This is often about where the users eyes land and how they scan over the pages. Googling "Google SERP Heatmap" will show up a number of results. Basically it boils down to how much traffic (number of clicks) each result on the google results gets. For example the top spot gets over 40% (cant remember the exact number) of all traffic from people searching for that term. it diminishes from there. I just found a quick overview on youtube here