Mnemonic medium review sets create natural breaks in the reading experience

Mnemonic medium prompts are interleaved into the reading experience; one thing I notice as a reader is that the review sets feel like a welcome exhalation. This is partially because I know they’ll help me make sure I’m understanding the piece (Interleaved mnemonic medium prompts promote a feeling of safety), but it’s also in part because it creates a change in the texture of the experience. It breaks up a long block of text, lets me switch from “trying to understand new stuff” to “reviewing old stuff.”

Gary Bernhardt, Re: See you soon! / Draft: “Translating knowledge into spaced repetition prompts”:

I liked that they broke it up. I can zone out and stay that way while still “reading”, which is probably my main state while “reading” anything long. But here, each review block is a point where I’m guaranteed to reset.

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