Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 26, 2026

Multimodal Protocol for Assessing Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Adults with Learning Difficulties
Published on: September 27, 2020
Forgetting as the friend of learning: implications for teaching and self-regulated learning
Robert A Bjork1, Elizabeth L Bjork1
1Department of Psychology, University of California , Los Angeles.
Abstract:
One of the "important peculiarities" of human learning (Bjork RA and Bjork EL. From Learning Processes to Cognitive Processes: Essays in Honor of William K. Estes, 1992, p. 35-67) is that certain conditions that produce forgetting-that is, impair access to some to-be-learned information studied earlier-also enhance the learning of that information when it is restudied. Such conditions include changing the environmental context from when some to-be-learned material is studied to when that material is restudied; increasing the delay from when something is studied to when it is tested or restudied; and interleaving, rather than blocking, the study or practice of the components of to-be-learned knowledge or skills. In this paper, we provide some conjectures as to why conditions that produce forgetting can also enable learning, and why a misunderstanding of this peculiarity of how humans learn can result in nonoptimal teaching and self-regulated learning.
Related Concept Videos
Avoidance Learning and Learned Helplessness
Avoidance learning occurs when an organism learns that a specific behavior can prevent an unpleasant outcome. For example, a student who receives a bad grade may start studying harder to avoid future poor grades. This behavior persists even when the negative outcome is no longer present. Avoidance learning is powerful because it maintains behavior in the absence of the...
Learning Disabilities
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a...
Associative Learning
Classical conditioning, also known...
Purposive Learning
Observational Learning
Introduction to Learning
In contrast to learned behaviors, unlearned behaviors such as crying, sexual...

