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Spaced repetition

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Re: Spaced repetition

#41

Post by rhizome »

Afforess wrote: post #2

I find it very frustrating that spaced repetition is the best recourse we (humans) have to remember information. I am regularly concerned with the number of thoughts and interesting ideas I have each day, and don't manage to write down or otherwise preserve. I have begun recording some minor annotations and idle thoughts on paper a month ago and after reviewing them today, I am shocked at how many I simply do not rec…

I deal with this by adding as much state-of-mind detail to my notes and idea-scribblings as I feel necessary to enable me to come back and maybe use it later. I don't worry about why I can't remember my exact state of mind, because even in operating systems, process-checkpointing and -migration is difficult. Front-load that difficulty with metadata!

Re: Spaced repetition

#42

Post by pmoriarty »

swsieber wrote: post #14
cpchen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are techniques with better payoff and retention. Check the memory systems advocated by David Roth or Harry Lorayne, or the locus method ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci )

Read also: Moonwalking with Einstein

Also see the Mentat Wiki:

http://www.ludism.org/mentat

They've got many great, practical articles on mnemonics and other memorization techniques.

Re: Spaced repetition

#43

Post by buzzybee »

Afforess wrote: post #2

I find it very frustrating that spaced repetition is the best recourse we (humans) have to remember information. I am regularly concerned with the number of thoughts and interesting ideas I have each day, and don't manage to write down or otherwise preserve. I have begun recording some minor annotations and idle thoughts on paper a month ago and after reviewing them today, I am shocked at how many I simply do not rec…

People who really get into the idea of maintaining a large personal information store generally seem to start fashioning technology that suits them, anything from paper, cards, and filing boxes to original software development.

And the problem of information loss is, indeed, well known. Anyone who has to take meeting minutes and distil them into a report faces a huge task; human conversation regularly drifts off topic.

We have such a highly connected world now that in-brain memory, while still undeniably valuable, isn't quite as important as it used to be - certainly not as much as it was in the ancient era, where oral traditions were the rule. If you want to know general facts and principles, these days, you hit up a search engine. The only part that has to be committed to memory now is the practice and understanding necessary for subject fluency. I don't concern myself with knowing everything, but with being able to act naturally moment-to-moment, following small whims, and yet still progress towards some greater task with a few habits and techniques that will develop it regardless of the angle I am using at that moment.

For my own ideas I use a variety of techniques now: To quickly develop stuff in the near term, I open an empty, private chat room and monologue into it. To visualize, brainstorm, and recall larger things, I make mind maps. For basic to-dos I use plain text or Trello. When I need visuals, I keep around some binder paper to doodle with.

Re: Spaced repetition

#44

Post by pmoriarty »

laurieg wrote: post #4

Spaced repetition is a wonderful tool. I came across it when I started learning languages and have over 5000 cards in my largest Anki deck for words and phrases. A lot of thought is put into how to use a learners time most effectively. The algorithm designers seem to want to optimize their software so that a student only sees a card they are likely to be on the verge of forgetting. Because of this, uses often fail wh…

My main problem with spaced repetition programs like Anki is getting the motivation to stick with them long-term. This also dovetails in with my problems with procrastination. I've never seen a good solution. Most of the proposed solutions boil down to "just do it". It doesn't work for me.

Re: Spaced repetition

#45

Post by berntb »

Afforess wrote: post #2

I find it very frustrating that spaced repetition is the best recourse we (humans) have to remember information. I am regularly concerned with the number of thoughts and interesting ideas I have each day, and don't manage to write down or otherwise preserve. I have begun recording some minor annotations and idle thoughts on paper a month ago and after reviewing them today, I am shocked at how many I simply do not rec…

My model for notes is converging on Org Mode.

But... With a review process every day and every week, GTD-style. I see this need from my notes over the last couple of years from the job. Not usable for documentation (as I had planned) or helpful for other people.

I read about a guy at MIT(?) that could be mobile with a relevant setup years ago. It should be simpler now than it was for Mann et al. Just use an eyeglasses screen (Google, where are you?) and a chording keyboard strapped to your hand.

