The usefulness of the SAM model and in particular its model of the short-term store is often demonstrated by its application to the recency effect in free recall. When serial-position curves are applied to SAM, a strong recency effect is observed, but this effect is strongly diminished when a distractor, usually arithmetic, is placed in between study and test trials. The recency effect occurs because items at the end of the test list are likely to still be present in short-term store and therefore retrieved first. However, when new information is processed, this item enters the short-term store and displaces other information from it. When a distracting task is given after the presentation of all items, information from this task displaces the last items from short-term store, resulting in a substantial reduction of recency.
