That sounds like a REALLY odd form of situational memory. I have never experienced anything like it.

Haha, I thought I was alone xD

This is probably true for 15% of the cards I answer.

QuackingShoe wrote:

Sometimes. As I'm sure we've all noticed, the actual act of actively trying the remember something can block up the pathways and make you totally unable to remember. The release of 'giving up' can let what you were trying to remember pop out.

Interestingly enough, this seems to imply that consciously knowing that you're not going to look does not affect the recall.

This seems similar to the 'mirror limb' treatment they use to treat ghost pain in amputees.

ファブリス wrote:

Maybe it's because you stop trying to remember for a moment as you flip the card. You know when you have something on the "tip-of-the-tongue" and you can't remember it, give up, and a couple minutes or an hour later it suddenly comes to your mind?

Although this is instantaneous.

Related to this though, sometimes when I'm getting a "tip-of-the-tongue", I exit, and re-enter the review -- thus re-randomizing the cards. When I see the card that I couldn't quite remember later, more often than not, I can remember it.

Last edited by playadom (2008 October 30, 2:50 pm)

playadom wrote:

Related to this though, sometimes when I'm getting a "tip-of-the-tongue", I exit, and re-enter the review -- thus re-randomizing the cards. When I see the card that I couldn't quite remember later, more often than not, I can remember it.

Yeah, I do that too, mostly when I'd have a bad streak and not want the morale-slam of missing another one right away. I'd reorganize it to miss it later, but end up getting it instead. Started doing it on purpose.

This happens many times to me. I stare for a minute, then the moment right before I hit the space bar I remember.

The mind is a funny thing.


Perhaps it has nothing to do with memory at all....

Last edited by kazelee (2008 October 30, 4:46 pm)

I read this article a while back; I think you'll find it interesting.

For those that are too lazy to read it, it can be summed up like this: when you have a tip of the tongue moment, just stop trying to remember. It'll do you no good.

Have you ever been asked a question that you know the answer to, but found yourself struggling to think of the correct word? "Oh, I know this," you might say. "I know that it starts with a B." While it may be tempting to spend some time struggling to find the answer, new research by psychologist Karin Humphreys and Amy Beth Warriner suggests that the more time you spend trying to remember a word on the tip of your tongue actually makes it more likely that you'll struggle with the word again in the future.

"Your spinning your tires in the snow," Humphreys explains in a ScienCentral interview. "Your digging yourself in deeper."
Humphreys own interest in the topic comes from personal experience struggling to remember certain words that seemed to continually pose a challenge. "This can be incredibly frustrating -- you know you know the word, but you just can't quite get it," she explained in the McMaster Daily News release. "And once you have it, it is such a relief that you can't imagine ever forgetting it again. But then you do. So we began thinking about the mechanisms that might underlie this phenomenon. We realized that it might not be a case of everyone having certain words that are difficult for them to remember, but that by getting into a tip-of-the-tongue state on a particular word once, they actually learn to go into that incorrect state when they try to retrieve the same word again."

In the study, researchers showed 30 participants questions that they either knew, didn't know or had the answers at the tip of their tongues. For those tip of the tongue answers, participants were then randomly assigned to groups that had either 10 or 30 seconds to come up with response. The procedure was then repeated two days later.

"The longer they stayed in that tip-of-the-tongue state on the first day, the more likely they were to get into a tip-of-the-tongue state on that word on the second day," explains Humphreys. The extra time that people spend trying to dredge up the word is what the researchers describe as "incorrect practice" time. Instead of learning the correct word, people are learning the mistake itself.

The study has important applications for students and educators. During your next study session, focus on looking up the correct answers rather than trying to recall the information. For teachers, the study indicates that it is more beneficial to provide students with the right answer rather than letting them struggle to recall it on their own.

How can you prevent future problems following a tip-of-the-tongue event? Unpublished research by Warriner, an undergraduate student at McMaster University, suggests that the best way to break the cycle is to repeat the word to yourself, either silently or out loud. According to Humphreys, this step creates another procedural memory that helps minimize the negative effect of the prior incorrect practice.

Source.

That's what everybody should be doing - writing out the kanji as you learn and do reviews. I've read quite a few posts where people just imagine the kanji in their minds eye - It just isn't enough.

I think you'll find '10 times' is punishment, where 2-3 times is reinforcement.  But then, it's up to the person.  Some people need more repetition than others.  Everyone learns differently.

samesong wrote:

That's what everybody should be doing - writing out the kanji as you learn and do reviews. I've read quite a few posts where people just imagine the kanji in their minds eye - It just isn't enough.

Physically writing it when you learn it isn't even necessary. I did most of the 2nd half of RTK study while riding trains and airplanes or standing in line somewhere so it wasn't practical to have anything other than just the book. I just made sure to always write the kanji out when doing flashcards.