List-Length Effect

The list-length effect refers to the phenomenon of people remembering only a small percentage of items from a list - however as the list gets longer a greater number of items are actually remembered.

For instance, when a person goes grocery shopping and forgets their list they tend to remember only a few items. But this happens whether it is a short list or a long list. If a person has a long list they are more likely to remember a larger percentage of the items because the list was longer than if they tried to remember a short list.