FIRST DIRECT EVIDENCE OF TWO STAGES IN FREE RECALL Eugen Tarnow Avalon Business Systems 18-11 Radburn Road, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410, USA I find that exactly two stages can be seen directly in sequential free recall distributions. <...> A discontinuity, a rounded step function, is shown to exist in the fitted linear slope of the recall distributions as the recall shifts from the emptying of working memory (positive slope) to the second stage (negative slope). <...> The discontinuity leads to a first estimate of the capacity of working memory at 4-4.5 items. <...> The total recall is shown to be a linear combination of the content of working memory and items recalled in the second stage with 3.0—3.9 items coming from working memory, a second estimate of the capacity of working memory. <...> A third, separate upper limit on the capacity of working memory is found (3.06 items), corresponding to the requirement that the content of working memory cannot exceed the total recall, item by item. <...> This third limit is presumably the best limit on the average capacity of unchunked working memory. <...> The second stage of recall is shown to be reactivation: The average times to retrieve additional items in free recall obey a linear relationship as a function of the recall probability which mimics recognition and cued recall, both mechanisms using reactivation (Tarnow, 2008). <...> Key words: free recall, working memory, reactivation, short term memory, working memory capacity Introduction. <...> Free recall stands out as one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern psychology (for reviews, please see, for example, Watkins [28]; Murdock [19]; Laming [14]; some believe existing computer models provide important insights, I do not). <...> It is one of the simplest ways to probe short term memory. <...> Why can we remember 50-100 items in cued recall but only 6-8 items in free recall? <...> If one may speak about a consensus in memory psychology, that short-term memory has a limited capacity store typically named “working m emory”, where can this store be seen in free recall and what is its capacity? <...> These calculations were based <...>