Re: Spaced repetition

#46

Post by hf »

summarite wrote: post #30
hf wrote: post #6

I wrote a program I fancifully called 'Human Unit Tests' to aid me in my studies (learning a diverse set of constants for biophysics). I can very much attest to the effectiveness of spaced repetition. But, /boy/, do you need to stay on the ball. You can't really afford a cavalier, let's-see attitude with this (given any non-trivial amount of items-to-be-memorized). The review process needs to be as much part of a dai…

Can you expand a bit on the coordinate terms issue? My impression would be that comes rather from the encoding rather than recall?

Sure, I'll try to elaborate.

Suppose you're reading a biography of Huygens. You may find yourself inspired to memorize a few of the basic facts therein. Dutifully, you feed his life's dates, his major acquaintances and maybe a few places of importance into the SR system of your choice. You are committed and keep repeating those facts in ever-increasing intervals.

After a few years a random conversation touches upon the very subject. To your delight you discover that you are able to hold forth on Huygens, the man and his time.

To your surprise (and this is my contention [and experience]), you also find yourself able to speak with some level of accuracy about tangential matter -- eg. the theories he worked on -- without ever having either added related facts to the database or dealt with the subject matter in the intervening years.

In other words: recall of a whole web of interconnected pieces of knowledge may be strengthened considerably by spaced repetition of just a few of the central facts.

In my experience there's no specific 'encoding' procedure necessary. I never put any thought into carefully selecting facts for the spaced repetition treatment, yet the effect usually manifested itself. So, yes, I would say it's a 'recall' phenomenon inasmuch as the brain does all the heavy lifting.

Re: Spaced repetition

#47

Post by xamuel »

summarite wrote: post #31
xamuel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I retained You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to continue using the deck , indefinitely or until you're okay with losing it all. When a deck's life is measured in years, most cards' appearance frequency also become measured in years.

I found it really motivating to see the message that a card will appear again in 4 or 7 years! But i never got beyond a year of actually using a deck...

Helps if you have a daily commute on public transportation (like in NYC or London or something). Perfect way to make that time productive :)

Re: Spaced repetition

#48

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

Afforess wrote: post #2

I find it very frustrating that spaced repetition is the best recourse we (humans) have to remember information. I am regularly concerned with the number of thoughts and interesting ideas I have each day, and don't manage to write down or otherwise preserve. I have begun recording some minor annotations and idle thoughts on paper a month ago and after reviewing them today, I am shocked at how many I simply do not rec…

I don't think those thoughts get lost: I think they end up tuning your future thoughts.

Your reaction to those random thoughts is used as feedback to your subconscious and brain structure as to how it should organize and what kinds of thoughts it should generate in the future.

Re: Spaced repetition

#49

Post by cerrelio »

summarite wrote: post #34
cerrelio wrote: post #5

This is the subject I tackled in grad school. It was super interesting, because many people still believe that memorizing stuff is best if you cram for an extended period of time. Showing them that just a few minutes of review at properly spaced intervals leads to better memorization floored most of the participants. My particular research was the quantify the effects of the variance in follow-up exposure times. I di…

Cramming might actually be the most time-effective strategy for a short recall period (one off exam). But naturally not if the aim is long term recall.

It is. We were specifically dealing with ESL/second-language learning though. Long term retention is necessary for fluency. If you want to pass a driver's exam or material you don't really care about beyond passing a test, then cram. Although in most classes, you will probably want to retain knowledge beyond a month in order to do well on a final.

Re: Spaced repetition

#50

Post by ktRolster »

Afforess wrote: post #2

I find it very frustrating that spaced repetition is the best recourse we (humans) have to remember information. I am regularly concerned with the number of thoughts and interesting ideas I have each day, and don't manage to write down or otherwise preserve. I have begun recording some minor annotations and idle thoughts on paper a month ago and after reviewing them today, I am shocked at how many I simply do not rec…

I find it very frustrating that spaced repetition is the best recourse we (humans) have to remember information.

I've worked on this for a while. I've written several different memory programs, for helping to review and memorize things. I have some thoughts that may help you feel better:

In the end, spaced repetition is not what causes people to memorize things. You can review an object over and over and over......50 times, or a hundred times, and still not remember it. Other times, something will click in your mind, and you'll remember it the first time, without any repetition.

My hypothesis is that repetition merely increases the chances of your brain being in a state where it will remember the thing you are trying to remember. And certainly there are things you can do to increase the chances of it sticking.

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