You and your roommate spent all of last night studying for your psychology test. you think you know the material; however, you suggest that you study again the next morning an hour prior to the test. your roommate asks you to explain why you think this is a good idea. what do you tell her?

In this situation, you should remind your roommate about Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve, which states that the information you learn drops off rapidly with time. Even if you think you know the material, you should study it again right before test time to increase the likelihood the information will remain in your memory. Also, overlearning can help prevent storage decay.

I tell her about the forgetting curve. Studying again for the psychology test the next morning is a good idea because we need repetition since information will be harder to recall over time.

EXPLANATION

The forgetting curve is a theory that refers to the decline of memory retention over time. If a person makes no attempt to retain a memory, as reviewing it, or learning it again, then the information will most probably be lost over time.  

The term that is related to the forgetting curve is the strength of the memory. The strength of the memory is the durability of a memory trace in the brain. If the memory is stronger, as in the strength of the memory is high, then the longer period of time that a person is able to recall the memory.  

People tend to forget the information that they have learned in a matter of days or weeks. They forget it because they replace it with new information, so the information will eventually desist. This can be prevented by consciously trying to review and learn again the learned material.

There are also other reasons to determine the difficulty of the learned material. Factors such as how meaningful material is, how stressful the person, how much sleep are they getting, are all the reasons as to why a piece of information is harder to learn. Psychological factors are also a huge influence as to why a piece of information is easier to forget and harder to recall.

LEARN MORE

If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:

Distort facts:

Memory reflects a blend of fact and fiction:

KEYWORD: forgetting curve, psychology, study

Subject: Social Studies

Class: College

Subchapter: Forgetting curve

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