Learning vocabulary seems to be efficient if the words are learned in a fixed sequence, but it seems to be harder to recall these words in a different sequence then the learning sequence.
I wonder which theory can explain this effect, is it "chunking"?
Some definitions define chunking as a process where facts are organized in groups "chunks" that can be better memorized then the single facts.
In other definitions, it is described as an effect, where the elements of a chunk can be better predicted, because the probability of the occurrence of an element following another element is higher. Or in other words, we learn, that in the context of a special chunk an 'a' is mostly followed by an 'b' and so we can memorize the chunk 'ab' better.