双语·间隔效应：学得更少，记得更多

Spacing effect: Study less, remember more
间隔效应：学得更少，记得更多

The spacing effect is undoubtedly one the most important discoveries in the science of memory. The general idea of spacing is that to achieve the same performance at a given test, you need substantially less time overall to memorize something if you spread your study into multiple sessions as opposed to if you study everything in a single session. As a demonstration, consider an experiment that the famous psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus performed on himself:
间隔效应无疑是记忆科学中最重要的发现之一。它的大意是，如果你把学习分散到多个不同时段完成，而不是一口气学完所有内容，那么合起来你只需要少得多的时间就能记住相关内容，从而在特定的考试中取得同样的表现。为了说明这一点，让我们考虑著名心理学家赫尔曼·艾宾浩斯在自己身上进行的一个试验：

Ebbinghaus studied 2 lists of words on two following days. On the first day, he spent 1 minute studying list A and 7.5 minutes studying list B. On the second day, he had to spend another 20 minutes on list A to memorize it perfectly. However, he needed only 7.5 extra minutes to memorize list B.
艾宾浩斯用两天学习两组单词。第一天，他花了1分钟学习A组单词，7.5分钟学习B组单词。第二天，他不得不再花20分钟才能牢固地记住A组单词，而只需要额外再花7.5分钟就能记住B组单词。

By spacing the sessions more equally for list B, Ebbinghaus managed to save himself about ¼ of total time spent on studying. In a similar way, if it takes you 3 hours in a row to prepare for a test, you may need less than 2 hours in total if you divide the time into 2 or 3 equally-sized sessions spread across several days.
通过更均等地分散安排对单词的学习，艾宾浩斯设法节省了1/4的总学习时间。与此类似，如果不停歇地复习考试需要花上3个小时，那么把复习时间均等地分成2-3份，分布在几天完成，你可能总共只需要不到2小时就能复习完。

In general, the more you spread your sessions, the less overall time you will need. Scientists recommend that the spacing distance should be about 10-20% of the test delay. If your test is in 10 days, you will benefit most from studying once a day. If your test is in 6 months, you should study every 20 days.
一般来说，学习时间越分散，所需的总时间就越短。科学家建议，学习的间隔距离应该是距离考试时间的10%~20%。如果还有10天考试，那么每天学习一次的效果最好。如果考试在6个月之后，你应该每20天复习一遍。

Spacing not only substantially saves time, it also boosts long-term retention. Each study session that is followed by immediate or delayed sleep provides another opportunity to consolidate the studied material (we cover consolidation processes above). Furthermore, spacing can give you more opportunities to associate the study material with more states and contexts (physical, mental, environmental), which makes it easier to retrieve it in the future (see state-dependence and context-dependence).
间隔学习不仅能够大幅节省时间，还能够增强长期记忆。每一个紧接着或稍后进入睡眠的学习时段，都额外提供了一次巩固学习内容的机会（我们在上文已经讲过记忆巩固的过程）。此外，间隔也为你提供了更多机会把学习内容与更多（生理的、心理的、环境的）状态或情境联系起来，从而使记忆在未来更容易检索（参见状态依赖和情境依赖的内容）。

Most importantly, spacing effectively reveals to your brain that forgetting is taking place – a crucial signal that is not available in massed practice (= if you study for many hours within a single session). The signal of forgetting has been found to automatically encourage more effective encoding strategies in students.
最重要的是，间隔有效地告诉你的大脑，遗忘正在发生——这是在集中学习（即一口气学习好几个小时）时不会出现的一个重要信号。研究已经发现，遗忘信号会自动鼓励学生使用更有效的编码策略。

The spacing effect is a robust phenomenon in psychology and is extremely effective for a wide range of study materials (including foreign language vocabulary, math problems, spatial information).
间隔效应是心理学上一种强有力的现象，对于多种学习材料都极为有效（包括学习外语词汇、数学问题、空间信息等）。

The key idea behind spaced repetition is that revision of a particular concept should be done right before the concept is about to be forgotten in order to achieve maximum time-efficiency and length of retention. As there is no formula that could calculate this exactly, you need to experiment with yourself. For practical reasons, it is probably best to use a specialized software that uses a spacing algorithm.
间隔重复背后的核心思想在于，为了最高效地利用时间，并实现更长久的记忆，应该在一个概念快要被遗忘之前就进行复习。由于并不存在一个公式可以准确地计算间隔，因此需要自己尝试。出于实际考虑，最好的办法可能是借助一个运用了间隔算法的专用软件。

Although there is currently no comparison of the effectiveness of different spaced-repetition algorithms, popular choices include Anki, Quizlet or Supermemo. We recommend that you experiment with a program that is free on most platforms, explicitly states the algorithm used and allows you to tweak it (our favorite pick is Anki).
尽管目前还没有人比较不同间隔重复算法的效果，但普遍的选择有Anki,Quizlet和Supermemo。我们推荐你试用一种在大多数平台上免费、明确说明所使用的算法，并允许你自行调整的程序（我们最喜欢的是Anki）。

Bear in mind that the spacing effect does not continue indefinitely. For example, ten 1-minute sessions will likely not be better than one 10-minute session. This is because starting each learning sessions carries some costs with it (you have to start to focus, ‘load’ the material into working memory, etc.). For this reason, complex subjects may require longer study sessions for learning to be effective. For instance, it may be better to have three 1-hour sessions per week for your engineering class than six 30-minute sessions. It all depends on the subject studied.
要牢记的是，间隔效应并不会无限制地有效。例如，十个1分钟的学习时段很可能就没有一个10分钟的学习时段效果好，这是因为每个学习时段开始时都会有一些损耗（必须开始专注，把学习内容“装载”到工作记忆等等）。因此，复杂科目可能需要更长的时段才能够实现有效学习。例如，每周花三个一小时学习工程学课程，效果可能就比六个30分钟更好。这完全取决于所学习的科目。

In summary, we recommend the following:
总结起来，我们推荐以下做法：

·Avoid massed studying (i.e. many hours in one session)
·避免集中学习（即一口气学好几个小时）。

·Divide your study sessions into smaller blocks spread out over longer periods of time
·把学习时段划分成几小块，分散到较长的一段时间中进行。

·The distance between study sessions should be about 10-20% of the test delay (e.g. for a test in 10 days, study once a day)
·两个学习时段之间的间隔应为距离考试时间的10%~20%（例如，准备十天后的考试，可以每天学习一次）。

·Schedule your revision of each concept/topic to about the time that you would forget it (this needs self-experimentation as there is no formula to calculate this precisely)
·规划复习安排，在快要遗忘的时候复习每个概念/主题（这需要自己尝试，因为没有公式能够准确地计算）。

·Consider using a flashcards program (Anki, Quizlet, Supermemo)
·考虑使用记忆卡片程序（Anki，Quizlet，Supermemo）。

——节选自《记忆的科学》