Northgate UniversityPSY105 Learning and Memory · Week 3

Made from a 100-minute recorded lecture and 5 slides, supplied by the module lead, Dr Helen Mercer.

Study pack · 15 minSession plan · 50 min

Week 3 study pack

Why you forget most of a lecture within a week

Four ideas from this week's lecture, in about 15 minutes. Each one comes with something to try, and each one changes how you should study.

  1. 1The forgetting curve
  2. 2Working memory
  3. 3The testing effect
  4. 4Spacing

1 · The forgetting curve

Forgetting is fastest straight after you learn

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus tested his own memory for lists of nonsense syllables. He found that most forgetting happens in the first hours and days, then slows down. Each time you review, you forget more slowly afterwards. ${TS} Lecture 09:20

Try it: add review sessions

Line chart of how much you remember over 30 days, with and without reviews.

No reviews

Remembered after 30 days20%
Without any review20%
Illustrative model of the shape Ebbinghaus described. It is not his data.
What to doReview this week's notes within a day, then again a few days later. The first review matters most.

2 · Working memory

You can only hold about four things at once

Working memory is the mind's small, short-term workspace. The classic estimate is seven, plus or minus two (Miller, 1956). More recent work puts it at about four chunks (Cowan, 2001). ${TS} Lecture 31:40

A chunk is anything you already know as a single unit. Grouping new information into familiar chunks lets you hold far more.

Try it: 5 seconds to remember 12 letters

Ready when you are

You'll see 12 letters for 5 seconds, then type as many as you can remember, in order.

What to doDon't try to learn a dense page all at once. Break it into a few meaningful groups, and link new ideas to things you already know.

3 · The testing effect

Testing yourself beats reading it again

Pulling information out of your memory strengthens it. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) gave students a short passage to learn in four 5-minute periods, spent either reading or recalling. The students who read it four times did best five minutes later, and worst a week later. ${TS} Lecture 58:40

Share of the passage recalled

Source: Roediger and Karpicke (2006), Experiment 2. Proportion of the passage's ideas recalled.
What to doClose your notes and write down what you remember, or use the self-check below. Rereading feels productive, but it does much less.

4 · Spacing

The same hours, spread out, go much further

Studying in several shorter sessions is remembered longer than the same time in one session. A review of more than 300 experiments confirmed it (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006). ${TS} Lecture 81:15

Sara has an exam in three weeks and six hours to study. Which plan will help her remember the most?

Check yourself

Six questions, from memory

Answer before you scroll back up. Recalling the answer is the practice: it's the testing effect at work.

Flashcards

Say the answer out loud, then turn the card over.

Reference

Key terms

Further reading

  • Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T. and Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: a review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3).
  • Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1).
  • Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Über das Gedächtnis [Memory: a contribution to experimental psychology].
  • Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two. Psychological Review, 63(2).
  • Roediger, H. L. and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning. Psychological Science, 17(3).
  • Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving. Cognitive Science, 12(2).

Sample by Nuvi Learn. Northgate University, the module, the lecturer and all class data are fictional. The research is real, and listed under Key terms in the student view.