According to memory theories, how does recall accuracy decay?

Recall accuracy is understood to decay at an exponential rate based on established memory theories. This means that the likelihood of accurately recalling information declines rapidly at first and then slows down over time. Initially, after learning, a significant amount of the information may be forgotten quickly, but as time progresses, the curve of forgetting becomes less steep, indicating that while some information is lost early on, a portion may remain stable for longer periods.

This phenomenon aligns with the forgetting curve proposed by Ebbinghaus, which illustrates that memory retention decreases steeply shortly after learning and then levels off as time goes on. In contrast, other rates of decay, such as linear or constant, would imply that recall diminishes steadily or uniformly, which does not accurately capture how human memory functions over time. The idea of fluctuating unpredictably does not align with the systematic patterns observed in memory research; it suggests randomness in decay, which is not supported by empirical evidence regarding memory retention and forgetting.