·Recovery frees dislocations from pinning so that they can move and cause more plastic deformation.

· Edge dislocations can move normal to a slip plane by diffusion controlled climb. Diffusion rates increase exponentially with absolute temperature.
· Screw dislocations can "cross slip" onto another slip plane when the resolved shear stress is above the stress required for dislocation motion.
· The mutual annihilation and reorganization of dislocations in a crystal also aids recovery.