Quotes About Memory

The greater the effort to retrieve learning, provided that you succeed, the more that learning is strengthened by retrieval

We gravitate to the narratives that best explain our emotions. In this way, narrative and memory become one.

the more effort required to retrieve (or, in effect, relearn) something, the better you learn it.

L. L. Jacoby, C. N. Wahlheim, & J. H. Coane, Test-enhanced learning of natural concepts: effects on recognition memory, classification, and metacognition, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 36 (2010), 1441

the kind of retrieval practice that proves most effective is one that reflects what you'll be doing with the knowledge later. It's not just what you know, but how you practice what you know that determines how well the learning serves you later.

Simply including one test (retrieval practice) in a class yields a large improvement in final exam scores, and gains continue to increase as the frequency of classroom testing increases. Testing

When retrieval practice is spaced, allowing some forgetting to occur between tests, it leads to stronger long-term retention than when it is massed.

Humans do not give greater credence to an objective record of a past event than to their subjective remembering of it, and we are surprisingly insensitive to the ways our particular construals of a situation are unique to ourselves. Thus the narrative of memory becomes central to our intuitions regarding the judgments we make and the actions we take. 5

where more cognitive effort is required for retrieval, greater retention results.

central challenge to improving the way we learn is finding a way to interrupt the process of forgetting.2

when the mind has to work, learning sticks better.

learning: we mean acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities.

First, to be useful, learning requires memory, so what we've learned is still there later when we need it. Second, we need to keep learning and remembering all our lives. We can't advance through middle school without some mastery of language arts, math, science, and social studies. Getting ahead at work takes mastery of job skills and difficult colleagues. In retirement, we pick up new interests. In our dotage, we move into simpler housing while we're still able to adapt.

Ease of retrieval after a delay, however, is a good indicator of learning.)

Rereading has three strikes against it. It is time consuming. It doesn't result in durable memory. And it often involves a kind of unwitting self-deception, as growing familiarity with the text comes to feel like mastery of the content. The hours immersed in rereading can seem like due diligence, but the amount of study time is no measure of mastery.

Retrieval practice—recalling facts or concepts or events from memory—is a more effective learning strategy than review by rereading. Flashcards are a simple example. Retrieval strengthens the memory and interrupts forgetting. A single, simple quiz after reading a text or hearing a lecture produces better learning and remembering than rereading the text or reviewing lecture notes.

One of the most striking research findings is the power of active retrieval—testing—to strengthen memory, and that the more effortful the retrieval, the stronger the benefit.

One of the best habits a learner can instill in herself is regular self-quizzing to recalibrate her understanding of what she does and does not know.

The act of retrieving learning from memory has two profound benefits. One, it tells you what you know and don't know, and therefore where to focus further study to improve the areas where you're weak. Two, recalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens its connections to what you already know and makes it easier for you to recall in the future.

The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to your prior knowledge, the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later.

Spaced and interleaved exposure characterizes most of humans' normal experience.

Knowledge is more durable if it's deeply entrenched, meaning that you have firmly and thoroughly comprehended a concept, it has practical importance or keen emotional weight in your life, and it is connected with other knowledge that you hold in memory.

When you space out practice at a task and get a little rusty between sessions, or you interleave the practice of two or more subjects, retrieval is harder and feels less productive, but the effort produces longer lasting learning and enables more versatile application of it in later settings.

In another surprise, when letters are omitted from words in a text, requiring the reader to supply them, reading is slowed, and retention improves.