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C. Crowley, quoting Kevin McLaughlin ("... when I study something, I retain
it only if I can use it. If I can't use it within a few months, it all leaks
out of my head, except some basic concepts and trivia"), wonders: <<How
many find this true of themselves? It's definitely true for me>>
It's pretty much true of all normal humans. One of the standard rules of
thumb in adult learning theory is that if you don't put something to use
shortly after learning it, you forget it. You can delay this process and
perhaps head it off entirely by various memory tricks (e.g., spending some
time associating what you've learned with information that you already have
in long-term storage), but there's no substitute for using what you've
learned. On the other hand, even though the information may seem to be
unavailable after a period of disuse, it's not uncommon to find that it
comes back quickly when you start using it again; for example, after 10
years outside the province, I returned to Quebec to find that my French
skills, though rusty, were still in surprisingly good shape, and came back
increasingly rapidly as I used them again. Now I'm doing translation!
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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"I vowed [that] if I complained about things more than three times, I had to
do something about it."--Jon Shear
A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
+++ Miramo -- Database/XML publishing automation. See us at +++
+++ Seybold SFO, Sept. 25-27, in the Adobe Partners Pavilion +++
+++ More info: http://www.axialinfo.comhttp://www.miramo.com +++
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