Therefore the recency effect is commonly explained by short-term memory (STM)(also known as primary or working memory). Our STM can store a small amount of information (2-4 items) for a limited time. The final few items of a list being present in our STM during recall may be one reason for the primacy effect. This theory explains why the recency effect is generally larger than the primacy effect. More effort is needed to retrieve initial items from long-term memory (LTM). However, distractor tasks can easily suppress or distract STM, explaining why they eliminate the recency effect.