The Spacing Effect and what it means for learning any cognitive skill

Your mind is a bounding bunny,
so innocent and meek.
It hops off in a hurry,
for it doesn’t know what to seek.

With a care, wandering hare,
bouncing from peak to peak.
But stop to ponder, the bunny can’t muster,
and its end is sad and bleak

TYW

Alright, enough of my lousy poems. However, it does make a huge point, and in fact, your mind is like the bunny you see in the picture above.

The bunny represents knowledge learned recently, and the pillars represent a memory recall practice session.

The analogy is describing a phenomenon, whereby learning is best done in particular intervals of time. These intervals represent the optimal spacing of practice sessions for the most effective recall of knowledge. Failure to do this results in sub-optimal knowledge retention. (And the bunny rabbit jumping into the void!)

The phenomenon I described has been coined the ‘Spacing Effect’, and it isn’t a novel concept.

Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted an experiment on himself in 1885. He attempted to memorise random syllables, varying different factors. From this, he established the first memorising and forgetting curves. But he did make a remarkable finding, from which I quote:

Simply put, memory performance is worse when material is reviewed immediately (massed repetitions); considerably more learning takes place when time elapses between reviews (spaced repetitions). The spacing effect has proven to be one of the most reliable psychological phenomena. It occurs with a wide variety of tasks and testing procedures, and has been validated in numerous studies (see Cepada et al, 2006; Dempster, 1989; Greene, 1989; and Raaijmakers, 2003 for recent reviews of related research).

I then would refer one to the study by David Gilden of the Unviversity of Austin. He mentions that this effect works on both short and long time scales. Interestingly, he is also writing in favour of frequent holidays during the school term to provide this natural spacing effect.

He cites a key study which showed that students trying to learn French vocabulary who received 10mins of practice over 3 days fared 35% better in their test scores than students who studied 30mins on a single day.

He then cites another study which showed that spacing study by 2 months improved greater knowledge retention 5 years later as compared to a spacing of 2 weeks.

What This Means

Two things:

The spacing effect is a real thing and should be exploited regardless of whether we know why it works
There is some optimal spacing time

Finally, I must give reference to the study done by Michael G. Grote, Department of Education, Ohio Wesleyan University. In this study, the researchers administered different learning approaches to HIgh School Physics Students. As expected, those who received spaced practice and opposed to massed practice (ie: the late night cramming sessions) did better.

However, he also raises two other very valid points.

The first is that there is a novelty effect in learning. I quote:

As the study continued, many students became less inclined to give their full effort. It was hypothesized that the effect size between massed and spaced practice would actually be greater if the Hawthorne and novelty effect were not present.

This makes sense. Think of what it would be like to do math 3 hours every day for an entire year. Most would have given up after 1 week. (except of course the math geeks out there, but we know they’re all freaks!) The survey from the paper confirms that:

Click on Image View Larger Version

So my point here is that spacing out practice may make it more palatable to the trainee, especially for skills that stretch out across months or years like learning the guitar.

Gilden gives even more credit to the spacing effect, stating that it is ‘Independent of Motivational State’ and ‘Important for skill learning as well as for fact learning’.

That means that someone learning to play golf would reap the same benefits as someone trying to pass a biology test by spacing their practice.

It also means that you can take the most unmotivated bunch of high school drop-outs, and as long as they keep up with the frequent practice (which is a bold and unforgiving assumption), they would benefit from increased retention of knowledge.

In essence, if we add up the total practice times, we are getting more knowledge retained per unit time invested.

What This Means to Playing the Guitar

I have stated the argument for exploiting the spacing effect.

In summary:

It plain works regardless of whether you want it to work or not
There is an optimal spacing period
It is applicable to everything

What to do:

Schedule intervals of practice

It can be anything. Maybe 30 minutes every other day, or every day, or twice a week.

That brings me to the next point…

Experiment with Your Best Intervals

This is going to take some time. Perhaps 1-2 weeks, but it will be well worth it. Try with the standard intervals: 1 day, every other day, twice a week, and once a week. You should know when you feel the most motivated to practice in two weeks.

Again, this is not a science. You just feel your way into it. Maybe you practice one day and then the next day you just feel like there’s no groove in your playing. Stop, and wait until tomorrow. It may even be just that you don’t feel the energy. Whatever, as long as its a palpable feeling of a decreased motivation, you know that its still too early to practice again.

Remember, lazy isn’t that bad. Lazy sometimes means that you’re overworked. Most of the time you come back stronger the next day anyway. This is key to long term motivation in learning any skill.

Sometimes, after waiting for a day, I suddenly seem to ‘get it’ with some licks in an inexplicable way. Classic Spacing Effect.

By the way, this is one of the reasons why I am not in support of Guitar Lessons, mainly because various people have their own optimal practice intervals, something that a rigid system does not allow for.

Progress Faster than Your Friends In Record Time!

Ok, not exactly, since you would have to wait for the effect to work anyway. But the total time invested would be much less, and thus it frees up time for other pursuits as well.

Let me know waht you notice. What spacing worked best? What indicators do you use to know that you need a break?

And that’s it, so space your practice out, and don’t kill that Bunny!

Referenced Studies:

Share and Enjoy: