Spacing effects and their implications for theory and practice

Dempster, Frank N.

doi:10.1007/bf01320097

Cited by 183 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 84 publications

(145 reference statements)

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“…The spacing effect has been successfully applied in the classroom as well as in patients with cognitive deficits (Schacter et al 1985;Dempster 1989). Consistent with the literature, we report here that animals trained with spaced trials tended to learn faster and remember longer than animals exposed to the same amount of massed trials.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Neurogenesis and the spacing effect: Learning over time enhances memory and the survival of new neurons

Sisti¹,

Glass²,

Shors³

2007

Learn. Mem.

159

111

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Information that is spaced over time is better remembered than the same amount of information massed together. This phenomenon, known as the spacing effect, was explored with respect to its effect on learning and neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation. Because the cells are generated over time and because learning enhances their survival, we hypothesized that training with spaced trials would rescue more new neurons from death than the same number of massed trials. In the first experiment, animals trained with spaced trials in the Morris water maze outperformed animals trained with massed trials, but there was not a direct effect of trial spacing on cell survival. Rather, animals that learned well retained more cells than animals that did not learn or learned poorly. Moreover, performance during acquisition correlated with the number of cells remaining in the dentate gyrus after training. In the second experiment, the time between blocks of trials was increased. Consequently, animals trained with spaced trials performed as well as those trained with massed, but remembered the location better two weeks later. The strength of that memory correlated with the number of new cells remaining in the hippocampus. Together, these data indicate that learning, and not mere exposure to training, enhances the survival of cells that are generated 1 wk before training. They also indicate that learning over an extended period of time induces a more persistent memory, which then relates to the number of cells that reside in the hippocampus.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Neurogenesis and the spacing effect: Learning over time enhances memory and the survival of new neurons

Sisti¹,

Glass²,

Shors³

2007

Learn. Mem.

159

111

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Similarly, several hypotheses could be generated about the optimal timing of feedback. However, we predicted that delayed feedback would lead to superior performance in comparison with immediate feedback because of the added benefits of allowing the incorrect response to dissipate (see, e.g., Kulhavy & Anderson, 1972) and providing a spaced presentation of the material (see Dempster, 1989) in the case of delayed feedback.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing

2008

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“…See Ruth (1928), Dempster (1989), and Donovan and Radosevich (1999) for thorough meta-analyses spanning several decades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Trainable Spaced Repetition Model for Language Learning

Settles¹,

Meeder²

2016

Proceedings of the 54th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)

142

111

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We present half-life regression (HLR), a novel model for spaced repetition practice with applications to second language acquisition. HLR combines psycholinguistic theory with modern machine learning techniques, indirectly estimating the "halflife" of a word or concept in a student's long-term memory. We use data from Duolingo -a popular online language learning application -to fit HLR models, reducing error by 45%+ compared to several baselines at predicting student recall rates. HLR model weights also shed light on which linguistic concepts are systematically challenging for second language learners. Finally, HLR was able to improve Duolingo daily student engagement by 12% in an operational user study.

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Spacing effects and their implications for theory and practice

Cited by 183 publications

References 84 publications

Neurogenesis and the spacing effect: Learning over time enhances memory and the survival of new neurons

Neurogenesis and the spacing effect: Learning over time enhances memory and the survival of new neurons

Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing

A Trainable Spaced Repetition Model for Language Learning

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