Psychologyspeaking topic
The forgetting curve: we lose most of what we just learned within the first 24 hours. So is forgetting a malfunction, or the brain's way of clearing out what it doesn't need?
— Ebbinghaus, forgetting curve
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Social facilitation: when others are watching, we get better at some tasks and worse at others. Why does an audience affect our performance so strongly?
- Chunking: why do we memorize a phone number in groups of three and four instead of digit by digit? How does packaging information let the mind hold so much more?
- Some languages force every sentence about an event to mark whether you saw it yourself or only heard about it. A speaker can't simply say 'it rained'; they have to say 'I saw it rain' or 'it apparently rained'. If your grammar makes you flag your sources in every sentence, do you end up lying less?
- The phonological loop: how does the 'inner voice' we use to hold a phone number by repeating it actually work? Why does the number vanish the moment we stop rehearsing?
- Social loafing: why does everyone put in a little less effort when working in a group? Do we slack off once we sense our individual work is invisible in the crowd?