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‘spaced repetition’ directory

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.

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 mis­cel­la­neous ideas & ob­ser­va­tions on it.

See Also

Gwern

“Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning ”, Gwern 2009

Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning

“Prediction Markets ”, Gwern 2009

Prediction Markets

“Treadmill Desk Observations ”, Gwern 2012

Treadmill desk observations

Miscellaneous