Many folks (myself included) worry about "pattern matching" in spaced repetition—that they're learning to parrot a response in a narrow context. This experiment tried varying question text to combat that and, surprisingly, got a null result. andymatuschak.org/files/papers/B
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Worth taking with a grain of salt: the learning scenario here is contrived, may not extend to authentic situations.
I should mention, too, the primary result: retrieval practice appears to effectively support transfer of learning, even to distant contexts.
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No, most of this kind of reading happens in shallower working blocks, often in the late afternoon, unless it's explicitly in the critical path of some creative project.
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I’ve found that because the context I’m in changes as I review it opens more opportunities for transfer. I.e. being reminded out of context seems to increase transfer.
This is also interesting as time spans increase and I myself am different and need to reintegrate the info.
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my hunch: language so fundamental, & so constantly practiced (even outside drilling), *every* bit of retrieval/talking, even of *other* topics/factoids/words, reinforces 'specific-wording-to-possible-applications' skill. …
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transforming one formulation to equivalent variants as fundamental as breathing, so hard to influence much with simple perturbations.
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