Oddly Wired
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memory

You only remember the beginning and the end.

Ebbinghaus (1885) identified the serial position effect, but the explanation attributing it to the interaction between short-term working memory and long-term memory is a modern interpretation.

The dual-store model of memory (Atkinson-Shiffrin, 1968) provides the explanation of STM/LTM, not the original 1885 research.

The middle of any sequence is a cognitive blur.

Where this comes from

Study
Ebbinghaus, 1885
What the check found
Ebbinghaus documented the serial position effect, but the 'STM vs. LTM' mechanism is an anachronistic explanation formalized decades later.
Confidence
Solid, with limits

Related

One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.