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Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning · Gwern.net

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Efficient memorization using the spacing effect: literature review of widespread applicability, tips on use & what it’s good for. Spaced rep­e­ti­tion is a centuries-old psy­cho­log­i­cal tech­nique for ef­fi­cient mem­o­riza­tion & prac­tice of skills where in­stead of at­tempt­ing to mem­o­rize by ‘cram­ming’, mem­o­riza­tion can be done far more ef­fi­ciently by in­stead spac­ing out each re­view, with in­creas­ing du­ra­tions as one learns the item, with the sched­ul­ing done by soft­ware. Be­cause of the greater ef­fi­ciency of its slow but steady ap­proach, spaced rep­e­ti­tion can scale to mem­o­riz­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of items (while crammed items are al­most im­me­di­ately for­got­ten) and is es­pe­cially use­ful for for­eign lan­guages & med­ical stud­ies. I re­view what this tech­nique is use­ful for, some of the large re­search lit­er­a­ture on it and the test­ing ef­fect (up to ~2013, pri­mar­ily), the avail­able soft­ware tools and use pat­terns, and mis­cel­la­ne

--- title: Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning description: "Efficient memorization using the spacing effect: literature review of widespread applicability, tips on use & what it's good for." thumbnail: /doc/psychology/spaced-repetition/2013-memotrainerrr.png thumbnail-text: "Conceptual graph comparing massed review and spaced repetition review effects on the probability of remembering a fact: massed works better initially, but the memory steadily decays away, while spaced repetition restores it regularly, locking it in place." thumbnail-css: "outline" created: 2009-03-11 modified: 2019-0

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