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The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out. This effect shows that more information is encoded into long-term memory by spaced study sessions, also known as spaced repetition or spaced presentation, than by massed presentation ("cramming").
The phenomenon was first identified by Hermann Ebbinghaus, and his detailed study of it was published in the 1885 book Über das Gedächtnis. Untersuchungen zur experimentellen Psychologie (Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology), which suggests that active recall with increasing time intervals reduces the probability of forgetting information. This robust finding has been supported by studies of many explicit memory tasks such as free recall, recognition, cued-recall, and frequency estimation (for reviews see Crowder 1976; Greene, 1989).
Researchers have offered several possible explanations of the spacing effect, and much research has been conducted that supports its impact on recall. In spite of these findings, the robustness of this phenomenon and its resistance to have made empirical testing of its parameters difficult.
While many others have contributed important research regarding the spacing effect, Robert Bjork and his associates in the Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab and Cogfog group at UCLA have performed much research into various aspects of this phenomenon as well as into its practical application for education.
Causes
Decades of research on memory and recall have produced many different theories and findings on the spacing effect. In a study conducted by Cepeda et al. (2006) participants who used spaced practice on memory tasks outperformed those using massed practice in 259 out of 271 cases.
As different studies support different aspects of this effect, some now believe that an appropriate account should be multi-factorial, and at present, different mechanisms are invoked to account for the spacing effect in free recall and in cued-memory tasks.
Not much attention has been given to the study of the spacing effect in long-term retention tests. Shaughnessy (1977) found that the spacing effect is not robust for items presented twice after a 24-hour delay in testing. The spacing effect is present, however, for items presented four or six times and tested after a 24-hour delay. The result was interesting because other studies using only twice-presented items have shown a strong spacing effect, although the lag between learning and testing was longer. Shaughnessy interprets it as evidence that no single explanatory mechanism can be used to account for the various manifestations of the spacing effect.
Semantic priming
Research has shown reliable spacing effects in cued-memory tasks under incidental learning conditions, where semantic analysis is encouraged through (Challis, 1993; Russo & Mammaralla, 2002). Challis found a spacing effect for target words using a frequency estimation task after words were incidentally analyzed semantically. However, no spacing effect was found when the target words were shallowly encoded using a graphemic study task. This suggests that semantic priming underlies the spacing effect in cued-memory tasks. When items are presented in a massed fashion, the first occurrence of the target semantically primes the mental representation of that target, such that when the second occurrence appears directly after the first, there is a reduction in its semantic processing. Semantic priming wears off after a period of time (Kirsner, Smith, Lockhart, & King, 1984), which is why there is less semantic priming of the second occurrence of a spaced item. Thus on the semantic priming account, the second presentation is more strongly primed and receives less semantic processing when the repetitions are massed compared to when presentations are spaced over short lags (Challis, 1993). This semantic priming mechanism provides spaced words with more extensive processing than massed words, producing the spacing effect.
From this explanation of the spacing effect, it follows that this effect should not occur with nonsense stimuli that do not have a semantic representation in memory. A number of studies have demonstrated that the semantically based repetition priming approach cannot explain spacing effects in recognition memory for stimuli such as unfamiliar faces, and non-words that are not amenable to semantic analysis (Russo, Parkin, Taylor, & Wilks, 1998; Russo et al., 2002; Mammarella, Russo, & Avons, 2005). Cornoldi and Longoni (1977) have even found a significant spacing effect in a task when nonsense shapes were used as target stimuli. Russo et al. (1998) proposed that with cued memory of unfamiliar stimuli, a short-term perceptually-based repetition priming mechanism supports the spacing effect. When unfamiliar stimuli are used as targets in a cued-memory task, memory relies on the retrieval of structural-perceptual information about the targets. When the items are presented in a massed fashion, the first occurrence primes its second occurrence, leading to reduced perceptual processing of the second presentation. Short-term repetition-priming effects for nonwords are reduced when the lag between prime and target trials is reduced from zero to six (McKone, 1995), thus it follows that more extensive perceptual processing is given to the second occurrence of spaced items relative to that given to massed items. Hence, nonsense items with massed presentation receive less extensive perceptual processing than spaced items; thus, the retrieval of those items is impaired in cued-memory tasks.
