"Tailoring Memorization Techniques to Different Situations"

New experiments suggest that varying what we study and spacing out learning over time can both be helpful for retaining memories, depending on what is being remembered. The research found that spaced learning helped participants remember items, but memory was better for items paired with different scenes compared to items shown with the same scene repeatedly. Stability appeared to aid the type of memory that pairs items and scenes. The findings may have broad relevance to tasks such as studying for a test, remembering someone's name and details about them, and learning new vocabulary in a foreign language.