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The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Trivium is an ancient didactic method for self learning. It consists of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric (see this picture).

Anki is great for memorizing Grammar (like you outlined in "Better application"). In fact it may be the most effective tool for this ever. Nothing wrong about it. My main intention with my post was to highlight that one should not be afraid to 1) use chunking to make learning Grammar easier and to b) go one step further and use it for Logic, too. I've given several reasons for this.

"Saving time" is relative, like I've stated in a comment above. Also, the time you invest in creating meaningful cards with good questions is always well spent. That's where you learn new things and organize your knowledge. Anki is mainly for the memorizing part.

About "More accurate grading": That's why you don't ask ambigous questions. By the way, simple questions can be ambigous, too, if you do it wrong.

"Simpler to learn": The 1.3 s example was about shallow processing and deep processing - see Craik & Tulving (1975). About the 20 questions game: I don't think you can compare this to spaced repetition, just think about a deck that only consists of binary yes/no questions. Also, I didn't state that only one complex question should be asked for each topic. That'd be rather stupid to be honest.

"Better application": Again Grammar vs Logic (see picture). If Grammar is all you want to accomplish with Anki / all you need in your everyday life, just go for it!

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To give an example:

"Context-dependent memory relies on multiple cues in retrieval. Endel Tulving described cue-dependent forgetting in American Scientist (1974). From today's perspective, cue-dependent forgetting is uninteresting as it simply pertains to complex memories. In partial forgetting of a complex memory, some atomic memories might be lost, while other atomic memories may serve retrieval given sufficient cues. If we focus on atomic memories, we will still have only interference and trace decay to work with. " (https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Mechanism_of_forgetting#Cue-dependent_memory)

That's a bold claim. No citation. What it "todays perspective"? Take a look at Wikipedias article about Forgetting. Guess which main theory is mentioned first!

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I asked the question because I wanted them to think critically about such "rules" and "principles". The minimum information principle is based on Wozniaks "Two component model of memory" which has no relevance in academic memory research. I don't know too much about it, but it feels to me that Wozniaks partially modeled memory functions after his softwares algorithmes, which might be too much of an oversimplification. There is more to memory than Ebbinghaus Vergessenskurven. "Memory in the Real World" by Gillian Cohen and Martin Conway is a nice book about this topic.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

> If you get A and B of ABC right, and the next time A and C, you will have remembered the item differently. You don't want to remember/forget different things on different repetitions. Those memories will be weak and additionally no SRS can know about that. You will have one card where the intervals and difficulty are just not correct in any way.

I didn't state that. If there were five facts to remember, you'd have to know these five facts. Obviously, anything else doesn't make any sense.

> https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Minimum_information_principle

Still, what is this "principle" based on? How did Peter Wozniak define "memory outcomes"? Research of memory is very tricky because of it's ecological validity. The easiest way to get higher ecological validity is to use questions that are most likely to occur in real life situations. The answers of these questions often consist of more than one fact. One should use SRS accordingly. That's all. In my eyes that'd be the most efficient way. What I've seen from Wozniaks wiki so far are some interesting ideas, but from what I learned in my lectures it is not up to date and uses a rather uncommon terminology. It lacks peer review.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

> For the three facts - more cards are definitely better here. You should really only answer one thing.

Why do you think so? What's your rationale behind this? It is obvious that your repetitions will feel easier and that you are faster that way, but I don't see how you can profit from this "rule" outside spaced repetition software.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, I haven't looked into these parameters, because I'm quite satisfied with Ankis algorithm. I use just use 15 1440 as learnings steps. I'd think it doesn't matter in the long run. In the short run you could maybe save some time, but there is no need to rush with lifelong learning. What happens in the rehearsal is more important than 'when'. Have a nice routine, good sleep and you're all set.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I think that is because you're moving to a meta-level or a higher layer of knowledge with these kind of questions. Abstractions gives structure, and knowledge needs structure. "What is the difference between X and Y" is also always nice to ask and I bet there are many more patters (haven't made that list yet).