Congruent with this view, Russo et al. (2002) demonstrated that changing the font in which repeated presentations of nonwords were presented reduced the short-term perceptual priming of those stimuli, especially for massed items. Upon a recognition memory test, there was no spacing effect found for the nonwords presented in different fonts during study. These results support the hypothesis that short-term perceptual priming is the mechanism that supports the spacing effects in cued-memory tasks when unfamiliar stimuli are used as targets. Furthermore, when the font was changed between repeated presentations of words in the study phase, there was no reduction of the spacing effect. This resistance to the font manipulation is expected with this two-factor account, as semantic processing of words at study determines performance on a later memory test, and the font manipulation is irrelevant to this form of processing.
Mammarella, Russo, & Avons (2002) also demonstrated that changing the orientation of faces between repeated presentations served to eliminate the spacing effect. Unfamiliar faces do not have stored representations in memory, thus the spacing effect for these stimuli would be a result of perceptual priming. Changing orientation served to alter the physical appearance of the stimuli, thus reducing the perceptual priming at the second occurrence of the face when presented in a massed fashion. This led to equal memory for faces presented in massed and spaced fashions, hence eliminating the spacing effect.
Encoding variability
The encoding variability theory holds that performance on a memory test is determined by the overlap between the available contextual information during the test and the contextual information available during the encoding. According to this view, spaced repetition typically entails some variability in presentation contexts, resulting in a greater number of retrieval cues. Contrastingly, massed repetitions have limited presentations and therefore fewer retrieval cues. The notion of the efficacy of the increased variability of encoding is supported by the position that the more independent encodings are, the more different types of cues are associated with an item.
There are two types of encoding variability theory that address the spacing effect. The first maintains that the spacing effect refers to the changes in the semantic interpretations of items which cause the effect, while the second holds that variability surrounding context is responsible for the spacing effect, not only semantic variability.
To test the encoding variability theory, Bird, Nicholson, and Ringer (1978) presented subjects with word lists that either had massed or spaced repetitions. Subjects were asked to perform various "orienting tasks", tasks which require the subject to make a simple judgment about the list item (i.e. pleasant or unpleasant, active or passive). Subjects either performed the same task for each occurrence of a word or a different task for each occurrence. If the encoding variability theory were true, then the case of different orienting tasks ought to provide variable encoding, even for massed repetitions, resulting in a higher rate of recall for massed repetitions than would be expected. The results showed no such effect, providing strong evidence against the importance of encoding variability.
Study-phase retrieval theory
A theory that has gained a lot of traction recently[when?] is the study-phase retrieval theory. This theory assumes that the first presentation is retrieved at the time of the second. This leads to an elaboration of the first memory trace. Massed presentations do not yield advantages because the first trace is active at the time of the second, so it is not retrieved or elaborated upon. Greene (1989) proposed a two-factor account of the spacing effect, combining deficient processing and study-phase retrieval accounts. Spacing effects in free recall are accounted for by the study-phase retrieval account. Under the assumption that free recall is sensitive to contextual associations, spaced items are at an advantage over massed items by the additional encoding of contextual information. Thus, the second occurrence of an item in a list reminds the observer of the previous occurrence of that same item and of its previous contextual features. Different contextual information is encoded with each presentation, whereas for massed items, the difference in context is relatively small. More retrieval cues, then, are encoded with spaced learning, which in turn leads to improved recall.
Deficient processing
According to the deficient processing view, massed repetitions lead to deficient processing of the second presentation—that we simply do not pay much attention to the later presentations (Hintzman et al., 1973). Greene (1989) proposed this to be the case in cued-memory tasks (e.g. recognition memory, frequency estimation tasks), which rely more on item information and less on contextual information. The increased voluntary rehearsal of spaced items makes this deficient processing noticeable. Findings that the spacing effect is not found when items are studied through incidental learning support this account.
Retrieval effort hypothesis
According to research conducted by Pyc and Rawson (2009), successful but effortful retrieval tasks during practice enhance memory in an account known as the retrieval effort hypothesis. Spacing out the learning and relearning of items leads to a more effortful retrieval which provides for deeper processing of the item.
