Maddie is studying for her final exams. Explain how the curve of forgetting, effortful processing, and distributed practice may impact her learning and performance on the exam.

The curve of forgetting describes how we forget what we have learned as time passes. To decrease forgetfulness over the new information acquired, Maddie should use two strategies: distributed practice and effortful processing.

By using distributed practice, the curve of forgetting decreases, and she will effectively retain the information. This practice consists of reviewing the new information soon after Maddie learned to prevent a high lowering in the forgetting curve. Then, she should study the lesson again, and continue doing this but with long periods in between reviewings. The result is a reduction in the forgetting curve, and Maddie has encoded the information in her memory.

The second strategy is effortful processing. This technique consists of paying attention and make a conscious effort to retain the information and not forget it. By doing this, Maddie will decrease the forgetting rate.

If Maddie combines the knowledge about the forgetting curve with distributed practice and effortful processing, she will succeed in her final exams since she managed to encode the necessary information.

Explanation:                        

Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus created the forgetting curve after his investigation about memory and how we retain information. He found out that we remember what we have learned less as time goes by. But also that there are methods to prevent the loss of memory over time. Distributed practice, effortful learning, finding a purpose to retain the information and making the information clear, sleeping well, and being relaxed helps to encode it in our memory.