Positional coding theory suggests that every item in a list is associated to its position in the list. For example, if the list is "apple, banana, orange, mango" apple will be associated to list position 1, banana to 2, orange to 3, and mango to 4. Furthermore, each item is also, albeit more weakly, associated to its index +/- 1, even more weakly to +/- 2, and so forth. So banana is associated not only to its actual index 2, but also to 1, 3, and 4, with varying degrees of strength. For example, positional coding can be used to explain the effects of recency and primacy. Because items at the beginning and end of a list have fewer close neighbors compared to items in the middle of the list, they have less competition for correct recall.