Why you should prioritize from higher- to lower-level construals. Overview: 1. Interference 2. Boolean algebra to counteract interference 3. Construal level theory and Levels of Processing model 4. Construal level theory and prioritization 5. Construal level theory, prioritization, and combinatorial thinking 6. How higher-level construals create a bigger impact than lower-level ones

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SUPERINTELLIGENCE
Spaced Repetition Items and Construal Level
Theory
Why you should prioritize from higher- to lower-level construals
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Lorenz Duremdes, Polymath 1 day ago · 5 min read
Overview:
1. Interference
2. Boolean algebra to counteract interference
3. Construal level theory and Levels of Processing model
4. Construal level theory and prioritization
5. Construal level theory, prioritization, and combinatorial thinking
6. How higher-level construals create a bigger impact than lower-level ones
Construal level theory: the more abstract something is, the higher the level of the
construals; the more concrete something is, the lower the level of the construals.
E.g. “phone” has a higher-level construal than “Samsung phone”.
o when creating items for spaced repetition (e.g. in Anki, SuperMemo…), what I
am trying to do is to have their construal level as high as possible (i.e. abstract)
so that it increases the probability that it will connect with more other concepts than if
it were a lower-level construal.
The concept “phone” connects with a lot more other concepts than the concept
“Samsung phone”.
Interference
he problem one can encounter, however, when creating such abstract concepts
for use in spaced repetition is interference:
Interference is the process of overwriting old memories with new memories
(retroactive interference).
From: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Interference
E.g. creating an SRS item as the following:
S
T

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Q: How tall is the Eiffel tower?
A: 324 m
(I personally like to use clozes in Anki, so it would look something like:
The Eiffel tower is {{c1::324 m}} tall)
Has a lower probability of making you encounter interference than:
Q: Which building is 324 m tall?
A: The Eiffel tower (and all other buildings that are also 324 meters tall)
To counter interference, one needs to lower the construal level of an item.
Boolean algebra to counteract interference
his can be done via multitudinous ways, but I personally like to use methods
somewhat analogous to Boolean algebra.
Conjunction is the one I use most. With this one, you simply add more and more
keywords until interference is (almost) gone.
logical conjunction; the and of a set of operands is true if and only if all of its operands
are true.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_conjunction
T

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Venn diagram of Logical conjunction, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=3437020
Another thing I use a lot to counter interference is the use of contextual mnemonics
i.e. certain keywords within the same item remind me of other concepts that I have
clozed.
This way of countering interference seems to be partially analogous to event-based
prospective memory.
Negation is another one I use a lot. When doing your spaced repetition reviews,
whenever answering something incorrectly due to interference, you simply add a hint
saying “not: (type your incorrect answer here”).
An example of a note of mine in Anki:
Cloze: hasty generalization; an informal fallacy of faulty generalization, which involves
reaching an inductive {{c1::[not: conclusion]}} based on insufficient evidence[4] —
essentially making a rushed conclusion without considering all of the variables
A: generalization
Construal level theory and Levels of Processing model
Levels of Processing model:
Deeper levels of analysis produce more elaborate, longer-lasting, and stronger
memory traces than shallow levels of analysis.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levels_of_Processing_model
The correlation between them seems to be that, the higher the construal level, the
lower the levels of processing and vice versa (i.e. a negative correlation).
One way to counteract the lowering of the levels of processing when creating higher-
level construal items is via planned redundancy:

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Approaching the same concept from multiple perspectives increases the levels of
processing.
And this, in turn, allows one to increase the half-life of one’s memories.
When one combines all the perspectives aimed at a particular concept, this group or
class has a much lower-level construal all together than if you only created one item.
However, each individual item within this group still has a high as possible level
construal.
Construal level theory and prioritization
hat you essentially want to do, is work your way from higher- to lower-level
construal items (i.e. prioritization).
If one is reading sources whose content are already prioritized in this manner like in
almost all Wikipedia articles (i.e. introduction usually has highest-level construal), then
this process tends to happen somewhat automatically.
Construal level theory, prioritization, and combinatorial thinking
What usually doesn’t happen automatically is combining different concepts.
This, too, should be prioritized by first combining highest-level construals with other
highest-level construals before combining lower-level construals.
I personally like to use Obsidian.md to do this:
Obsidian: A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files.
In our age when cloud services can shut down, get bought, or change
privacy policy any day, the last thing you want is…
obsidian.md
In Obsidian.md, you simply do this by combining those with the highest node weight
(the ones that are the biggest visually) before combining smaller nodes.
W

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Sometimes, however, one needs to also rely on their own knowledge to estimate the
level of a construal i.e. even though a particular node in Obsidian.md might be small, it
could still have a very high-level construal e.g. estimated via frequency or probability
of occurrence from one’s own experience.
Combining higher-level construals before lower-level ones have a much bigger impact
(usually) due to the former connecting to many more concepts than the latter.
An example of mine on how Obsidian.md looks. A graph view of the book “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding
Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom” by Jonathan Haidt
How higher-level construals create a bigger impact than lower-level ones
It is like cutting down the trunk of a tree (high-level
construal) rather than its twigs (low-level construals).
Another analogy I like is that of the Latin alphabet: only 26 different symbols (high-
level construals) yet one can create a gazillion words, sentences, convey ideas, etc.

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Related article:
Reductionism as a Thinking Strategy
Ontological, methodological, and theory reductionism
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