Forgetting as the friend of learning: implications for teaching and self-regulated learning

• Published in: Advances in physiology education Vol. 43; no. 2; pp. 164 - 167
• Main Authors: Bjork, Robert A, Bjork, Elizabeth L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physiological Society 01-06-2019
• Subjects: Cognitive ability; Knowledge; Learning; forgetting; learning; memory; instruction; metacognition
• ISSN: 1043-4046; 1522-1229
• DOI: 10.1152/advan.00001.2019

One of the "important peculiarities" of human learning (Bjork RA and Bjork EL.
, 1992, p. 35-67) is that certain conditions that produce forgetting-that is, impair access to some to-be-learned information studied earlier-also enhance the learning of that information when it is restudied. Such conditions include changing the environmental context from when some to-be-learned material is studied to when that material is restudied; increasing the delay from when something is studied to when it is tested or restudied; and interleaving, rather than blocking, the study or practice of the components of to-be-learned knowledge or skills. In this paper, we provide some conjectures as to why conditions that produce forgetting can also enable learning, and why a misunderstanding of this peculiarity of how humans learn can result in nonoptimal teaching and self-regulated learning.