Comment by bayesian_horse | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bayesian_horse | Hacker News Reader

Spaced repetition is misunderstood. The original idea was to decrease the amount of time needed for long term memorization, over a different approach, like sequential or purely random repetition. However, many people now compare SRS over no repetition at all.

One big problem of SRS is that it gets unwieldy with larger chunks of information. SRS is good for vocabulary, bad for medical texts. The much bigger problem is that it takes an unpractical amount of calendar time. If you have three months, yes you can SRS a few hundred words. If you have a week and want full recollection at the end, you'll still repeat the list of words a couple dozen times and SRS makes no difference.

Another problem is the time it takes to prepare a database or a set of paper cards. By the time I prepare a database from a book I could probably read the thing twice or more times.

For exams that require recital of information (for example medical or law exams) mnemonic techniques like the Loci method (also called memory palace) are much more reliable and more practical.

I’m OP. Thank you for the feedback! I don't see why not comparing "SRS over no repetition at all". To me, SRS or no SRS, they are all learning/studying methods.

All SRS algorithm is expanding, i.e. increasing intervals. So maybe with continue success, it'll be: 1 day, 2, 4, 16, 40, 300 (arbitrary numbers).

How do you propose to lean medical texts, if without SRS?

Mnemonic techniques only work with rote recall, whereas flashcards, if formulated well, can help induction, understanding, not just recall.

The idea with SRS is that the exponential scheduling is supposed to be more efficient than random or sequential scheduling.

I did study for medical exams with mnemonic techniques. Studies have shown that they do not inhibit understanding at all. In my experience they even help understanding. They totally dominate SRS on anything looking like a table or list. With text it's not as pronounced, but still you can memorize the key words, as few as possible, as many as necessary.

Flashcards are first of all a rewrite of the original material. If that is really necessary, the original material sucks, at least for the purposes of the exam. The physical cards are marginally easier to use than a textbook, but then again, writing them takes a lot of time and effort.

SRS is mostly about the learning schedule, i.e. equal intervals and increasing intervals.

How you execute, whether with mnemonics or flashcards, is different.

With the umbrella term of "study or learning techniques", the learning schedule and execution are both included.

Usually when people talk about SRS, they mean flashcards or Software. At the very least you would need to keep track of the learning schedule and what you forget. Which I found impractical for learning large amounts of stuff.

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