Memory rehearsal

Memory rehearsal is a term for the role of repetition in the retention of memories. It involves repeating information over and over in order to get the information processed and stored as a memory.

Maintenance rehearsal is a type of memory rehearsal that is useful in maintaining information in short term memory or working memory. However, it is not an effective way of having information processed and transferred into long term memory. This type of rehearsal usually involves repeating information without thinking about its meaning or connecting it to other information. This is why the information is not usually transferred to long term memory.

An example of maintenance rehearsal would be remembering a phone number only long enough to make the phone call. For instance, one may look up a phone number in a phone book and constantly repeat the number out loud until the number is put into the phone to make the call. The number is held in working memory long enough to make the call but the number is never transferred to long term memory. An hour later, or even five minutes after the call, the phone number will no longer be remembered.

Maintenance rehearsal is a term used in the study of memory. The idea was started in 1972 when researchers Craik and Lockhard determined there are two routes of information processing used for recall. Maintenance rehearsal involves continuing to process an item at the same level (Baddeley, 2009). Maintenance rehearsal only requires a low-level amount of cognitive attention because it is basic and repetitive. It has the potential for immediate recall, but has little effect in recall in long term memory (Greene, 1987). Depending on the information that needs to be processed determines which route of recall an individual will use. For example, if the information only needs to be used temporarily, a person will use maintenance rehearsal in working memory. But, if the information needs to be used at a later date, most likely a person will use elaborative rehearsal. In elaborative rehearsal, the information is processed at a deeper level and has the ability to move to long-term memory. In a literature review, researchers proposed a hypothesis that, “Information entering working memory from the visual external world is processed by structures in the parietal and temporal lobes specialized for perceptual processing (Jondies, Lacey & Nee, 2005).

Maintenance rehearsal has the potential to assist in long-term memory in certain situations. In a previous study, researchers looked at the difference in recall for a set of words between participants who knew they were going to be asked to recall the words, in which they repeated the words multiple times and the participants who did not know they were going to recall the words, in which they only repeated the words once. The group that were told they would have to recall the words at a later date, did significantly better than those who were not told they would have to recall (Baddeley, 2009). There is also a positive correlation between the meaningfulness of words and how much an individual will remember them (Baddeley, 2009). The more meaning an individual associates with a certain word or a list of words, the more likely and easier it will be for them to remember them if asked to repeat them at a later date.

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