How Memory Retention Really Works

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Correction history

Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 29 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   Corrected 4 citation errors: a fabricated 'Wilfrid Laurier University medical school' spaced-repetition study with an invented '36 percent' statistic (Wilfrid Laurier has no medical school at all); an overstated Born et al. 2004 Nature sleep-insight finding ('three times more likely' when the real study found roughly twice as many, about 60 percent vs 22 percent); a misattributed nap-restoration finding credited to Stickgold, James and Hobson (2000) when it is actually Mednick, Nakayama and Stickgold's real 2003 study; and a sleep-deprivation/blood-alcohol equivalence statistic misattributed to David Dinges when it actually originates from Williamson and Feyer's 2000 study.

   Before

   Article cited specific researchers, institutions, and statistics for memory and sleep research that, on independent verification, were either impossible (a medical school that doesn't exist), overstated relative to the real published effect size, or correctly-stated findings credited to the wrong researcher.

   After

   Removed the fabricated Wilfrid Laurier claim while preserving the real, general Ambrose spaced-repetition point; corrected the Born et al. effect size to match the real study; corrected the nap-restoration finding's attribution to Mednick, Nakayama and Stickgold (2003); corrected the blood-alcohol equivalence statistic's attribution to Williamson and Feyer.

   Why: Real researchers and institutions were used as anchors for an impossible claim, an inflated statistic, and two citation swaps between real, closely-related studies - a more subtle variant of the fabrication pattern found across this batch of legacy articles.

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Full contribution timeline

1. Correction 29 July 2026

   Emir Baycan: Corrected 4 citation errors: a fabricated 'Wilfrid Laurier University medical school' spaced-repetition study with an invented '36 percent' statistic (Wilfrid Laurier has no medical school at all); an overstated Born et al. 2004 Nature sleep-insight finding ('three times more likely' when the real study found roughly twice as many, about 60 percent vs 22 percent); a misattributed nap-restoration finding credited to Stickgold, James and Hobson (2000) when it is actually Mednick, Nakayama and Stickgold's real 2003 study; and a sleep-deprivation/blood-alcohol equivalence statistic misattributed to David Dinges when it actually originates from Williamson and Feyer's 2000 study.

   Proof record →