The phenomenon where people remember the first and last items best in a list is known as:

The phenomenon where people best remember the first and last items in a list is known as the serial position effect. This concept stems from research in cognitive psychology that highlights how the position of an item within a sequence affects recall ability. Specifically, items that are presented at the beginning of a list are more likely to be remembered due to the primacy effect, while items at the end are recalled effectively because of the recency effect.

The primacy effect suggests that earlier items benefit from more rehearsal and encoding into long-term memory, while the recency effect indicates that items at the end are still fresh in short-term memory. Together, these effects illustrate why individuals often have a better recall for the first and last items they encounter, making the serial position effect a crucial concept in understanding memory and learning.