free recall is a way of experimenting that is used in psychology. it is used to test memory. free recall is the most common method of studying the serial position effect. to use free recakk, a person is shown a list of items. these items are normally words. the person is then asked to say which items they can remember from the list in any order. one major problem with this method is that the tests are usually done in a controlled environment. this means the result may not be different from what happens in the real world.