User:HadleyJoAnn/sandbox

Organization
Researchers have discovered that our minds naturally organize information if the information received is not organized. One natural way information can be organized is through hierarchies. For example, the grouping mammals, reptiles, and amphibians is a hierarchy of the animal kingdom.

Generation Effect
Main Article: Generation effect

Another principle that may have the potential to aid encoding is the generation effect. The generation effect implies that learning is enhanced when individuals generate information or items themselves rather than reading the content. The key to properly apply the generation effect is to actively generate information rather than passively select from information already available like in selecting an answer from a multiple-choice question. In 1978, researchers Slameka and Graf conducted an experiment to better understand this effect. In this experiment, the participants were assigned to one of two groups, the read group or the generate group. The participants assigned to the read group were asked to simply read a list of paired words that were related, for example, horse-saddle. The participants assigned to the generate group were asked to fill in the blank letters of one of the related words in the pair. In other words, if the participant was given the word horse, they would need to fill in the last four letters of the word saddle.The researchers discovered that the group that was asked to fill in the blanks had better recall for these word pairs than the group that was asked to simply remember the word pairs.

Self-reference effect
Main Article: Self-reference effect

Research illustrates that the self-reference effect aids encoding. The self-reference effect is the idea that individuals will encode information more effectively if they can personally relate to the information. For example, some people may claim that some birth dates of family members and friends are easier to remember than others. Some researchers claim this may be due to the self-reference effect. For example, some birth dates are easier for individuals to recall if the date is close to their own birth date or any other dates they deem important, such as anniversary dates.

Salience
Main Articles: Salience (language), Salience (neuroscience)

When an item or idea is considered "salient", it means the item or idea appears to noticeably stand out. When information is salient, it may be encoded in memory more efficiently than if the information did not stand out to the learner. In reference to encoding, any event involving survival may be considered salient. Research has shown that survival may be related to the self-reference effect due to evolutionary mechanisms. Researchers have discovered that even words that are high in survival value are encoded better than words that are ranked lower in survival value. Some research supports evolution, claiming that the human species remembers content associated with survival. Some researchers wanted to see for themselves whether or not the findings of other research was accurate. The researchers decided to replicate an experiment with results that supported the idea that survival content is encoded better than other content. The findings of the experiment further suggested that survival content has a higher advantage of being encoded than other content.