ings method, the amount of repetitions required to relearn the list compared to the amount
of repetitions it took to learn the list originally. Ebbinghaus also found that if he continued
to practice a list after memorizing it well, the information was more resistant to forgetting.
He called this the overlearning effect. When we try to retrieve a long list of words, we usu-
ally recall the last words and the first words best, forgetting the words in the middle. This
is called the serial position effect.Theprimacy effectrefers to better recall of the first items,
thought to result from greater rehearsal; the recency effectrefers to better recall of the last
items. Immediately after learning, the last items may still be in working memory, accounting
for the recency effect. We may remember words from the beginning of the list days later
because rehearsal moved the words into our LTM.
What helps us remember? Retrieval cues,reminders associated with information we
are trying to get out of memory, aid us in remembering. Retrieval cues can be other words
or phrases in a specific hierarchy or semantic network, context, and mood or emotions.
Primingis activating specific associations in memory either consciously or unconsciously.
Retrieval cues prime our memories.
Cramming for a test does not help us remember as well as studying for the same total
amount of time in shorter sessions on different occasions. Numerous studies have shown
thatdistributed practice,spreading out the memorization of information or the learning
of skills over several sessions, facilitates remembering better than massed practice,cram-
ming the memorization of information or the learning of skills into one session.
If we use mnemonic devicesor memory tricks when encoding information, these
devices will help us retrieve concepts, for example acronyms such as ROY G. BIV
for colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) or sayings
such as, “My very educated mother just served us noodles” for the planets (Mercury,
Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune). Another mnemonic, the method of loci,
uses association of words on a list with visualization of places on a familiar path. For
example, to remember ten items on a grocery list (chicken, corn, bread, etc.), we asso-
ciate each with a place in our house (a chicken pecking at the front door, corn making
a yellow mess smashed into the foyer, etc.). At the grocery store, we mentally take a tour
of our house and retrieve each of the items. Another mnemonic to help us remember
lists, the peg word mnemonic,requires us to first memorize a scheme such as “One is
a bun, two is a shoe,” and so on, then mentally picture using the chicken in the bun,
the corn in the shoe, etc. These images help both to encode items into LTM and later
to retrieve them back into our working memory.
Successful retrieval often depends on the match between the way information is
encoded in our brains and the way it is retrieved. The context that we are in when we expe-
rience an event, the mood we are in, and our internal state all affect our memory of an
event. Our recall is often better when we try to recall information in the same physical set-
ting in which we encoded it, possibly because along with the information, the environment
is part of the memory trace; this process is called context-dependent memory.Taking a
test in the same room where we learned information can result in greater recall and higher
grades.Mood congruenceaids retrieval. We recall experiences better that are consistent with
our mood at retrieval; we remember information of other happy times when we are happy,
and information of other sad times when we are unhappy. Finally, memory of an event can
bestate-dependent;things we learn in one internal state are more easily recalled when in
the same state again. Although memory of anything learned when people are drunk is not
good, if someone was drunk when he or she hid a gift, he or she might recall where the gift
was hidden when he or she was drunk again.132 STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
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