Spaced Repetition: The Science Behind it

At some point in your study journey, you might have found yourself spending hours staring at a textbook… feeling completely overwhelmed. We know how you feel! After spending hours memorizing a chapter, sometimes when it comes to the next day, we can’t even recall what we learned 😫. This is a common problem for people. In fact, 90% of new knowledge is forgotten within three days if it is not reviewed at proper times! 

The question arises, why does this happen? When you overwhelm yourself with too much new information without giving yourself time to properly revise the prior information, you don’t give your brain enough time to store anything in its long term memory storage! As a result, the majority of what you learn goes into your short term memory. 👀

This is universal struggle that has troubled humans since the very beginning of education, and there have been many psychologists who dedicated themselves to finding a way or hack to help us memorize big amounts of information in a much shorter time. 

There was one psychologist who figured out the answer to the problem — the famous Herman Enbinghaus. 🤓

Spacing Effect, a discovery by Herman Enbinghaus 

Have you ever heard of the “forgetting curve”? 🤔 This curve shows how long it takes us to forget a newly learned piece of information. In 1885, Ebbinghaus discovered that information retention decreases exponentially unless you review it at intervals. 

If you want to read Ebbinghaus’ first publication about the forgetting curve, it is called “Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology”. 

He came up with the “spacing effect”. If you review newly learned information at specific time intervals, it flattens the forgetting curve —  meaning that you will remember it for a longer time. 🧠 Your memory improves when you space out your study sessions over a period of time instead of doing huge long study sessions! 

Research has actually shown that if you revise a new piece of information 20 times over the course of one day, you remember less than if you revise it 10 times in a week! Your brain needs time to form new neural pathways to remember new information. 💪🚀

💡 In summary: memory is lost very fast in the early days and then more slowly as time passes, and the rate of forgetting can be slowed down with spaced repetition! 🤓 

The science behind spaced repetition 👀🤖 

“Cramming seeks to stamp things by intense application before the ordeal, but a thing thus learned can form few associations. On the other hand, the same thing recurring on different days, read, recited again and again gets well-wrought in our mental structure.” — William James, 1900. 

1. Consolidation

After learning a new piece of information, our brain works to process or consolidate it. During this time, the brain is working on storing the info into our long term memory. If we don’t review this information, we can forget it in time. To prevent this, we have to do: 

2. Reconsolidation 

During reconsolidation, we re-visit the information to reinforce and strengthen the memory. This reviewing process is a key element for the information to be stored in our long term memory for longer periods of time! 💪

3. Optimal Retrieval Timing:  

It is important that your review sessions should be done at a time during which you need to: (1) make an effort to remember the information, BUT (2) it is not forgotten yet. Number 1 is important because it is the effort you put in to remember the information that will further strengthen your memory. 

This is why spaced repetition follows an algorithm of longer and longer time periods between each review session as time passes. The interval between study sessions gradually increases as you strengthen your memory. 🤖 

4. Active Recall 

Instead of passively reading a textbook or listening to a lecture, opting for active recall is a much more effective method of studying. With active recall, you make yourself recall information from your memory! This reinforces neural pathways so you can better remember the information in the future. 🚀

5. Personalized studying

The amount of time between review sessions is based on how well you can recall the information. After you try to remember a piece of information, you have to rate your confidence level on a scale. Based on this scale, the algorithm calculates how much time should pass until you have to revise the information again. 

Personalization is important because it optimizes the way you spend your study time — it allows you to focus your study sessions on topics/areas where you are the weakest in.  This is time efficient because you spend less time studying things you already know. 🤓

Scientific evidence behind spaced repetition🧪 

There have been many studies that have shown that students who study via spaced repetition have higher exam performance and scores than students who cram or study in a shorter period of time. Cramming can feel more productive, but it becomes counterproductive in the long run. Spaced repetition is a scientifically proven method that is more effective in the long run 🎉🚀.

There is a notable experimental psychology study which found that people who used spaced repetition to study had an average recall accuracy of 80%, significantly higher than the 60% in the group that crammed everything! 

The below infographic dives into further notable studies that prove the efficacy of spaced repetition 📖📚🚀

Time for more productive study sessions! 

You don’t need to cram hours and hours every day to memorize huge amounts of information. Doing this might make you exhausted and forget everything during the exam! Instead, you can try spaced repetition with apps like Voovo to put all the information in your long term memory! This way, you can go to your next exam with full confidence. 👏

Remember, the brain is an incredible power machine but it still needs to be given time to be able to absorb new information, process it, and consolidate it. By studying through spaced repetition, you give your brain enough time to do all of this and store the newly learned information in your long term memory! 🎉