Re: [Memaid-users] Grade's for vocabulary learing and Categories

[David C. <ne...@ci...>]

On Saturday 29 of November 2003 00:02, Andreas Grau wrote:
> I am using kmemaid for learning french vocs. As I don't understand what
> the "NN Training Time" in Settings represents, I started browsing for an
> answer. Unsuccessful, but that's a different story.

I don't know either, but I would expect, as name suggests, it has something to 
do with time spend on training ANN. E.g. AFAIK KMemAid uses this time after 
pressing "exit" to train ANN.

On repetitions *MemAid gives some feedback data to ANN (so ANN will better 
"know" how your memory works, and will be able to better schedule repetitions 
for you), and training ANN means "learning ANN itself about your memory".

More or less. So more "NN Training Time" - longer you will wait (e.g. after 
pressing "quit"), but *MemAid will be better prepared to schedule repetitions 
for you.


> What I have found instead is David's explanation on the ANN internals.
> There is written, that Grade 4 is regarded as the optimum, while 5
> implies the user knows the subject too well. And grade 0 is used for
> items never reviewed.
>
> Up to today, I sticked to the following scheme:
>
> Grade 0 : Never heard that word before.
> Grade 1 : Would have understood it, even without knowing it
> Grade 2 : Oh sure! I know it, but just couldn't remember
> Grade 3 : After some thinking, I found it
> Grade 4 : Immediate recall, but with errors (spelling, sex)
> Grade 5 : Immediate and correct recall
>
> I guess with the ANN internal grade interpretation, the above list could
> be improved. But how? Any ideas?

Well, I consider the most important this explanation:

- If you pick grade 4 - it means that last interval was OK, so by pressing 4 
you (also) give ANN feedback: "last interval was OK!"
and ANN will "remember" that last time given interval was OK.

- If you pick grade less than 4 (you have problems with recollecting answer) - 
you tell ANN "last interval was too long! please give me shorted next time",
so next time ANN would give a slightly shorted interval (given the same data 
like on last repetition, of course)

- Grade 5 tells ANN that last interval was too short (you remember it very 
well, thus interval could be longer.), so MemAid will "learn" it and next 
time give slightly shorted interval, if given the same data like on last 
repetition...

Well, I hope it's not too complicated.
Now, I think making a scale should be easier:
You should use grade "4" when you remember something well, without any 
problems.
Grade 5 when you remember it *so* well, that you think interval (distance from 
last repetition) should be actually longer.
And grades less then 4 when there was some problems with recollecting.


> Talking about categories, I, for one, would love to see them in memaid.

Peter's PyQT_MemAid has them, but plain MemAid will probably also have them, 
sooner or later - if somebody will have enough lack of categories and will 
implement them. :)
I am, personally, not much interested in implementing categories (I simply 
don't need them), but I would be glad if somebody would send a patch with a 
good solution (implemented categories). ;)


> Here's my thinking - and it's all about vocabulary, your mileage may
> vary.
>
> While learning French, I need to improve the overall language
> capability, so importing and learning any word-pairs will do just fine
> and this is where I am currently.
>
> Next, I realize, my restaurant vocabulary is just too bad. So I would
> like to have these words in my french learning environment, but wish to
> work on these words specifically. Or, once learned, just wish to
> maintain the recall-level.
>
> (...)
>
> A dedicated Restaurant database would do the job to enforce learning
> this specific language part - but then how to integrate it later in the
> general french database to keep the recall on the language level?
>
> Any ideas? Comments? Am I too complicated?

I understand your need. I could argue a bit about economy of over-working on 
(some) items to have higher retention rate - I personally prefer to stick on 
normal schedules and have nice feeling that I learn the most-optimally: good 
retention with relatively small amount of time spend of learning.
But that's a bit different story - I am aware that sometimes it's nice to have 
separate category and learn some more from it.
I just cannot tell you when categories will be implemented in MemAid or 
KMemAid... sorry.


-- 
David Calinski
http://neodave.civ.pl