Maria is trying to recall the names of all 48 of the contiguous united states. she begins by naming the new england states, followed by the mid-atlantic states, the states in the southeast, the midwest, the southwest, and finally the states in the pacific northwest. maria's pattern of recall illustrates the concept of

Clustering

Explanation:

Clustering is the technique through which elements of items are gathered in a group or collection.This is usually done to make the groups of the items that persist the same trait or quality so that it can be easily managed and organized  for certain purpose.

According to the question, Maria is using the method of clustering to group the adjacent states of the United states so that she can recall them through naming it by clustering the states separately New England, Mid-Atlantic states ,Southeast state etc.

there is an explationation of this on a site called crash   course world history 1

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