People tend to remember the first and last items on a list far better than the ones in the middle.

When people try to recall a list of items, recall is consistently strongest for the earliest items, known as the primacy effect, and the most recent items, known as the recency effect, while items in the middle are recalled the worst. This pattern, called the serial-position effect, has been demonstrated in memory research since the late 19th century and shows up reliably across all kinds of material, from shopping lists to job candidates in an interview lineup.

The two ends of the effect appear to come from different mechanisms: early items benefit from having more time to be rehearsed and moved into long-term memory, while the most recent items are still sitting in short-term memory and haven’t been displaced yet. Because the effect is so predictable, it’s routinely factored into things like how eyewitness lineups, ballots, and even resumes are structured.