even with easy flashcards I occasionally find myself staring dumbly at it for ten or more seconds
To me, that suggests that the card is either too complex and should be split up further, or that you simply do not have solid recall of the relevant facts, so you should just flip to the answer and mark the card difficult. It's quite normal to forget even some basic info over time; the point of SRS is to refresh these memories at the lowest viable cost.
I appreciate the input, truly, but I can confidently state that's not the case in my situation. This happens even on the simplest questions that I know cold, and is a problem with mental fatigue, monotony, and reading. After the 100th card, I would expect similar results from "what color is the sky" occasionally. I highly doubt I am dyslexic, but I might be a little ADHD. Once again, I do not presume everyone has similar results, but when I did 150 cards per day (and lord help me if I missed a day), easy cards posed a significant drain on my time and mental energy.
If I study it as separate facts: the Pro is I can use spaced repetition to greater effect, not reviewing the parts I know better, but the loss of the picture and the spatial memory makes it not worth the cost. (Note that the "big picture" isn't a single sentence I can write down; it's noticing trends in the data, how column A and B are similar except in in key areas, etc.)
Why not do both? The thing about SRS flashcards is that facts that you have strong recall of are nearly costless to add, because the review schedules get spaced into very large intervals (weeks, then months or even years), and it only takes a split second to see a card and realize it's easy. So you could learn from tables if that really is more efficient for you, but having the data in SRS card form as well is a good insurance policy.
Frankly, because at the volume I was running, it was far too great an investment of time. When I stopped, I had about 75-100 scheduled (learned) flashcards per day if I added nothing the day before, though I usually added 60-some every day. The cards would take me 1-2 hours, and the amount kept building as I was adding to it faster than I was pushing them "out".
Additionally, here our mileage may vary, but even with easy flashcards I occasionally find myself staring dumbly at it for ten or more seconds before I realize what it's asking and smack my head. So I end up trimming out the stupid-easy ones, but that starts to defeat the purpose. Thus, for myself personally, I won't duplicate in flashcards what I'm already memorizing elsewhere.
I know that everyone is different, so this is just my experience and what I have observed in other people. If others continue to have success with SRS, then far be it from me to insist they fix what isn't broken.
If there's enough demand on LW I can write up a summary.
Please do.
It's encouraging to see so much interest! I'll try to pull something together in the next few weeks.
Memory palaces. I recently learned how to properly use these, and I'm a true believer. When I only had the general idea to “pair things you want to memorize with places in your room” I found it worthless, but after I was taught a lot of do's and don'ts, they're now my favorite way to memorize any list of 5+ items. If there's enough demand on LW I can write up a summary.
How good is your ability to internally visualize? I've been putting off investigating memory palaces for my own use because I find it very difficult to use a mental paintbrush.
A great point. I can confidently say mine is at least "average", likely above average. I consider myself a "visual learner," with good "story memory" and I agree that as such memory palaces are a particularly good for me. However, when I use the technique, I'd say it's mostly non-visual. I'd guess it's 20% me "seeing" the room, 10% "everything else" (texure, sound, smell, emotion, all of which I find much harder but make deliberate effort to employ), and 70% conceptual "The spaceship is crashing through the door, sending shards of wood scattered across the bedroom". That is one of the many "secrets" that make the technique so useful to me: most every object should perform an action that would in real life permanently damage or alter the room. With tricks like that, I think it is helpful for most all people, even those not visually inclined.
For what it's worth: I have no data on this myself, but my study coach posits that everyone can do it, some have more trouble than others, but when done well it's so effective that most everyone should benefit. He says most of his students are resistant, but almost all of them profess loving it once they develop the skillset to use it.
What would be a good introduction to memory palaces? What did you use?
Truthfully: I tried and failed miserably when I tried shorter articles (eHow, wikipedia, etc). My study skills coach taught me; his name is Ryan Orwig and teaches medical professionals around the country; he's talked with memory champions and has ~10 years refining the technique specifically for medicine (but it works with any large body of facts, I think it would help with Law too). So, unfortunately there's no resource I can point to. I can't share his powerpoint, but I can make and share my own, which I will do when I have time.
That said, I just skimmed Brienne's presentation in Ben_LandauTaylor's link, and it seems to hit many of the points I like. I'll listen to the whole thing later to see what I have to add.
Link to Ryan Orwig's class, his travel schedule is on the right: thestatprogram.com
Here is what I now use in place of flashcards:...
How long have you been using these alternatives to flashcards? How likely is it that you are still in the honeymoon phase?
Great question. It's been a long transition from flashcards. I developed the picture technique myself over a year and a half ago. If I learned a fact a year ago, if I studied it using the picture technique, I have about 70% recall if I reviewed it once 6 months ago. If I used flashcards for a month, I have 5% recall now. If I used flashcards continuously (~1-2 hrs per day) for 6 months then stopped using the deck 6 months ago, I have about 10% recall.
(I did a very cursory self-test, then approximated these numbers. It's very far from perfect, but I didn't pull them from a hat. For the memory palace numbers, this is pulled from what I'm currently studying, so is reliable.)
I am still in the honeymoon phase for memory palaces. If I reviewed them once a week after creating them, I have about 90% recall one week following that. I currently have 100% recall for the 4 lists ~10 items long that I made last month and have reviewed 3 times each, but haven't reviewed in the last week.
Good information! This is really more "a vote against flashcards" than "a vote against spaced repetition", though, at least given your concrete issues with flashcards. Spaced repetition is an algorithm for figuring out when to review material that you want to memorize; flashcards are one thing that spaced repetition is applied to, because it's easy to stick flashcards in a computer. As far as I know, no matter what object-level mnemonic devices you're using, spaced repetition is still strictly better than "when I feel like I'm forgetting" or "right before a test" or any of the other obvious review strategies, if you can deal with the cognitive load of scheduling things, or get a computer to do it for you.
