Concept: Rote Rehearsal versus Elaborative Rehearsal
Maintenance rehearsal, also known as rote rehearsal, is a process of continuously repeating a specific fact or set of information in order to keep it in working memory for a longer period of time. This is done so that a person can memorize that information, however once the repeating stops the information goes away (most times). About 30 seconds after rote rehearsal ends, the information will be gone because the short-term memory only has a capacity of approximately seven items and a duration of 12 to 30 seconds.
However, elaborative rehearsal can be used to transfer the information in short-term memory into long-term memory. This is a process in which you make the information meaningful by thinking about “its relation to knowledge already stored in your memory” (Wede). The chance for the information to remain in long term memory will be much stronger if there is a personal connection to the material at hand.
Although rote rehearsal gives a person the ability to memorize a set of information for a short period of time in working memory, elaborative rehearsal is much more effective at allowing a person to retain information and store it in their long-term memory by making it meaningful information.
Experience: Forgetting Cranial Nerves
One personal experience that relates to the differences in rote and elaborative rehearsal occurred a couple of weeks ago in my biology lab. By the end of my lab period, I was required to have memorized the twelve cranial nerves, in order, and repeat them back to my teaching assistant. Throughout the lab, I went over the nerves over and over again. I was saying them nonstop to my lab partners as we all took turns practicing. I was using rote rehearsal by repeating the information constantly which kept it within my working memory, however I was not making it meaningful via elaborative rehearsal. This was my downfall, because without elaborative rehearsal, the information never made it into my long-term memory and therefore was never retained.
When our teaching assistant came to our table, we all had to be quiet and I was the last one to recite the order of the nerves to my teacher. It had been about a minute since I had last repeated the terms. By this point I could only remember the first few nerves before I forgot the rest, and this is because I stopped the rote rehearsal and the information left my short-term memory shortly after stopping.
I thought that I forgot the nerves due to pressure, but really it was due to the duration and capacity of my short-term memory. I would have had a better chance at remembering all of the cranial nerves if I had taken the time to use elaborative rehearsal and related the nerves back to my personal life, which would have helped to move the information into my long-term memory.
References
Wede, J. (n.d.). Psychology.
Hi, your experience about rote rehearsal is really interesting. You are true that maintenance rehearsals only last really short and in order to turn our short-term memory into long term memory, we will have to use elaborative rehearsals. Short-term memory’s limited duration determined that our way to keep the memory is to do elaborative rehearsal. Just like you, I used to do maintenance rehearsals a lot when I need to memorize some things, especially in my English class for vocabularies. I always just repeat the words over and over again and try to remember it based on its pronunciation. But every time when there’s a vocabulary quiz, I can’t remember the words’ meanings or even the spellings since I didn’t do elaborative rehearsals to make them meaningful and store them in my long-term memory. And since then, I started to make connections between the new words with the words I already learned so that they make sense to me. And in this way, I actually memorized a lot more words than using rote rehearsals. Overall, elaborative rehearsal is the way to go.
Hi, your experience about Maintenance Rehearsal is very interesting and relatable! It is crazy how so many students use this process to study for tests and quizzes, which helps me now notice as to why that is not an effective way of studying. Using Maintenance Rehearsal for studying is not useful for the information only lasts within our working memory for about 30 seconds and then is lost within our Short-Term Memory. It is effective though to use Elaborative Rehearsal because it will allow us to make connections with what we are studying and our real life situations in order to keep it within our Long-Term Memory. I use Maintenance Rehearsal a lot when studying, just like how you did in your personal experience. In my Anatomy class in high school we were having a lab practical on the parts of the body. I kept repeating the terms and their locations over and over again in my head. Though when it came time to the practical, about two minutes passed and most of it was swept out of my memory. It would have been smarter for me to use Elaborative Rehearsal when studying because I would have been able to make connections with the parts of the body and my personal life situations to help me remember all of the terms and store them into my Long-Term Memory. Elaborative is a lot more effective than Maintenance Rehearsal, and we need to start using this process more when we study.