There are two kinds of spaced repetition
out there in the world.
Glossika has made one of the system,
we call it GSR
which stands for Glossika spaced repetition.
Traditional spaced repetitions system
are based on the forgetting model.
It means that
after several sleep sessions,
you're probably about to forget something and
so they'll bring it back up
in the spaced repetition system
to remind you of it.
The forgetting method means that
you are sort of chasing after the thing you're about to forget.
And so I get a feeling like
it's a weaker system
and you're putting in a lot more effort.
However, Glossika Spaced Repetition is based on the mastery method.
It means that we give you enough exposure,
enough reps upfront
and it's timed with your sleep patterns.
Generally you do not want to do reps
that happen
more than two sleep sessions apart.
What you want to do is
as much mastery as you can upfront
and get those segments of sentence patterns or vocabulary
or whatever you are working on and get them in fresh new sentences.
So those will come up one week, two weeks, three weeks later
in all kinds of new environments.
Instead of just learning single vocabulary words
or single patterns and then trying to
repeat those a week or two later
in the forgetting method
Glossika spaced repetition
actually does the mastery
and so you are getting enough reps upfront
and then you are getting those repeated in
new sentences and new situations later.
Let's first understand how
memories are created in our brain.
First of all,
the hippocampus takes in all of the information
it gets from our five senses:
audio, sight, taste, smell and
touch.
From those five senses, it builds anchors.
And anchors is basically a synapse,
a neural connection between the neurons.
We can call these neuron cell connections anchors.
So a good example of an anchor is
maybe if you are older
or something in your fifties or sixties,
you can actually remember memories
from childhood
with something very simple as
somebody cooking something in the kitchen
that remind you of your grandmother's cooking.
You can recall things from a long time ago
that you've long forgotten.
These anchors are really important.
When you are learning new things,
it's not just exposure
but getting enough anchors
and this is why
a lof of people put so much emphasis on experiences in life.
The more varied and exciting your experiences are,
the more meaningful a life you have.
When you get those experiences,
experiences actually build the neurons
and the memories much stronger.
When memories are created in the brain,
the hippocampus actually puts these synapses together.
When you go to sleep,
sleep consolidates your memories.
So the weak connections become weaker,
strong connections become stronger.
So it's all chemistry
but overtime, those weak things go away.
It's not like trying to write to a harddrive,
trying to write a memory into your brain.
The brain is not like a computer.
It's all chemical.
And so things change overtime.
It's plastic.
It's neural plasticity and with age it goes away.
The more you push your brain
to do things outside of your comfort zone,
the better the neural plasticity you'll keep in your brain.
Glossika's spaced repetition system is focused on
building that mastery upfront
with building the synapses
stronger and stronger in the first 4-5 days
and then bringing it up later
embedded in new sentences and new situations
giving you enough exposure upfront
rather than the forgetting curve
which waits until you just about to forget something and then remind you.
So that's a much harder system to adapt to.