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As a long term user of Anki, I think the hype here is too much. Spaced repetition helps you learn facts, but that is such a limited representation of what learn

As a long term user of Anki, I think the hype here is too much. Spaced repetition helps you learn facts, but that is such a limited representation of what learning something means. I get that the point of a mnemonic medium is to improve your memory, but the focus on memory in and of itself is reductive. Memorising things helps no one gain a better understanding. If anything, it’s just a way to avoid the mental effort of real comprehension (roughly analogous to a google search for a solution rather than solving a problem yourself). Edit: I love Michael Nielsen’s work, but I don’t love his glorification of this tool.

cepp 7y ago
I'm in agreeance. In this case, I don't think SRS offers a lot of benefit, i.e. the tool isn't the hard part, it's the content you put into it. EX: I recently (5ish months) started moving Kindle highlights to Anki. I've found my ability to retain the facts has increased but it is also directly correlated with how I designed the card (cloze, length, etc). I think we should put more focus on extracting key points for later learning rather than focus on automating the review of those points.
goerz 7y ago
The key insight that Nielsen is advocating for is to use spaced repetition for concepts, not just facts. Understanding comes first, and then you deliberately try to cement a rich network that understanding in your long term memory. Personally, I’ve found this a revolutionary approach to learning.
- reubens 7y ago
  As another commenter below notes, a recommendation is to spend one second reviewing each card. Thus, your cards are generally quite simple. This can very easily lead to a patchwork of simple details, but no glue holding them together. I’ve come to believe that the mental effort it takes to understand something should be prioritised over memorisation. If you’re relatively busy and spending a lot of time doing Anki cards, you may be limiting your opportunities for this kind of challenge.
  - goerz 7y ago
    I don't see why cards need to be quite that simple. I generally take about 10-15 seconds for reviewing each card. A lot of my cards are why/how/what questions (typical examples: "Why are bras covariant?"/"How are Green's functions used in solving linear differential equations?"/"What is Q-Learning?") The problem with skipping memorization of concepts after having understood something is that two months later, you'll have forgotten those concepts. So, all that effort will have been in vain. I typically don't create much more than 10 cards a day, or maybe 20 on a day where I'm taking in a lot of information, and I typically have less than 50 cards to review. It's really not a huge time investment - especially if you're "busy".
    - emilga 7y ago
      > The problem with skipping memorization of concepts after having understood something is that two months later, you'll have forgotten those concepts. The key realization, for me, is that conceptual understanding, intuitions, and key insights are themselves just pieces of information that can be memorized. E.g.: Q: How to derive Bayes' Theorem? A: Write P(A and B) two different ways.
- hyperpallium 7y ago
  Understanding beats rote learning every time: it's always possible to reconstruct the learning. You can generalize and customize it. But how much quicker if you also have that at your fingertips! Perhaps, a bit like writing a very clear and well thought-out solution on SO... and later googling for it.
michael_nielsen 7y ago
Glad you like my work. To quote the essay: "these kinds of results should be taken with a grain of salt. The mnemonic medium is in its early days, has many deficiencies, and needs improvement in many ways... is this medium really working? What effect is it actually having on people? ... are there blockers that make this an irredeemably bad or at best mediocre idea? How important a role does memory play in cognition, anyway?" The essay continues at great length in this vein, getting gradually into more and more detail. We have detailed discussion of common ways spaced repetition fails, of ways it may inevitably fail or needs to be redesigned (a different issue), of ways it falls short of the goal of understanding, of ways spaced repetition is a poor lens for memory systems, and so on. I haven't counted, but believe there's several thousand words in this vein. The conclusion is that: (a) we are some ways from having really good memory systems; but if we did it would (b) likely to be extremely helpful, including in lots of ways people don't commonly appreciate; and (c) be far from a panacea. The essay has a lengthy discussion of points (a) and (c), in addition to (b). I don't think it's reasonably characterized as hype.
- westoncb 7y ago
  I was curious to read the self-criticism section since I fall into the memory-skeptic camp myself. And I did in fact find my main concerns referenced there, though my impression is that they weren't taken seriously. One telltale sign is the condescending tone with which they're referenced: > Bluntly, it seems likely that such people are fooling themselves, confusing a sense of enjoyment with any sort of durable understanding. ... You'd think their claim to have a broad conceptual understanding of French was hilarious. The other signal is the convenient changeup of exemplar subjects, natural language vs. computer programming. In the above, for example, having a "broad conceptual understanding" of French is obviously useless—and yet having a broad conceptual understanding of topics in e.g. Computer Science is extremely useful because: 1) It's part of a map that allows you to jump deeply into related as areas if a demand for that knowledge actually arises. 2) The 'broad conceptual understanding' (if done well) is generally of 'basic principles,' which have an interesting property of being applicable to wide ranges of much more specific subject areas. > Another common argument against spaced repetition systems is that it's better to rely on natural repetition. A more fair angle on this argument is that it's better to rely on natural contexts instead of 'repetition'—this is the reason "brain training" apps fail, for instance. (SRS obviously isn't as bad as those, but it still certainly ranks lower than a 'natural context' in regards to imparting skill in that context.) > For instance, it's no good (but surprisingly common) for someone to memorize lots of details of a programming language they plan to use for just one small project. ... But the truths of the last paragraph also have limits. If you're learning French, ... This is another sneaky subject change. It's pointed out how using memory systems for learning programming languages is probably non-optimal. But then this next paragraph is supposed to show us the limits of the supposed non-optimality—but it never does, because it switches to talking about a natural language instead, using an argument about lacking interlocutors which is completely inapplicable to the programming languages example. In any case, there are things about this project that I like very much, but I do still suspect there are subtle flaws in the premise of what this would end up making people better at, and the tone approaches Wolfram-esque levels of grandiosity that makes it hard to take seriously.
throwaway_bad 7y ago
I am one of those guys who had a 4.0 GPA in college but I never used spaced repetition because what I was doing seemed to work well enough. Post-college I tried it for learning japanese and it seems like a downgrade from my usual approach. The best way to learn something is by contextualizing it. For example it doesn't matter if you forget a math formula if you know how to re-derive it. If the formula is truly important, every time you access it, the entire DAG of knowledge leading up to that formula will be "refreshed". This is a very natural spaced repetition that erodes from the edge of your knowledge graph since the basic building blocks are refreshed so often. New knowledge is extremely easy to acquire, and your graph can be "refactored" every so often. The space repetition apps I have use doesn't have a similar concept of interrelationship. For example it's possible for you to learn the flashcards for "three" and "one" but not know the word for "two". This is insane way of doing things. You are just refreshing random isolated nodes. Not only does it make it a lot harder to learn (since random out of order information is harder to compress), the knowledge graph you build is a tangled mess that's not as usable and doesn't degrade gracefully.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  The problem is that students are provided with almost no support in development of metacognitive skills. They don’t even learn how to approach non-trivial but eminently solvable problems other people have posed, much less how how to “refactor” past understanding, how to investigate completely new subjects, how to hunt for problems to work on, how to manage projects that take longer than a day, etc. I think SRS software can be profitably used, but it would take a lot of thought and planning. For example, an SRS software system which randomly assigned difficult exercises from different past chapters of a math textbook could be pretty helpful, to keep the student occasionally revisiting topics instead of working through a chapter in a week or two and never returning to it again.
- kiba 7y ago
  The space repetition apps I have use doesn't have a similar concept of interrelationship. For example it's possible for you to learn the flashcards for "three" and "one" but not know the word for "two". This is insane way of doing things. You are just refreshing random isolated nodes. Not only does it make it a lot harder to learn (since random out of order information is harder to compress), the knowledge graph you build is a tangled mess that's not as usable and doesn't degrade gracefully. I found it helpful to break content down into constituent parts, but also to make cards unify those constituent parts. So, there will be cards about individual facts, but also cards that relate those individual facts. And eventually cards that related the cards that related the cards that related the individual facts. Also, I cemented my understanding and intuition of the Unit Circle using this approach.
nabla9 7y ago
I understand your point but I disagree. Just memorizing does not help, but memorizing definitely increases the ability to gain understanding. Connections required for understanding start to happen automatically when you start thinking about things you remember. If you don't remember the facts and fine details, your understanding will be shallow. Deep understanding requires going trough the facts and finding connections. Sources outside the head, like books, notes, Wikipedia and Googling can't make the connections. They are dead outside the mind. Of course, if you are memorizing trivial facts, it does not help.
keiferski 7y ago
If you're only using Anki to memorize facts, you aren't using it correctly. You need to get more creative with the card-creating process. For example, instead of just memorizing the definition of a term, create cards like this: - "Describe [term] in one sentence/two sentences/three sentences." - "Describe [term] without using the words [common words used to typically describe it]." - Imagine you are explaining the concept of [term] to a small child. How would you do it? And so on. The power of Anki is the underlying memory algorithm, not simply the memorization process. You can understand and remember anything if you organize the data in the correct way.

