Liii) Forgetting Curve

Introduction

The Forgetting Curve shows the decline of memory retention over time.

This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt made to retain it. This is called transcience (process of forgetting that occurs with the passage of time.)

Generally unless a conscious effort is made to renew the learned material, you will forget it in days.

Some factors that have an important impact on retention include

- the difficulty of learning material (the more difficult, the harder to remember)

- its meaningfulness to you (the more meaningful, the more likely to be remembered)

- your physical and psychological state (stress, sleep, etc, ie if under stress, it is harder to remember)

- frequency of active recall (the more frequently you recall, the more you will remember)

- your knowledge is built upon things you already know (in building on what you already know, you are more likely to remember:
"...spending time each day to remember information greatly decreases the effect of the forgetting curve......reviewing material in the first 24 hours after learning information is the optimum time to actually recall the content and reset the forgetting curve..."
Wikipedia, 2023)