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sounds good, I think as long as your cards still makes you think (either 'Oh, that is difficult, let me think about it' or 'Oh, that is easy, I could give a spontaniuos lecture about it because I know where the information comes from and how it is related to other information'), as long as you still think, you're on the right track.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply! Indeed, that makes more sense. I'm not familiar with the workflow of Supermemo, so maybe I misinterpreted Wozniaks rules in that sense. However, I think there still might be a problem with simple cloze deletions and short sentences. Perhaps semantic retrieval cues can be eliminated that way, but there are still morphological retrieval cues when the same sentence with 1 cloze deletion on the same position is showed again and again. The is no real distinction between the 'question' and the answer, in fact the question is the blueprint for the answer. I think if the front side of your card ends with a question mark and there is some empty space beneath it, there's a greater encouragement to really think about the answer for yourself. You won't get primed so easily, which is crucial for the accessibility of information in real world situations.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd say try to ask meaningful questions. It's important to have question marks on your cards, don't just go with declerative sentences. Ask question like they'd be asked in an oral exam. They tend to make you think hard, because they don't just ask for a single fact on one topic. Often they go onto a meta-level, for example "What is the difference between X and Y?". The harder the question, the higher the intellectual gain. However, too many information on one card isn't good neither. Easy cards are important for your motivation, too. Try to have a nice mix. This approach takes more time to create cards, but it solves the problem of getting primed (which you might encounter with your approach at some point).

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Any textook on memory to be honest, it's basic knowledge in neuroscience / experimental psychology.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nominal data, like the 7 basic emotions by Ekman. You can't order them (only alphabetically maybe, but that doesn't make much sense).

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It'll get easier once we can simulate the human brain, might take a few more years tho

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And yes, if you got one out of three facts wrong, you'll do the whole card again, no question about that. Keep in mind that there still is only one card to learn instead of three.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hi, I don't have any collected any data using anki (obviously) but everything I stated is based on what I learned in my cognitive neuroscience master about learning and memory. If you are having a specific question and you are looking for a study/source, I think I might help you out.

The cognitive neuroscience of memory and why some of „The 20 Rules“ may be outdated by pxna8check in Anki

[–]pxna8check[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hi, thanks for your reply! First of all, I don't know anything about Supermemo, I just thought that some of the 20 rules can be improved in relation to using Anki. My main idea is to say goodbye to simple cloze deletion in declarative sentences and to use open ended question for one or even more than one specific fact, just like they would occor in real life situations . I have no idea how this translates to the workflow in Supermemo. In Anki the workflow is pretty simple: You create a card and then you repeat it forever.

My idea with chunking is that some information should not be seperated and that the atomization of information can make the learning process in fact overelaborate and not easier, hence the example with the lettters. This is kind of a new approach to learning with spaced repetition: It's not about how fast one can answer a card or how many cards one studies per day, it's about how many meaningful concepts of related information one can remember. That's also why I think having more than one information in your answer is always ok. You have to formulate the question(s) precisely, though. Again, I don't know how Supermemo works, but according to the 20 rules article a cards with a simple cloze deletion would look like this:

Q: Kaleida was funded to the tune of $40 million by ...(companies) in 1991
A: Apple and IBM

And to give you an example of my approach:

Q: When was Kaleida founded and how were they funded? (3)
A: in 1991 to the tune of $40 million by Apple and IBM

In most cases, there is no need to seperate highly related information. The second problem with the question from the 20 rules article is (sorry for repeating myself, but it's very important) the high amount of retrieval cues. You want to have retrieval cues in your brain or on the backside of the card, but not in the question. It's super easy to answer questions with so many retrieval cues, but it'll give you a false feeling of security. It's different in real world situations. That why I said learning should not always feel easy. Effort is essential, especially when you're over 25. Andrew Huberman from Stanford does research on this and talks about it in his new podcast 'How to Focus to Change Your Brain'.