Why Your Brain Forgets Faster Than You Think
Hermann Ebbinghaus mapped the forgetting curve in the 1880s and the numbers are still uncomfortable: without reinforcement, the brain discards roughly 70 percent of new information within 24 hours. The curve drops steeply in the first day, then flattens. What this means practically is that re-reading the same chapter three times in one sitting does almost nothing for long-term retention. Massed practice, the kind most people default to before an exam or a presentation, loads the short-term buffer and empties it just as fast.