Is there space for some sort of SRS that allows for input of the more helpful types of memorizations that you listed (pictures, venn diagrams, etc.)?
You are absolutely correct; this is a hair worth splitting. I meant "spaced repetition flashcards", and I have only seen formal spaced repetition algorithms applied to flashcards. In my particular case, I end up with 30 or so "pages" of related information, as opposed to 500 flashcards. I agree that using spaced repetition algorithms to tell me when to study which page is likely better than alternative methods, though I haven't found an algorithm optimized for that sort of thing, and at the moment my intuition of "when I'm forgetting" is sufficient for the low number of separate objects to study.
[For this comment, I will use the term "page" to mean any collection of related information, be it a list, table, memory palace, notes on a single topic, etc.]
To be explicit: I vote against using spaced repetition (of any sort) to identify specific facts within a "page" of information. When reviewing a page, of course you can go quickly over the parts you know well and dwell on the parts you don't, but I would encourage the student to not completely ignore the other details "until it's time."
As an example: I have a collection of facts that can be represented as a large table or as individual facts. If I study it in a table, then I get the advantage of keeping the "big picture in mind", plus I can activate spatial memory as well as rote. If I study it as separate facts: the Pro is I can use spaced repetition to greater effect, not reviewing the parts I know better, but the loss of the picture and the spatial memory makes it not worth the cost. (Note that the "big picture" isn't a single sentence I can write down; it's noticing trends in the data, how column A and B are similar except in in key areas, etc.)
As always, my experience is only in high volumes of information that can be organized vaguely hierarchically. (That said, I think if you look hard enough, you can find categories or hierarchies for any large volume of information, outside of truly random things like the sequence of a deck of cards.)
Caveat #2: "self testing" is really important! So if you are quitting flash cards, make sure you find some new way to quiz yourself, don't just read passively.
Conclusion: -Spaced repetition algorithms might be viable, though I don't know any suitable to my needs -I claim that spaced repetition flashcards are not useful for large volumes that have categories and/or relationships between facts. -benkuhn rightfully points out that my vendetta is mostly against flashcards, or any method focusing on "terminal facts" in random order without also studying closely related facts.
Life application: 1) If you see a table, don't vaporize it into your flashcards. Rather, study the table. 2) If you see a mass of new data: ask yourself if you can organize it in a way meaningful to you, then study it in the structure you built.
Very nice article! Regarding the benefits of alcohol: for those curious, it is well established at this point that alcohol is actually protective against arterial plaque; it just has all sorts of other problems. This is just for kicks mostly, but I read a publication that said that for people who have ALL the following criteria:
Male (No women because alcohol increases risk of breast cancer)
45 years Does not smoke No family history of addiction or substance abuse No personal history of addiction or substance abuse "Occasional drinker" (has a couple drinks a month) Never binge drinks No history of liver, pancreatic problems, or several other problems I can't remember
They said it is likely tat 1-2 drinks per day, no more than 2 per day, and no more than 10 per week, will actually increase life expectancy.
Additionally, it's just alcohol in general that helps. Red Wine had no significant impact over other alcohols.
LessWrong seems to be a big fan of spaced-repetition flashcard programs like Anki, Supermemo, or Mnemosyne. I used to be. After using them religiously for 3 years in medical school, I now categorically advise against using them for large volumes of memorization.
[A caveat before people get upset: I think they appropriate in certain situations, and I have not tried to use them to learn a language, which seems its most popular use. More at the bottom.]
A bit more history: I and 30 other students tried using Mnemosyne (and some used Anki) for multiple tests. At my school, we have a test approximately every 3 weeks, and each test covers about 75 pages of high-density outline-format notes. Many stopped after 5 or so such tests, citing that they simply did not get enough returns from their time. I stuck with it longer and used them more than anyone else, using them for 3 years.
Incidentally, I failed my first year and had to repeat.
By the end of that third year (and studying for my Step 1 boards, a several-month process), I lost faith in spaced-repetition cards as an effective tool for my memorization demands. I later met with a learning-skills specialist, who felt the same way, and had better reasons than my intuition/trial-and-error:
Here are examples of the typical kind of things I memorize every day and have found flashcards to be surprisingly worthless for:
Here is what I now use in place of flashcards:
Spaced repetition is still good for knowledge you need to retrieve immediately, when a 2-second delay would make it useless. I would still consider spaced-repetition to memorize some of the more rarely-used notes on the treble and bass clef, if I ever decide to learn to sight-read music properly. I make no comment on it's usefulness to learn a foreign language, as I haven't tried it, but if I were to pick one up I personally would start with a rosetta-stone-esque program.
Your mileage may vary, but after seeing so many people try and reject them, I figured it was enough data to share. Mnemonic pictures and memory palaces are slightly time consuming when you're learning them. However, if someone has the motivation and discipline to make a stack of flashcards and study them every day indefinitely, then I believe learning and using those skills is a far better use of time.
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As spaced repetition and flashcards are a technique and tool respectively it is (to me) obvious that they are useful for certain kinds of circumstances. Flashcards really are useful only when you want to associate 2 things to each other (for example a word and its translation) and might not be the best way to build an organized knowledge of a subject. Because of that I wouldn't use them for that purpose in any case.
Thank you for pointing out an area where they fail, that was useful information.
A question to the community: Do you really believe as much in spaced repetition/Anki as the post suggests?
Excellent question; I'd like to know too.