Design for Long-Term Memory

What individuals know, and how that knowledge is organized, determines how new knowledge will be acquired. Models of long-term memory depend on imagined organizing principles, which vary greatly among individuals. They include: "chunking" of information into manageable pieces; "associative networks" of implicit connections; "analogues" and "frames" of visual relationships; "propositions" in private languages; "prototypes" of defining examples, and "scripts" constructed around real-world scenarios. The informational design of a text should allow the reader to choose among organizing principles. Analogies and examples are a good way to link new content to familiar ideas and build on existing mental frameworks.