Optimal Protocols for Studying & Learning

The testing effect, gap effects, and why rereading material is one of the least effective ways to learn it.

With Andrew Huberman

"Testing is not just a way of evaluating what knowledge you've acquired and which knowledge you have not managed to acquire. It also turns out to be the best tool for offsetting forgetting of any kind." — Andrew Huberman

Andrew Huberman, on the episode

Andrew Huberman, professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford, walks through the peer-reviewed literature on studying and learning, much of it dating back over a century. The pop framing of good studying is rereading, highlighting, and finding your preferred learning style. The actual operating system underneath is about offsetting forgetting, since most of what the brain is exposed to each day gets discarded, and the single most powerful lever for stopping that discard is testing yourself on new material almost immediately after first exposure. Huberman draws on the 1917 biography study, later spaced-testing experiments, and survey data on the study habits of the most effective medical students to build out a specific, counterintuitive protocol. This pulls the tactics in the conversation that are actually about how to study, not the surrounding sponsor material or tangents about his own coursework.