Final answer:
Elaborative rehearsal is the process of linking new information to knowledge already stored in your memory to improve long-term retention. It involves deeper levels of processing, making information more meaningful and thereby enhancing memory consolidation.
Step-by-step explanation:
Elaborative rehearsal involves linking material to things you already know. This type of rehearsal is an effective strategy for encoding information into long-term memory. By associating new information with existing knowledge, individuals create more complex networks of understanding which facilitate memory retention and retrieval. For instance, if you learn a new phone number and relate it to an area code you're already familiar with, like linking the area code 203 to your uncle Abdul in Connecticut, this process helps in retaining that new phone number more effectively. Furthermore, Craik and Lockhart's levels of processing hypothesis suggest that the deeper the level of processing, the more likely the information is to be retained in long-term memory. Employing this principle through elaborative rehearsal, such as linking the hippocampus to the image of a 'hippopotamus with an excellent memory', reinforces memory consolidation.