Concept
Desirable difficulties
Desirable difficulties are small hurdles in learning that feel like hard work but make knowledge last longer.
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Discover
In “For you” you see content from the community that matches your interests, like a story about a book. Whatever grabs you, you borrow.
Discover
In “For you” you see content from the community that matches your interests, like a story about a book. Whatever grabs you, you borrow.
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Rate
In “Yours” the story comes back. You see it again and say honestly how well it sticks.
Rate
In “Yours” the story comes back. You see it again and say honestly how well it sticks.
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Remember
From your answer, Mnemorya works out when you’ll start to forget it and brings it back just before. The curve stays high, all the way to the butterfly.
Remember
From your answer, Mnemorya works out when you’ll start to forget it and brings it back just before. The curve stays high, all the way to the butterfly.
At the gym you know: if the dumbbell weighs nothing, no muscle grows. Learning is similar. A bit of effort is good, as long as you can still manage the task. That is exactly what desirable difficulties means.
Robert Bjork came up with the term in 1994. He does research together with his wife Elizabeth Bjork at UCLA in Los Angeles. For decades, the two have shown that what feels easy while learning often sticks less well. And what feels like a slog often lasts longer.
When something comes too easily, your head treats it as unimportant. If you have to work to dig something up, the trace in your head gets deeper. The only important thing is that the hurdle stays doable. Too hard gets you nowhere.
In Mnemorya the card only shows you the answer once you have tried yourself. On top of that, the gaps between reviews keep getting bigger. So every review takes a bit of effort, and that is exactly the point.
The research behind it
The studies this method rests on. Each one is verifiable through its DOI — looking them up is very much the point.
Robert Bjork describes how learning that feels easy often doesn't last as well, and names hurdles that improve remembering.
Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. P. Shimamura (Hrsg.), Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing, 185–206, MIT Press.
doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/4561.003.0011An overview shows: how well someone does while practicing says little about how much they really still know later.
Learning Versus Performance: An Integrative Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 176–199.
doi.org/10.1177/1745691615569000
Keep watching
See the idea in motion.
Selected videos for going deeper. Each link opens the original creator on YouTube.