cepp 7y ago

I'm in agreeance. In this case, I don't think SRS offers a lot of benefit, i.e. the tool isn't the hard part, it's the content you put into it. EX: I recently (5ish months) started moving Kindle highlights to Anki. I've found my ability to retain the facts has increased but it is also directly correlated with how I designed the card (cloze, length, etc). I think we should put more focus on extracting key points for later learning rather than focus on automating the review of those points.

goerz 7y ago

The key insight that Nielsen is advocating for is to use spaced repetition for concepts, not just facts. Understanding comes first, and then you deliberately try to cement a rich network that understanding in your long term memory. Personally, I’ve found this a revolutionary approach to learning.

reubens 7y ago
As another commenter below notes, a recommendation is to spend one second reviewing each card. Thus, your cards are generally quite simple. This can very easily lead to a patchwork of simple details, but no glue holding them together. I’ve come to believe that the mental effort it takes to understand something should be prioritised over memorisation. If you’re relatively busy and spending a lot of time doing Anki cards, you may be limiting your opportunities for this kind of challenge.
- goerz 7y ago
  I don't see why cards need to be quite that simple. I generally take about 10-15 seconds for reviewing each card. A lot of my cards are why/how/what questions (typical examples: "Why are bras covariant?"/"How are Green's functions used in solving linear differential equations?"/"What is Q-Learning?") The problem with skipping memorization of concepts after having understood something is that two months later, you'll have forgotten those concepts. So, all that effort will have been in vain. I typically don't create much more than 10 cards a day, or maybe 20 on a day where I'm taking in a lot of information, and I typically have less than 50 cards to review. It's really not a huge time investment - especially if you're "busy".
  - emilga 7y ago
    > The problem with skipping memorization of concepts after having understood something is that two months later, you'll have forgotten those concepts. The key realization, for me, is that conceptual understanding, intuitions, and key insights are themselves just pieces of information that can be memorized. E.g.: Q: How to derive Bayes' Theorem? A: Write P(A and B) two different ways.
hyperpallium 7y ago
Understanding beats rote learning every time: it's always possible to reconstruct the learning. You can generalize and customize it. But how much quicker if you also have that at your fingertips! Perhaps, a bit like writing a very clear and well thought-out solution on SO... and later googling for it.

michael_nielsen 7y ago

Glad you like my work. To quote the essay: "these kinds of results should be taken with a grain of salt. The mnemonic medium is in its early days, has many deficiencies, and needs improvement in many ways... is this medium really working? What effect is it actually having on people? ... are there blockers that make this an irredeemably bad or at best mediocre idea? How important a role does memory play in cognition, anyway?" The essay continues at great length in this vein, getting gradually into more and more detail. We have detailed discussion of common ways spaced repetition fails, of ways it may inevitably fail or needs to be redesigned (a different issue), of ways it falls short of the goal of understanding, of ways spaced repetition is a poor lens for memory systems, and so on. I haven't counted, but believe there's several thousand words in this vein. The conclusion is that: (a) we are some ways from having really good memory systems; but if we did it would (b) likely to be extremely helpful, including in lots of ways people don't commonly appreciate; and (c) be far from a panacea. The essay has a lengthy discussion of points (a) and (c), in addition to (b). I don't think it's reasonably characterized as hype.