Practical applications and long-term retention
Advertising
The spacing effect and its underlying mechanisms have important applications to the world of advertising. For instance, the spacing effect dictates that it is not an effective advertising strategy to present the same commercial back-to-back (massed repetition). Spaced ads were remembered better than ads that had been repeated back to back. Layout variations presented in short spacing intervals also resulted in improved recall compared to ads presented in exact repetition. The same effect was also achieved in a study involving website advertisements. It was revealed that sales diminish progressively as the customer visited the site and was exposed to the ad several times. However, if the elapsed time between the visits was longer, the advertisement had a bigger effect on sales. If encoding variability is an important mechanism of the spacing effect, then a good advertising strategy might include a distributed presentation of different versions of the same ad.
Appleton-Knapp, Bjork and Wickens (2005) examined the effects of spacing on advertising. They found that spaced repetitions of advertisements are more affected by study-phase retrieval processes than encoding variability. They also found that at long intervals, varying the presentation of a given ad is not effective in producing higher recall rates among subjects (as predicted by variable encoding). Despite this finding, recognition is not affected by variations in an ad at long intervals.
Application in education
Studies have shown that long-term spacing effects are prevalent in learning and produce significant learning gains, particularly when the spacing gaps are on the order of days or weeks. Although it is accepted that spacing is beneficial in learning a subject well and previous units should be revisited and practiced, textbooks are written in discrete chapters that do not support these findings. Rohrer conducted a two-part study in 2006 where students were taught how to solve math problems. In part 1, students either used mass or spaced practice, and spaced practice showed significant improvement over mass practice when tested one week later. In the second part of the experiment, practice problems were either grouped by type or mixed randomly. The desirable difficulties encountered by the randomly mixed problems were effective, and the performance by students who solved the randomly mixed problems was vastly superior to the students who solved the problems grouped by type. The reasoning behind this increased performance was that students know the formula for solving equations, but do not always know when to apply the formula. By shuffling problems around and dispersing them across multiple chapters, students also learn to identify when it is appropriate to use which formula. There is conclusive evidence that cumulative final exams promote long-term retention by forcing spaced learning to occur.
Learning and pedagogy
The long-term effects of spacing have also been assessed in the context of learning a foreign language. Bahrick et al. (1993) examined the retention of newly learned foreign vocabulary words as a function of relearning sessions and intersession spacing over a nine-year period.
Both the amount of relearning sessions and the number of days in between each session have a major impact on retention (the repetition effect and the spacing effect), yet the two variables do not interact with each other.
For all three difficulty rankings of the foreign words, recall was highest for the 56-day interval as opposed to a 28-day or a 14-day interval. Additionally, 13 sessions spaced 56 days apart yielded comparable retention to 26 sessions with a 14-day interval.
These findings have implications for educational practices. Current school and university curricula rarely provide students with opportunities for periodic retrieval of previously acquired knowledge. Without spaced repetitions, students are more likely to forget foreign language vocabulary.
Lag effect
While the spacing effect refers to improved recall for spaced versus successive (mass) repetition, the term 'lag' can be interpreted as the time interval between repetitions of learning. The lag effect is simply an idea branching off the spacing effect that states recall after long lags between learning is better versus short lags. Michael Kahana's study showed strong evidence that the lag effect is present when recalling word lists. In 2008, Kornell and Bjork published a study that suggested inductive learning is more effective when spaced than massed. Inductive learning is learning through observation of exemplars, so the participants did not actively take notes or solve problems. These results were replicated and backed up by a second independent study.
See also
- Distributed practice
- Forgetting curve
- List of cognitive biases
- Memory bias
- Testing effect
- Zeigarnik effect
References
- "Research | Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab". bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
- Shaughnessy, John J. (1977). "Long-Term Retention and the Spacing Effect in Free-Recall and Frequency Judgments". The American Journal of Psychology. 90 (4): 587–598. doi:10.2307/1421733. ISSN 0002-9556.
- Nairne, James (2007). The Foundations of Remembering: Essays in Honor of Henry L. Roediger, III. New York: Psychology Press. p. 85. ISBN 9781841694467.
