Comment by chrisweekly
2 days ago
There is a certain amount of "use it or lose it" seemingly inherent to virtually every human endeavor. But I suspect if you were to enroll in a class in any of those subjects, you'd perform radically better than a peer who'd never studied them. IOW, there's often more latent memory than we realize or can easily retrieve.
"IOW, there's often more latent memory than we realize or can easily retrieve." -
I did not find it to be true almost at all, and I tested many other people on it. When I voiced my concerns, the usual answer was, "Yes, but when you pick up a book, you will remember". And then I asked, "Try it", and the subsequent answer was, "I have to admit you are right".
The "re-absorption speed" is heavily confounded by general IQ and the kind of cognitive stimulation one receives in daily life, but the original learnings are mostly gone. Among other things, this is why retrieval practice is important: it slows down the "forgetting rate".