From SuperMemopedia

Question

Some months ago I upgraded to SuperMemo 2006. My forgetting rate was under 10%. I regularly continued to execute my repetitions daily, but I noticed that my forgetting rate was a bit higher (15-20%). I attributed this to the amount of new information added daily (mainly rare/convoluted english vocabulary) so I didn't give much thought to it.. until yesterday. I was forced to interrupt my repetitions for 3 days due to a sudden computer failure. I was able to hook up the hard disk containing SuperMemo 4 days later on another computer, and I was sure that my forgetting rate for that day would skyrocket to 25% at least, since 15-20% was the norm for the period. Instead, it didn't even reach 10%. Over 1500 repetitions, and I got only 9.8%. A lot have been scheduled for repetition months or even years away. What's happening here?

I remember that someone else, perhaps in the Yahoo Group, expressed the same doubt. I don't expect a solution since there's no precise problem to pinpoint, and perhaps it is not even a problem in its own right, but I wonder if there are other people experiencing & reporting something like this? Can be something related to my learning style? It is not the first time I actually experience better recall and fluency after days of idleness from learning.

Hints

• after months of learning, delay of 4 days will not affect your forgetting rate much
• you are also more likely to get similar deviations by chance than by a delay of just a few days
• your recall is much more related to other factors such as good mood, good sleep, fresh mind, stress, hour of the day, etc.
• break from learning on its own can improve your results too (e.g. greater enthusiasm, rested mind, etc.).
• the worst thing about all delays is that you get less done. You would need to do 4 times as much and with less effect than when working regularly.