avoid list interference memory retention
This evidence decision is attached to the maintained Brali entry above. The public protocol may be narrowed, reviewed, or kept practical according to the decision.
Evidence Ledger · Protocol candidate · reviewed 2026-08-18
Should we all just take 10? A meta-analysis of wakeful rest
The reviewed source can support a conservative practical protocol.
Brali decision: Protocol candidate. This page summarizes a reviewed evidence boundary; it does not reproduce the source and it does not turn one paper into a universal prescription.
What the source supports
A short period of quiet, minimally interfering wakeful rest after learning can reduce forgetting on average. The pooled effect is substantially smaller and less consistent in healthy young to middle-aged adults than in older adults or patient samples.
What it does not establish
- Ten minutes is an optimal or universally evidence-based dose.
- Everyone will remember more after post-learning rest.
- Wakeful rest is equivalent to sleep or replaces adequate sleep.
- A specific posture, eye-closure rule, breathing pattern, or rehearsal instruction is required.
- The protocol is a treatment for memory impairment or dementia.
Important limitations
- There was moderate to large between-study heterogeneity overall.
- The overall prediction interval included negative effects, so future studies are not guaranteed to find a benefit.
- Healthy young to middle-aged adults had the smallest pooled effect (g=0.20 in the authors' group analysis).
- Patient studies were small and showed funnel-plot asymmetry consistent with possible publication bias.
- Learning materials, interference tasks, test procedures, age, and clinical status varied across studies.
- The meta-analysis concerns declarative memory and does not justify broad claims about skill acquisition, creativity, focus, or general intelligence.
Source context
Should we all just take 10? A meta-analysis of wakeful rest
- Source type: meta-analysis
- Design: Random-effects meta-analysis with moderator analyses and meta-regression; 142 effect sizes from 51 human experimental studies.
- Population: Patients with anterograde amnesia, healthy older adults, and healthy young to middle-aged adults; child studies were too sparse for the main group analysis.
- Exposure / intervention: A short period of quiet wakeful rest or minimal interference immediately after learning, compared with a post-learning interference task.
- Outcomes: Delayed declarative-memory performance; Reduced forgetting after learning
Citation: Parra D, Zhang Z, Radvansky G. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2026;33:49.
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-025-02778-3
What this changes in Brali
Editorial note: Promote only as a conservative personal experiment. Use quiet/minimal interference after learning as the action and treat duration as user-chosen; do not turn the paper title into a universal ten-minute prescription.
Use the boundary, not just the headline
When an AI agent or a person retrieves this decision, preserve both the supported claim and the unsupported or overstated claims. Dropping the boundary would turn a reviewed source into a stronger claim than Brali actually maintains.
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