds that he’s left the list at home. he finds the first few things and the last few things on his list, but for all of his effort he cannot remember that he needed toothpicks. this tendency to forget things that came in the middle of a list of items is called the effect.

The tendency of a person to forget the things in the middle of a series or list is called the serial position effect.

Explanation:

The serial position effect is described as the tendency of a person recall or remember the first and the last items in a particular series or list, nicely. Whereas, the middle items are the worst to recall.

Hermann Ebbinghaus performed various studies on himself and therefore, concluded that the recall accuracy varies depending upon the position of the item in the list. He then coined the term serial position effect, for this effect.

Therefore, the tendency of a person to forget the things in the middle of a series or list is called the serial position effect.