westoncb 7y ago
I was curious to read the self-criticism section since I fall into the memory-skeptic camp myself. And I did in fact find my main concerns referenced there, though my impression is that they weren't taken seriously. One telltale sign is the condescending tone with which they're referenced: > Bluntly, it seems likely that such people are fooling themselves, confusing a sense of enjoyment with any sort of durable understanding. ... You'd think their claim to have a broad conceptual understanding of French was hilarious. The other signal is the convenient changeup of exemplar subjects, natural language vs. computer programming. In the above, for example, having a "broad conceptual understanding" of French is obviously useless—and yet having a broad conceptual understanding of topics in e.g. Computer Science is extremely useful because: 1) It's part of a map that allows you to jump deeply into related as areas if a demand for that knowledge actually arises. 2) The 'broad conceptual understanding' (if done well) is generally of 'basic principles,' which have an interesting property of being applicable to wide ranges of much more specific subject areas. > Another common argument against spaced repetition systems is that it's better to rely on natural repetition. A more fair angle on this argument is that it's better to rely on natural contexts instead of 'repetition'—this is the reason "brain training" apps fail, for instance. (SRS obviously isn't as bad as those, but it still certainly ranks lower than a 'natural context' in regards to imparting skill in that context.) > For instance, it's no good (but surprisingly common) for someone to memorize lots of details of a programming language they plan to use for just one small project. ... But the truths of the last paragraph also have limits. If you're learning French, ... This is another sneaky subject change. It's pointed out how using memory systems for learning programming languages is probably non-optimal. But then this next paragraph is supposed to show us the limits of the supposed non-optimality—but it never does, because it switches to talking about a natural language instead, using an argument about lacking interlocutors which is completely inapplicable to the programming languages example. In any case, there are things about this project that I like very much, but I do still suspect there are subtle flaws in the premise of what this would end up making people better at, and the tone approaches Wolfram-esque levels of grandiosity that makes it hard to take seriously.

throwaway_bad 7y ago

I am one of those guys who had a 4.0 GPA in college but I never used spaced repetition because what I was doing seemed to work well enough. Post-college I tried it for learning japanese and it seems like a downgrade from my usual approach. The best way to learn something is by contextualizing it. For example it doesn't matter if you forget a math formula if you know how to re-derive it. If the formula is truly important, every time you access it, the entire DAG of knowledge leading up to that formula will be "refreshed". This is a very natural spaced repetition that erodes from the edge of your knowledge graph since the basic building blocks are refreshed so often. New knowledge is extremely easy to acquire, and your graph can be "refactored" every so often. The space repetition apps I have use doesn't have a similar concept of interrelationship. For example it's possible for you to learn the flashcards for "three" and "one" but not know the word for "two". This is insane way of doing things. You are just refreshing random isolated nodes. Not only does it make it a lot harder to learn (since random out of order information is harder to compress), the knowledge graph you build is a tangled mess that's not as usable and doesn't degrade gracefully.

jacobolus 7y ago
The problem is that students are provided with almost no support in development of metacognitive skills. They don’t even learn how to approach non-trivial but eminently solvable problems other people have posed, much less how how to “refactor” past understanding, how to investigate completely new subjects, how to hunt for problems to work on, how to manage projects that take longer than a day, etc. I think SRS software can be profitably used, but it would take a lot of thought and planning. For example, an SRS software system which randomly assigned difficult exercises from different past chapters of a math textbook could be pretty helpful, to keep the student occasionally revisiting topics instead of working through a chapter in a week or two and never returning to it again.
kiba 7y ago
The space repetition apps I have use doesn't have a similar concept of interrelationship. For example it's possible for you to learn the flashcards for "three" and "one" but not know the word for "two". This is insane way of doing things. You are just refreshing random isolated nodes. Not only does it make it a lot harder to learn (since random out of order information is harder to compress), the knowledge graph you build is a tangled mess that's not as usable and doesn't degrade gracefully. I found it helpful to break content down into constituent parts, but also to make cards unify those constituent parts. So, there will be cards about individual facts, but also cards that relate those individual facts. And eventually cards that related the cards that related the cards that related the individual facts. Also, I cemented my understanding and intuition of the Unit Circle using this approach.

nabla9 7y ago

I understand your point but I disagree. Just memorizing does not help, but memorizing definitely increases the ability to gain understanding. Connections required for understanding start to happen automatically when you start thinking about things you remember. If you don't remember the facts and fine details, your understanding will be shallow. Deep understanding requires going trough the facts and finding connections. Sources outside the head, like books, notes, Wikipedia and Googling can't make the connections. They are dead outside the mind. Of course, if you are memorizing trivial facts, it does not help.

keiferski 7y ago

If you're only using Anki to memorize facts, you aren't using it correctly. You need to get more creative with the card-creating process. For example, instead of just memorizing the definition of a term, create cards like this: - "Describe [term] in one sentence/two sentences/three sentences." - "Describe [term] without using the words [common words used to typically describe it]." - Imagine you are explaining the concept of [term] to a small child. How would you do it? And so on. The power of Anki is the underlying memory algorithm, not simply the memorization process. You can understand and remember anything if you organize the data in the correct way.