- Cormier, S. M. (April 4, 2014). Basic Processes of Learning, Cognition, and Motivation. Psychology Press. ISBN 9781317757481.
- Bird, Charles P.; Nicholson, Angus J.; Ringer, Susan (1978). "Resistance of the Spacing Effect to Variations in Encoding". The American Journal of Psychology. 91 (4): 713–721. doi:10.2307/1421519. ISSN 0002-9556.
- Fennis, Bob; Stroebe, Wolfgang (2010). The Psychology of Advertising. Hove: Psychology Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0203853238.
- Wierenga, Berend; Lans, Ralf van der (2017). Handbook of Marketing Decision Models, Second Edition. Cham: Springer. p. 193. ISBN 9783319569390.
- Appleton-Knapp, Sara L. (2005). "Examining the Spacing Effect in Advertising: Encoding Variability, Retrieval Processes, and Their Interaction". Journal of Consumer Research. 32 (2): 266–276. doi:10.1086/432236.
- Byrne, John (2017). Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference. Boston, MA: Academic Press. p. 481. ISBN 9780128051597.
- Rohrer, Doug; Taylor, Kelli (April 19, 2007). "The shuffling of mathematics problems improves learning". Instructional Science. 35 (6): 481–498. doi:10.1007/s11251-007-9015-8. S2CID 55686289. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
- Bahrick, Harry P.; Bahrick, Lorraine E.; Bahrick, Audrey S.; Bahrick, Phyllis E. (1993). "Maintenance of Foreign Language Vocabulary and the Spacing Effect". Psychological Science. 4 (5): 316–321. ISSN 0956-7976.
- "The death of the university lecture", Huffington Post, retrieved 2016-25-04
- Kahana, Michael (2005). "Spacing and lag effects in free recall of pure lists" (PDF). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 12 (1): 159–164. doi:10.3758/bf03196362. PMID 15948289. S2CID 18549788. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
- Kornell, Bjork, Nate, Robert (2008). "Is Spacing the "Enemy of Induction"?" (PDF). Psychological Science. 19 (6): 585–592. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02127.x. PMID 18578849. S2CID 18139036. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Verkoeijen, Peter P. J. L.; Bouwmeester, Samantha (January 1, 2014). "Is spacing really the "friend of induction"?". Frontiers in Psychology. 5: 259. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00259. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 3978334. PMID 24744742.
- Appleton-Knapp, S.L.; Bjork, R.A.; Wickens, T.D. (2005). "Examining the spacing effect in advertising: Encoding variability, retrieval processes, and their interaction". Journal of Consumer Research. 32 (2): 266–276. doi:10.1086/432236.
- Bird, C.P. (1987). "Influence of the spacing of trait information on impressions of likability". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 23 (6): 481–497. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(87)90017-5.
- Cepeda, N. J.; Pashler, H.; Vul, E.; Wixted, J. T.; Rohrer, D. (2006). "Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis". Psychological Bulletin. 132 (3): 354–380. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.408.6627. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354. PMID 16719566. S2CID 18831615.
- Cermak, L.S.; Verfaellie, M.; Lanzoni, S.; Mather, M.; Chase, K.A. (1996). "Effect of spaced repetitions on amnesia patients' recall and recognition performance". Neuropsychology. 10 (2): 219–227. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.10.2.219.
- Challis, B.H. (1993). "Spacing effects on cued-memory tests depend on level of processing". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 19 (2): 389–396. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.19.2.389.
- Crowder, R.G. (1976). Principles of learning and memory. Oxford, England: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Dempster, F.N. (1988). "Informing classroom practice: What we know about several task characteristics and their effects on learning". Contemporary Educational Psychology. 13 (3): 254–264. doi:10.1016/0361-476x(88)90025-2.
- Dempster, F.N. (1988). "The spacing effect: A case study in the failure to apply the results of psychological research". American Psychologist. 43 (8): 627–634. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.43.8.627. S2CID 6644335.
- Ebbinghaus, Hermann (1885). Über das Gedächtnis. Untersuchungen zur experimentellen Psychologie [Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology] (in German). Trans. Henry A. Ruger & Clara E. Bussenius. Leipzig, Germany: Duncker & Humblot.
