THE VALUE OF 5-10-MINUTE BREAKS The serial position effect refers to improved recall observed at the beginnings and ends of lists. Separately, these are called the primacy effect and recency effect, respectively. Memorizing a hypothetical list of 20 words, your recall might look something like this: This mid-list dip can be observed in study sessions as well, so a 90-minute session might resemble the below graph: We can dramatically improve recall by splitting that single session into two sessions of 45 minutes with a 10-minute break in between.