Spaced repetition: review before you forget
Hermann Ebbinghaus · “On Memory”, 1885 · 4 min read
Hermann Ebbinghaus memorised nonsense syllables and measured how much he still knew after hours and days. The result, the forgetting curve, is sobering: without repetition, most of it is gone after a day. The good news: every repetition flattens the curve.
The principle
Spaced repetition places reviews exactly where the curve is about to tip: after one day, after three days, after a week, after a month. The intervals grow because the knowledge becomes more stable. Ten short, spread-out reviews beat one long study session by a wide margin.
Why cramming before an exam isn't enough
Massed learning fills short-term memory and feels effective. Two weeks later little remains, because no repetition slowed the decay. Whoever learns in spaced sessions works less overall and retains more.
Repetition plus memory picture
Spaced repetition decides the when. How strongly a word sticks with each review is decided by the packaging. A memory picture starts with a flatter curve — it needs fewer repetitions until the word sits.
And with Mindpop?
In Mindpop, memory words resurface in the feed and in the quiz — repetition happens while swiping, not in an extra study session.
Today Mindpop implements the memory-picture method — further learning methods from this series will follow in the app step by step.