- Greene R. L. (2008). Repetition and spacing effects. In Roediger H. L. III (Ed.), Learning and memory: A comprehensive reference. Cognitive Psychology of Memory, 2, 65–78. Oxford: Elsevier.
- Greene, R.L. (1989). "Spacing effects in memory: Evidence for a two-process account". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 15 (3): 371–377. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.15.3.371.
- Hintzman, D.L. (1974). Theoretical implications of the spacing effect. Theories in Cognitive Psychology: The Loyola Symposium. Oxford, England: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Leicht, K.L.; Overton, R. (1987). "Encoding variability and spacing repetitions". American Journal of Psychology. 100 (1): 61–68. doi:10.2307/1422642. JSTOR 1422642.
- Mammarella, N.; Avons, S.E.; Russo, R. (2004). "A short-term perceptual priming account of spacing effects in explicit cued-memory tasks for unfamiliar stimuli". European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. 16 (3): 387–402. doi:10.1080/09541440340000042. S2CID 144292880.
- Mammarella, N.; Russo, R.; Avons, S.E. (2002). "Spacing effects in cued-memory tasks for unfamiliar faces and nonwords". Memory & Cognition. 30 (8): 1238–1251. doi:10.3758/bf03213406. PMID 12661855.
- Pyc, M. A.; Rawson, K. A. (2009). "Testing retrieval efforts hypothesis: Does greater difficulty correctly recalling information lead to higher levels of memory?". Journal of Memory and Language. 60 (4): 437–447. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.01.004.
- Rawson, K. A.; Dunlosky, J. (2012). "Relearning Attenuates the Benefits and Costs of Spacing". Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 142 (4): 1113–1129. doi:10.1037/a0030498. PMID 23088488.
- Russo, R.; Ma; Wilks, J. (1998). "Revising current two-process accounts of spacing effects in memory". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 24 (1): 161–172. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.24.1.161. PMID 9438957.
- Toppino, T.C.; Bloom, L.C. (2002). "The spacing effect, free recall, and two-process theory: A closer look". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 28 (3): 437–444. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.387.5552. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.28.3.437. PMID 12018496.
- Whitten, W.B.; Bjork, R.A. (1977). "Learning from tests: Effects of spacing". Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior. 16 (4): 465–478. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80040-6.
- Wozniak, P.A.; Gorzelanczyk, E.J. (1994). "Optimization of repetition spacing in the practice of learning". Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis. 54 (1): 59–62. doi:10.55782/ane-1994-1003. PMID 8023714.
- Young, D.R.; Bellezza, F.S. (1982). "Encoding variability, memory organization, and the repetition effect". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 8 (6): 545–559. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.8.6.545.
External links
- Ebbinghaus, Hermann (1885). Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology
- Gary Wolf. 2008 April 21. Wired. 16.05. Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm
This article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these messages This article may be confusing or unclear to readers Please help clarify the article There might be a discussion about this on the talk page November 2014 Learn how and when to remove this message This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience Please help by spinning off or relocating any relevant information and removing excessive detail that may be against Wikipedia s inclusion policy November 2014 Learn how and when to remove this message Learn how and when to remove this message The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out This effect shows that more information is encoded into long term memory by spaced study sessions also known as spaced repetition or spaced presentation than by massed presentation cramming The phenomenon was first identified by Hermann Ebbinghaus and his detailed study of it was published in the 1885 book Uber das Gedachtnis Untersuchungen zur experimentellen Psychologie Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology which suggests that active recall with increasing time intervals reduces the probability of forgetting information This robust finding has been supported by studies of many explicit memory tasks such as free recall recognition cued recall and frequency estimation for reviews see Crowder 1976 Greene 1989 Researchers have offered several possible explanations of the spacing effect and much research has been conducted that supports its impact on recall In spite of these findings the robustness of this phenomenon and its resistance to have made empirical testing of its parameters difficult While many others have contributed important research regarding the spacing effect Robert Bjork and his associates in the Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab and Cogfog group at UCLA have performed much research into various aspects of this phenomenon as well as into its practical application for education CausesDecades of research on memory and recall have produced many different theories and findings on the spacing effect In a study conducted by Cepeda et al 2006 participants who used spaced practice on