Improving Retention Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Improving Retention - Essay Example In these regards, it’s clear that the focus of thought is one of the primary actions to convert conscious awareness to stored memory. The next step in improving retention is to make consistent, yet spaced-out, efforts at retention. Bjork (2001) demonstrated that information that is researched in these consistent ways, rather than in steady state and fast ‘cramming’ methods, is not as well retained. Other methods that must be taken are to organize the material in tangible ways. Rather than sporadically attempting to retain various information elements, research has demonstrated that the mind functions much more efficiently when the information that is attempting to be retained is grouped into discernable categories. This allows the mind to group and process this information into memory with much greater efficiency. In addition to these methods of memory retention, there exist areas of memory retention that are more common knowledge. One such avenue within this fiel d of psychological memory retention is the mnemonic device. Mnemonic devices function as association tools that aid the mind in recalling and retaining information.