- Connection Items (also called analogy items) are flashcard prompts that encode an analogy.
- Here's an example of an analogy item from Douglas Hofstadter's book Goedel, Escher, Bach:
Q: D. Hofstadter: Russel said that [...] within any mathematical system was like a "kiss of death".
A: self-reference
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TODO: Image
- I hypothesize that connection items and mnemonics work in a similar way.
- In both cases, you are assimilating new knowledge by relating it to stable memories stored in your prior knowledge.
- The new knowledge gains stability by its relation to things already stored in your memory.
- Mnemonics and analogies differ in the manner in which they are related to prior knowledge.
- Often, mnemonics relate new knowledge to prior knowledge in an asemantic way.
- Good analogies relate new knowledge to prior knowledge in a semantic way.
- Mnemonics and analogies can both perform well in a spaced repetition system because they gain memory stability through their connection to stable memories in prior knowledge.
- Analogies may perform better in real life and in creative thinking because they function by relating new knowledge to old knowledge based on semantic, rather than asemantic, relations.
- Are analogies and mnemonics the same underlying thing?
- There are multiple schools of thought regarding how to define what connection items are and how they should be formulated.