memory tasks outperformed those using massed practice in 259 out of 271 cases As different studies support different aspects of this effect some now believe that an appropriate account should be multi factorial and at present different mechanisms are invoked to account for the spacing effect in free recall and in cued memory tasks Not much attention has been given to the study of the spacing effect in long term retention tests Shaughnessy 1977 found that the spacing effect is not robust for items presented twice after a 24 hour delay in testing The spacing effect is present however for items presented four or six times and tested after a 24 hour delay The result was interesting because other studies using only twice presented items have shown a strong spacing effect although the lag between learning and testing was longer Shaughnessy interprets it as evidence that no single explanatory mechanism can be used to account for the various manifestations of the spacing effect Semantic priming Research has shown reliable spacing effects in cued memory tasks under incidental learning conditions where semantic analysis is encouraged through Challis 1993 Russo amp Mammaralla 2002 Challis found a spacing effect for target words using a frequency estimation task after words were incidentally analyzed semantically However no spacing effect was found when the target words were shallowly encoded using a graphemic study task This suggests that semantic priming underlies the spacing effect in cued memory tasks When items are presented in a massed fashion the first occurrence of the target semantically primes the mental representation of that target such that when the second occurrence appears directly after the first there is a reduction in its semantic processing Semantic priming wears off after a period of time Kirsner Smith Lockhart amp King 1984 which is why there is less semantic priming of the second occurrence of a spaced item Thus on the semantic priming account the second presentation is more strongly primed and receives less semantic processing when the repetitions are massed compared to when presentations are spaced over short lags Challis 1993 This semantic priming mechanism provides spaced words with more extensive processing than massed words producing the spacing effect From this explanation of the spacing effect it follows that this effect should not occur with nonsense stimuli that do not have a semantic representation in memory A number of studies have demonstrated that the semantically based repetition priming approach cannot explain spacing effects in recognition memory for stimuli such as unfamiliar faces and non words that are not amenable to semantic analysis Russo Parkin Taylor amp Wilks 1998 Russo et al 2002 Mammarella Russo amp Avons 2005 Cornoldi and Longoni 1977 have even found a significant spacing effect in a task when nonsense shapes were used as target stimuli Russo et al 1998 proposed that with cued memory of unfamiliar stimuli a short term perceptually based repetition priming mechanism supports the spacing effect When unfamiliar stimuli are used as targets in a cued memory task memory relies on the retrieval of structural perceptual information about the targets When the items are presented in a massed fashion the first occurrence primes its second occurrence leading to reduced perceptual processing of the second presentation Short term repetition priming effects for nonwords are reduced when the lag between prime and target trials is reduced from zero to six McKone 1995 thus it follows that more extensive perceptual processing is given to the second occurrence of spaced items relative to that given to massed items Hence nonsense items with massed presentation receive less extensive perceptual processing than spaced items thus the retrieval of those items is impaired in cued memory tasks Congruent with this view Russo et al 2002 demonstrated that changing the font in which repeated presentations of nonwords were presented reduced the short term perceptual priming of those stimuli especially for massed items Upon a recognition memory test there was no spacing effect found for the nonwords presented in different fonts during study These results support the hypothesis that short term perceptual priming is the mechanism that supports the spacing effects in cued memory tasks when unfamiliar stimuli are used as targets Furthermore when the font was changed between repeated presentations of words in the study phase there was no reduction of the spacing effect This resistance to the font manipulation is expected with this two factor account as semantic processing of words at study determines performance on a later memory test and the font manipulation is irrelevant to this form of processing Mammarella Russo amp Avons 2002 also demonstrated that changing the orientation of faces between repeated presentations served to eliminate the spacing effect Unfamiliar faces do not have stored representations in memory thus the spacing effect for these stimuli would be a result of perceptual priming Changing orientation served to alter the physical appearance of the stimuli thus reducing the perceptual priming at the second occurrence of the face when presented in a massed fashion This led to equal memory for faces presented in massed and spaced fashions hence eliminating the spacing effect Encoding