Of two associations of equal strength, the older one gains more from further practice.
Jost's 1897 finding is the mechanism behind the spacing effect: older memories benefit more from each additional review, which is why distributed practice beats massed practice.
In practice
- A team revisiting a well-established process improves it more per hour of review than one revisiting last month's.
- A language learner's oldest vocabulary strengthens fastest on review, and the newest words are the ones that disappear.
- Standing
- The mechanism behind the spacing effect.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind