generativist

I had never heard the term "flashcard blindness." But, wow -- it fits my experience.

I think any time I mistakenly use SRS expecting that it represents the learning process rather than it facilitates learning, I'm prone to this syndrome. More explicitly, the learning process involves active use and problem solving, creating a web of connections between concepts. SRS merely changes conceptual recall times. For a CS analogy, it moves the memorized concept to main memory instead of residing on a slow disk or over the network. Cumulative slow seeks frustrates learning, so this is useful. But, having something in fast memory isn't useful if you don't have an index to it -- the absence of which (contextually) is flashcard blindness.