Improving Memory Retention via Spacing of Practice: Computational and Empirical Investigations

当一个人为了考试而死记硬背时，他们经常会有在考试结束后不久就忘记了材料的经历。为了支持这一经验，记忆研究人员100多年前就知道，如果学习阶段随着时间的推移而分开，而不是集中在一个令人精疲力竭的临时抱佛脚阶段，学习材料的长期保留可以大大增强。Pashler博士和Mozer博士在国家科学基金会的支持下，正在进行一系列记忆实验，以考察在各种陈述性记忆任务(即事实学习)和程序性记忆任务(即技能学习)的背景下，学习间隔和保持间隔之间的关系。这些实验是由三类不同的记忆理论推动的，这些理论对表现结果做出了不同的预测。研究人员正在实施这些理论的计算模型，以得出他们的定量预测，并探索他们潜在的理论原理。从这项研究项目中获得的知识可以用来改善包括科学和工程在内的许多学术领域的学习和教育。

When someone 'crams' for a test, they often have the experience of forgetting the material soon after the test is over. In support of this experience, memory researchers have known for over 100 years that the long-term retention of study material can be greatly enhanced when study sessions are spaced out over time, rather than concentrated into one grueling cram session. Despite the robustness and importance of this spacing effect, there is currently no widely accepted explanation for it in terms of memory theories, and the breadth of the effect in terms of different kinds of study material has not been thoroughly investigated.With support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Pashler and Dr. Mozer are conducting a series of memory experiments to examine relations between inter-study intervals and retention intervals in the context of a variety of declarative memory tasks (i.e., fact learning) as well as procedural memory tasks (i.e., skill learning). The experiments are motivated by three distinct classes of memory theories that make different predictions regarding the performance outcomes. The investigators are implementing computational models of the theories to derive their quantitative predictions, and to explore their underlying theoretical principles. The knowledge to be gained from this research project may be used to improve learning and education in many academic domains, including science and engineering.