Free recall has been used extensively in memory research. When recall is plotted in terms of input order, a recall curve, a serial position curve, emerges. Recall on first and last items is much better than recall on the middle items and this clear separation between beginning and end has long been interpreted as evidence for two-store models of memory. Over the years, it has been used in conjunction with various experimental manipulations and research questions. Here, in two experiments, continuous-distractor free recall is used within the framework of the time-based resource-sharing model (TBRS). The TBRS posits that if attention is switched away by a distractor task from to be maintained items, their memory representations suffer from a time-related decay and are forgotten if not regularly reactivated by means of attentional refreshing...