Issue #40 - The Ebbinghaus Curve 💡

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I have been wondering how you’re going with internalizing the models. Do they stay with you? Or do they tend to drift away?

That reminded me of a cool model about memory retention - the Ebbinghaus Curve.

The Ebbinghaus curve is sometimes known as the forgetting curve.

It’s a theory about how memory fades - how our retention of new information is lost over time if we don’t put in effort to retain it.

Ebbinghaus ran some experiments on himself - he tried to memorize short nonsense words - and then tested his retention at later time intervals.

He remembered 100% immediately after learning, then he noticed he started forgetting really fast! In 20 minutes, 42% was gone. In 24 hours, 67%. In a month, 79% gone!

Here’s a chart of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve.

There’s debate about the exact shape of the curve, and what factors affect it, but not a lot of debate that a forgetting curve exists.

I probably don’t have to convince you that the ability to retain new information is pretty important.

Ebbinghaus suggested that there are two main ways to increase retention.

I guess it’s correct to say:

🔖 A more recent replication of the forgetting curve.

👍 Techniques such as spaced repetition and overlearning are relevant, I used Quizlet a while back, it’s a great flashcard tool.

🤔 Ebbinghaus did also suggest that the speed of forgetting is affected by factors such as the material’s meaningfulness or it’s difficulty, as well as as other physiological factors such as stress and sleep. Sigh - yet another reason to try to decrease stress and get more sleep…

🔖 I liked this article that covers a bit more on the neuroscience of “learning, retention, and transfer”.

🧠 Build your latticework! Revisit related mental models:

I’m particularly keen to hear your feedback on if the models are staying with you?

Have any of the mental models stuck with you more than others? Here’s the list. Let me know!

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