variability The encoding variability theory holds that performance on a memory test is determined by the overlap between the available contextual information during the test and the contextual information available during the encoding According to this view spaced repetition typically entails some variability in presentation contexts resulting in a greater number of retrieval cues Contrastingly massed repetitions have limited presentations and therefore fewer retrieval cues The notion of the efficacy of the increased variability of encoding is supported by the position that the more independent encodings are the more different types of cues are associated with an item There are two types of encoding variability theory that address the spacing effect The first maintains that the spacing effect refers to the changes in the semantic interpretations of items which cause the effect while the second holds that variability surrounding context is responsible for the spacing effect not only semantic variability To test the encoding variability theory Bird Nicholson and Ringer 1978 presented subjects with word lists that either had massed or spaced repetitions Subjects were asked to perform various orienting tasks tasks which require the subject to make a simple judgment about the list item i e pleasant or unpleasant active or passive Subjects either performed the same task for each occurrence of a word or a different task for each occurrence If the encoding variability theory were true then the case of different orienting tasks ought to provide variable encoding even for massed repetitions resulting in a higher rate of recall for massed repetitions than would be expected The results showed no such effect providing strong evidence against the importance of encoding variability Study phase retrieval theory A theory that has gained a lot of traction recently when is the study phase retrieval theory This theory assumes that the first presentation is retrieved at the time of the second This leads to an elaboration of the first memory trace Massed presentations do not yield advantages because the first trace is active at the time of the second so it is not retrieved or elaborated upon Greene 1989 proposed a two factor account of the spacing effect combining deficient processing and study phase retrieval accounts Spacing effects in free recall are accounted for by the study phase retrieval account Under the assumption that free recall is sensitive to contextual associations spaced items are at an advantage over massed items by the additional encoding of contextual information Thus the second occurrence of an item in a list reminds the observer of the previous occurrence of that same item and of its previous contextual features Different contextual information is encoded with each presentation whereas for massed items the difference in context is relatively small More retrieval cues then are encoded with spaced learning which in turn leads to improved recall Deficient processing According to the deficient processing view massed repetitions lead to deficient processing of the second presentation that we simply do not pay much attention to the later presentations Hintzman et al 1973 Greene 1989 proposed this to be the case in cued memory tasks e g recognition memory frequency estimation tasks which rely more on item information and less on contextual information The increased voluntary rehearsal of spaced items makes this deficient processing noticeable Findings that the spacing effect is not found when items are studied through incidental learning support this account Retrieval effort hypothesis According to research conducted by Pyc and Rawson 2009 successful but effortful retrieval tasks during practice enhance memory in an account known as the retrieval effort hypothesis Spacing out the learning and relearning of items leads to a more effortful retrieval which provides for deeper processing of the item Practical applications and long term retentionAdvertising The spacing effect and its underlying mechanisms have important applications to the world of advertising For instance the spacing effect dictates that it is not an effective advertising strategy to present the same commercial back to back massed repetition Spaced ads were remembered better than ads that had been repeated back to back Layout variations presented in short spacing intervals also resulted in improved recall compared to ads presented in exact repetition The same effect was also achieved in a study involving website advertisements It was revealed that sales diminish progressively as the customer visited the site and was exposed to the ad several times However if the elapsed time between the visits was longer the advertisement had a bigger effect on sales If encoding variability is an important mechanism of the spacing effect then a good advertising strategy might include a distributed presentation of different versions of the same ad Appleton Knapp Bjork and Wickens 2005 examined the effects of spacing on advertising They found that spaced repetitions of advertisements are more affected by study phase retrieval processes than encoding variability They also found that at long intervals varying the presentation of a given ad is not effective in producing higher recall rates among subjects as predicted by variable encoding Despite this finding recognition