Mnemonic medium

The mnemonic medium embeds a Spaced repetition memory system within narrative prose. Spaced repetition memory systems make memory a choice, but they’ve suffered significant barriers to adoption. The mnemonic medium is designed to solve many of these problems.

It was first used in Quantum Country. I’m now working to expand its scope considerably in Orbit. (see more Substantive examples of the mnemonic medium)

• Key design properties:
  • The mnemonic medium gives structure to normally-atomized spaced repetition memory prompts
  • The mnemonic medium supplies expert-authored prompts to remove the burden of prompt-writing
  • Mnemonic medium prompts are interleaved into the reading experience
  • The mnemonic medium may help scaffold prompt-writing through author-provided prompts
  • The mnemonic medium’s design relies on light-weight prompts
  • The critical thing to optimize in spaced repetition memory systems is emotional connection to the review session and its contents
  • Secondary properties:
  • SRS retry mechanism
• Impact
  • Effects of the mnemonic medium on reader memory
  • What’s the big-picture impact of the mnemonic medium on readers?
  • The mnemonic medium keeps readers in contact with material over time
• Hypotheses/questions
  • Extending scope / scale:
  • How does the mnemonic medium’s efficacy vary across platform-knowledge-style topics?
  • How might the mnemonic medium enable readers in genres outside platform knowledge?
    • Lessons learned from applying the mnemonic medium to non-technical texts
    • The mnemonic medium works well for linear primers in established fields
    • Memory augmentation can accelerate the unpleasant early stages of learning a subject—does the MM’s costs outweigh its benefits outside these contexts?
  • How might the mnemonic medium adapt to readers’ differing backgrounds and goals?
  • How might spaced repetition memory systems intervene when the student struggles with material?
  • Non-memory impact:
  • The mnemonic medium may push readers to read more slowly and attentively
  • Interleaved mnemonic medium prompts promote a feeling of safety
  • What if the mnemonic medium were reframed as a means to engage more deeply with a text?
  • Different types of understanding
  • The mnemonic medium can help readers apply what they’ve learned through simple application prompts
  • How might the mnemonic medium support readers in building more complex understanding?
  • Towards virtuosic use:
  • Important attributes of good spaced repetition memory prompts
  • What might constitute canonical uses of the mnemonic medium?
  • In what senses is the mnemonic medium more than an annotation layer on ordinary prose?
  • Embedded prompt templates may actively scaffold prompt-writing for mnemonic medium readers
  • Benefit to author:
  • Question-writing in the mnemonic medium may help the writer think about their topic
  • Optimization:
  • How should mnemonic medium review sets be spaced in the text?
• Future directions
  • Idea-centric memory system
  • Taking emotion seriously: How might we apply insights from the mnemonic medium to forms which focus on deep emotional connection?
  • Timeful text: The mnemonic medium can be adapted to author an experience which unfolds over time
  • The mnemonic medium can generate interesting author analytics
  • The mnemonic medium can surface “proof of memory” social signals
  • OS-level spaced repetition system
  • Turning any web page into the mnemonic medium
  • How might we adapt existing texts to the mnemonic medium, without participation of the author?
  • Spaced everything: The mnemonic medium can be extended to one’s personal notes
  • Other host media types
  • Mnemonic video may present a smoother on-ramp to mass adoption than mnemonic text
  • Twitter threads could be an interesting context for the mnemonic medium
• Challenges
  • The early mnemonic medium’s structures are too rigid for others to help define the medium
  • … to adoption by end-users:
  • Many people view memory as unimportant to deep creative work
  • The initial mnemonic medium is implicitly authoritarian in premise
    • The mnemonic medium should give readers control over the prompts they collect
  • Mnemonic medium onboarding depends on a critical mass of content
    • Spaced repetition review sessions often become boring and detached without a steady stream of new prompts
  • Mass adoption of the mnemonic medium seems to require mass adoption of web publishing
    • Reading texts on computers is unpleasant
  • Regular spaced repetition memory practice is an onerous habit to adopt
    • Spaced repetition memory systems don’t rapidly demonstrate their benefits
    • Spaced repetition memory systems make you feel like your memory is worse than it really is
  • … to efficacy:
  • Retrieval practice and transfer learning (I don’t think the MM performs very well here)
  • Active learning insights need memory support too
  • … for designers:
  • The dominant culture around spaced repetition memory systems is fixated on meaningless goals
  • The mnemonic medium should be developed in a context where people really need fluency
  • I can’t easily iterate on the design of the mnemonic medium by testing it on myself
  • Quantum Country lacks a coherent spatial representation of the mnemonic medium’s cards as objects
  • Extremely data-dense texts need a different mnemonic medium design
  • Aggressively scaling the mnemonic medium in 2020 is premature
  • … for authors
  • Writing good prompts for others is likely harder than writing good prompts for oneself
  • How often and where should mnemonic medium review areas be inserted?
  • What kind of memory support do proofs want?
• Other implementations
  • Login - Dawnguide
  • TakeAway
  • Thought Saver

The mnemonic medium may help scaffold prompt-writing through author-provided prompts

The mnemonic medium supplies expert-authored prompts to remove the burden of prompt-writing, which helps ameliorate Writing good spaced repetition memory prompts is hard. But by including the prompts, we also help readers who want to write some prompts of their own. They get to see expert examples of prompt-writing, which they can use as templates for their own prompts.

Several Quantum Country readers have told us that they’d tried and abandoned Anki before reading Quantum Country, but that they’ve since returned to it now that they have a clearer idea of how to write prompts.

A more active variation: Embedded prompt templates may actively scaffold prompt-writing for mnemonic medium readers

Important consideration: How important is it to write your own spaced repetition memory prompts?

User feedback regarding this effect

Giacomo Randazzo on Quantum Country’s influence / 2020-03-28:

The Quantum Country series was essential in stepping up my Anki game. The flashcards are well thought and incorporate ideas for building questions and answers that are not obvious when starting out. The authors do a great job at introducing the ideas gradually. For people with a sufficient mathematical background, that want to learn how to use any spaced repetition software effectively, I think the investment of time in going through the entire series is exceedingly valuable!” [source 1, source 2]

References

Matuschak, A., & Nielsen, M. (2019, October). How can we develop transformative tools for thought? https://numinous.productions/ttft

… making good cards is a difficult skill to master, and so what users lose by not making their own cards is made up by using what are likely to be much higher-quality cards than they could have made on their own. In future, it’s worth digging deeper into this issue, both to understand it beyond informal models, and to explore ways of getting the benefits of active card making.