Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm (Wired Magazine: 16.05)

. . .

Long-term memory, the Bjorks said, can be characterized by two components, which they named retrieval strength and storage strength. Retrieval strength measures how likely you are to recall something right now, how close it is to the surface of your mind. Storage strength measures how deeply the memory is rooted. . . .

. . . [L]aws of memory wreak havoc on students and teachers. One of the problems is that the amount of storage strength you gain from practice is inversely correlated with the current retrieval strength. In other words, the harder you have to work to get the right answer, the more the answer is sealed in memory. Precisely those things that seem to signal we're learning well — easy performance on drills, fluency during a lesson, even the subjective feeling that we know something — are misleading when it comes to predicting whether we will remember it in the future. . . .

(Gary Wolf, The problem of forgetting, ¶¶6-7, 04.21.08).