is not affected by variations in an ad at long intervals Application in education Studies have shown that long term spacing effects are prevalent in learning and produce significant learning gains particularly when the spacing gaps are on the order of days or weeks Although it is accepted that spacing is beneficial in learning a subject well and previous units should be revisited and practiced textbooks are written in discrete chapters that do not support these findings Rohrer conducted a two part study in 2006 where students were taught how to solve math problems In part 1 students either used mass or spaced practice and spaced practice showed significant improvement over mass practice when tested one week later In the second part of the experiment practice problems were either grouped by type or mixed randomly The desirable difficulties encountered by the randomly mixed problems were effective and the performance by students who solved the randomly mixed problems was vastly superior to the students who solved the problems grouped by type The reasoning behind this increased performance was that students know the formula for solving equations but do not always know when to apply the formula By shuffling problems around and dispersing them across multiple chapters students also learn to identify when it is appropriate to use which formula There is conclusive evidence that cumulative final exams promote long term retention by forcing spaced learning to occur Learning and pedagogy The long term effects of spacing have also been assessed in the context of learning a foreign language Bahrick et al 1993 examined the retention of newly learned foreign vocabulary words as a function of relearning sessions and intersession spacing over a nine year period Both the amount of relearning sessions and the number of days in between each session have a major impact on retention the repetition effect and the spacing effect yet the two variables do not interact with each other For all three difficulty rankings of the foreign words recall was highest for the 56 day interval as opposed to a 28 day or a 14 day interval Additionally 13 sessions spaced 56 days apart yielded comparable retention to 26 sessions with a 14 day interval These findings have implications for educational practices Current school and university curricula rarely provide students with opportunities for periodic retrieval of previously acquired knowledge Without spaced repetitions students are more likely to forget foreign language vocabulary Lag effect While the spacing effect refers to improved recall for spaced versus successive mass repetition the term lag can be interpreted as the time interval between repetitions of learning The lag effect is simply an idea branching off the spacing effect that states recall after long lags between learning is better versus short lags Michael Kahana s study showed strong evidence that the lag effect is present when recalling word lists In 2008 Kornell and Bjork published a study that suggested inductive learning is more effective when spaced than massed Inductive learning is learning through observation of exemplars so the participants did not actively take notes or solve problems These results were replicated and backed up by a second independent study See alsoDistributed practice Forgetting curve List of cognitive biases Memory bias Testing effect Zeigarnik effectReferences Research Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab bjorklab psych ucla edu Retrieved February 25 2024 Shaughnessy John J 1977 Long Term Retention and the Spacing Effect in Free Recall and Frequency Judgments The American Journal of Psychology 90 4 587 598 doi 10 2307 1421733 ISSN 0002 9556 Nairne James 2007 The Foundations of Remembering Essays in Honor of Henry L Roediger III New York Psychology Press p 85 ISBN 9781841694467 Cormier S M April 4 2014 Basic Processes of Learning Cognition and Motivation Psychology Press ISBN 9781317757481 Bird Charles P Nicholson Angus J Ringer Susan 1978 Resistance of the Spacing Effect to Variations in Encoding The American Journal of Psychology 91 4 713 721 doi 10 2307 1421519 ISSN 0002 9556 Fennis Bob Stroebe Wolfgang 2010 The Psychology of Advertising Hove Psychology Press p 104 ISBN 978 0203853238 Wierenga Berend Lans Ralf van der 2017 Handbook of Marketing Decision Models Second Edition Cham Springer p 193 ISBN 9783319569390 Appleton Knapp Sara L 2005 Examining the Spacing Effect in Advertising Encoding Variability Retrieval Processes and Their Interaction Journal of Consumer Research 32 2 266 276 doi 10 1086 432236 Byrne John 2017 Learning and Memory A Comprehensive Reference Boston MA Academic Press p 481 ISBN 9780128051597 Rohrer Doug Taylor Kelli April 19 2007 The shuffling of mathematics problems improves learning Instructional Science 35 6 481 498 doi 10 1007 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Neurobiologiae Experimentalis 54 1 59 62 doi 10 55782 ane 1994 1003 PMID 8023714 Young D R Bellezza F S 1982 Encoding variability memory organization and the repetition effect Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition 8 6 545 559 doi 10 1037 0278 7393 8 6 545 External linksEbbinghaus Hermann 1885 Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology Gary Wolf 2008 April 21 Wired 16 05 Want to Remember Everything You ll Ever Learn Surrender to This Algorithm