Biology’s findings benefit medicine. Botany’s findings benefit agriculture. Can psychology’s research on memory benefit your performance in class and on tests? You bet! Here, for easy reference, is a summary of research-based suggestions that can help you remember information when you need it. The SQ3R—Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review—study technique introduced in Chapter 1 includes several of these strategies:

Rehearse repeatedly. To master material, remember the spacing effect and use distributed (spaced) practice. To learn a concept, give yourself many separate study sessions. Take advantage of life’s little intervals—riding a bus, walking across campus, waiting for class to start. New memories are weak; exercise them and they will strengthen. To memorize specific facts or figures, research has shown that you should “rehearse the name or number you are trying to memorize, wait a few seconds, rehearse again, wait a little longer, rehearse again, then wait longer still and rehearse yet again. The waits should be as long as possible without losing the information” (Landauer, 2001). Rehearsal will help you retain material. As the testing effect has shown, it pays to study actively. Take lecture notes by hand. That way you will summarize the material in your own words, which will lead to better retention than typing the lecture word for word on your laptop. “The pen is mightier than the keyboard,” note researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer (2014).

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Make the material meaningful. You can build a network of retrieval cues by taking notes in your own words, and then increase these cues by forming as many associations as possible. Apply the concepts to your own life. Form images. Understand and organize information. Relate the material to what you already know or have experienced. As William James (1890) suggested, “Knit each new thing on to some acquisition already there.” Mindlessly repeating someone else’s words without taking the time to really understand what they mean won’t supply many retrieval cues. On an exam, you may find yourself stuck when a question uses terms different from the ones you memorized.

Activate retrieval cues. Remember the importance of context-dependent and state-dependent memory. Mentally re-create the situation in which your original learning occurred. Imagine returning to the same location and being in the same mood. Jog your memory by allowing one thought to cue the next.

Use mnemonic devices. Make up a story that uses vivid images of the items. Chunk information for easier retrieval.

Minimize proactive and retroactive interference. Study before sleeping. Do not schedule back-to-back study times for topics that are likely to interfere with each other, such as Spanish and French.

Sleep more. During sleep, the brain reorganizes and consolidates information for long-term memory. Sleep deprivation disrupts this process (Frenda et al., 2014). Even 10 minutes of waking rest enhances memory of what we have read (Dewar et al., 2012). So, after a period of hard study, you might just sit or lie down for a few minutes before tackling the next subject.

Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to find out what you don’t yet know. The testing effect is real, and it is powerful. Don’t become overconfident because you can recognize information. Test your recall using the Retrieve + Remember items found throughout each chapter, and the numbered Learning Objective Questions and Chapter Test questions at the end of each chapter. Outline sections using a blank page. Define the terms and concepts listed at each chapter’s end before turning back to their definitions. Take practice tests; the online resources that accompany many texts, including LaunchPad for this text, are a good source for such tests.