Elaboration in psychology is the cornerstone of memory retention process . If we look up the verb from the term itself i.e. Elaborate it means to mark with detail, complexity and richness in addition to developing or executing with care. In other words, in order for us to retain something as a memory we need to make it ours as in a part from us. The only way to do this is to give it a value i.e. A meaning. In this respect, the meaning-making process has to do with our belief system and how we choose to make something worth retaining i.e. Persuasion to keep and from this notion the debate about peripheral persuasion route and central persuasion route began. Some even claim that the two routes complement each other . You can advanced reading about this through M. David Merrill, Jeffrey C. Kelety and Brent Wilson’s book: Elaboration theory and cognitive psychology or you can read and download for free on scribd.com on this link: www.scribd.com/search?query=elaboration
